Welcoming Rejection
By: Lily Chen
Tags: Students, Failure, Rejection

Rejection SUCKS… or does it?

Everyone’s experienced rejection in some form. I would say most people would not voluntarily choose to experience more rejection.

Hundreds of rejection emails from job applications. Multiple Linkedin intro messages left on read or unopened. I would take a guess and say that this is the reality for the majority of students these days. As students move through their academic career and begin their professional career, rejection is a given. However, how does this impact them as individuals? The rational reaction is:

“I don’t want to experience this pain and humiliation...I will not put myself in situations where I could get rejected again!”

…but is this really the best response?

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been completing the “Rejection Olympics” challenge as a part of the Hustle and Grit course. The objective is to try different tasks that we typically would not do in order to feel more comfortable with rejection.

We’ve all shied from doing something because of the fear of failure or because of the roadblocks we foresee. However, in order to grow as individuals, it’s important to embrace discomfort as a stepping stone to success.

Do something despite the fact that it might be hard or uncomfortable for you…it’s time to get rejected

The Challenge

To begin, everyone in the class was given a personalized BINGO card with randomly generated tasks. Our goal was to achieve at least one BINGO. When I initially saw my card, I was worried about the amount of tasks that I would be able to accomplish (especially during exam season!), however, I knew that this would be an opportunity to try things that I wouldn’t normally do. As a result, I made a goal to try to achieve at least two BINGOs.

I wanted to ease myself into the challenge and began with offering to pay for someone’s order at Starbucks. That challenge was successful which made me more excited to approach my next task. Every day, I set aside time to complete 1–2 of these activities, ultimately facing rejection (and sometimes success!). While some were awkward (dancing on a security camera) and others were difficult to explain (trying to get on a local radio show), I slowly grew to realize that the feeling of embarrassment and rejection is temporary, which prompted me to question:

If embarrassment is temporary, why do we limit our actions based on the possibility of rejection?

My Key Takeaways

1. You Never Know Until You Try! (and rejection is never as bad as you think)

Oftentimes, we limit ourselves by seeing the barriers to our goal, rather than focusing on the goal itself. We tell ourselves that what we want to achieve is impossible so it’s a waste of time to try. But that's not always the case!

For one of my challenges, I sent a text message to 97.5 Virgin Radio asking to host a show, CERTAIN that I would not hear back.

“They get hundreds of messages every day, why would they respond to mine” …“there is no way that I’ll hear back, rejection will be no response in this case”.

However, my certainty was clearly unwarranted! I realized after I received a response from J that there are many moments in our lives, and probably throughout our day, that we don’t capitalize on because of the fear of failure. We often talk ourselves out of doing a certain task because “it’s not the right time” or “there’s no chance so I won’t even try”. These thoughts are the most dangerous because we become our own barriers to success.

In the future, always try for what you want. The worst that can happen is you get rejected… and then you get up and try again.

2. Make Time for The Important Things in Life (besides work)

Make time and schedule what is important in your life! Throughout this semester (and to be honest most of university), I’ve done a pretty bad job of making time for things that I deemed “unimportant at the time being”. From working out, cooking at home, even taking time to read a book, I’ve put everything off that wasn’t an urgent task. However, a huge takeaway was the importance of scheduling what matters to you. Halfway through the challenge, I thought, “if I have time to call my bank, wait on hold, and ask for a lower interest rate, why didn’t I make time for a quick workout last night?” Reality is, if I only scheduled in other things in my life, I would be a lot healthier, and most likely, happier.

Living a balanced life is something that takes work to achieve.

I’ve realized that there’s no “right time” to start incorporating better habits into my life. If something is important, (family, friends, lifestyle), make an effort now and begin to prioritize them! It will only get harder the longer you wait. Great Article on Scheduling

3. Involve Others in Your Journey (build a community)

Whatever your goal is, involving others who support you will help you stay on track! When I was doing the challenge, I would tell my roommate every day about what I did that day. If I didn’t mention anything, she would voluntarily ask me what challenge I completed. She also helped give suggestions for many of the activities which made it more fun since we thought of ideas together. Having someone who was not only keeping me accountable but helping to make the process more fun motivated me to continue to do the activities, even on busy days.

Additionally, we were tasked with checking up on our “challenge buddy” during our two weeks. I met my buddy on Zoom and it was great to hear about each other’s accomplishments and where we were struggling. Having someone who could relate was helpful because we motivated each other to finish the tasks that we planned to do.

Build a community of people so you can help each other.

One major theme that arose from taking the Hustle and Grit course is the importance of mentors. I would go one step further and say that having mentors is one aspect of the community you need to build. Having people who are checking in, providing support, and giving guidance will be extremely beneficial to continue to help you develop as an individual and push you closer to achieving your goal.

So What?

Rejection is a part of life! But if you limit what you do based on the fear of rejection, you will miss out on opportunities because of your own self-doubt. When I think back to all the students facing rejection letters and unanswered messaged, I would hope that they understand that rejection is only temporary. Change your mindset and practice being comfortable with discomfort. At the end of the day, the path to success is only possible through countless rejections — don’t get discouraged and remember to get back up.

Thank you for reading :)

Please reach out if you have any comments to share or want to know more about my process!

Log of my activities:

Offer to Pay: Went to Starbucks, offered to pay for the person ahead of me

Negotiate Phone Bill: Called Virgin Mobile- was rejected

Virtual Escape Room: Messaged an individual I met in first-year- no response

Local Radio Show: Texted 97.5 about hosting a show- got a response!

Compliment: Called a friend who I have not talked to for over half a year- had a nice conversation and also asked for a compliment

Lower Interest Rate: Called bank- was rejected (would have to change my type of account)

Apply for Job: Applied for a job at Qualtrics in the US- already got rejected

Dance on Security Camera: Went to Subway, danced while waiting in line

Reach out to Friend: Messaged a friend who I haven’t spoken with for over a year to check in (granted I was not shunned, we just grew apart)- nice conversation followed