Everyone gets rejected, more or less, and it comes in all forms—being ignored, getting
a no, being ghosted (which I have a little personal story about that I’ll share with
you later). There’s rejection with an explanation, there’s rejection with no explanation at
all. We might experience it from a friend, a partner, an employer or even a stranger.
Sometimes it stings for just a brief moment and then we forget about it, other times it
can stay with us for years, perhaps forever, even.
Today, I’d like to talk about rejection, and I’m going to do something that I don’t
usually do which is to share a few personal stories, because I think hearing about other
people’s experiences can be comforting and encouraging. And there’s also something
in it for me – I get to be vulnerable and, in a way, make light of it, because at the
end of the day, it really isn’t the end of the world. Ultimately, rejection is simply
part of any process that entails going from wanting something to getting it, because it’s
rarely, if ever, a straight line, which means you’ll probably fall off a few times, but
that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get back up and keep walking. Now, don’t get me wrong,
I’m not immune to the pain rejection can bring by any means, but I never want to lead
a life where I let fear of rejection lead to a lack of initiative. And, as someone close
to me always says, to dare is a gain in itself.
Alright, let’s get into these rejection stories. I figured I’d start out light just
to warm myself up, and then gradually get to the more painful stuff.
So, what I recall as my first sense of feeling personally rejected is from when I was about
8 or 9 years old and I’d send emails to (what I believed was) various cast members
of Harry Potter declaring my love and asking if there was any way we could meet. I might’ve
also expressed my interest in acting and asked if I could be in any of the upcoming film,
and I remember this so vividly for some reason. I’d find these email addresses online that
allegedly belonged to, let’s say, Emma Watson. And I’d also make up email addresses that
I figured should belong to her, like, for instance, emmawatson@hotmail.com.
18 or so years later, I still never got a response, I have no idea who those emails
actually went to. By the way, I just want to disclaim that the only reason this is somewhat
funny and cute is because I was 8 years old. There’s nothing funny or cute about bombarding
anyone with emails.
Now, while I no longer send emails to Harry Potter cast members, reaching out to various
people is still part of something that I do and something I want to do much more of, because
it has led to some pretty interesting conversations with people and cool opportunities. But of
course, there are still instances where the person shows no interest in what I have to
say. But as Nora Roberts said, If You Don't Ask, the Answer Is Always No.
Now, when it comes to reaching out to someone, whether that’s emailing or on Instagram
or wherever, I personally don’t really think much of it anymore. Most of the time I’ll
just write, press send and forget about it. But if there’s a situation where I get filled
with anticipation for whatever reason, only to get rejected, I think of it as “it’s
not a loss, it’s just not a gain”. I might even take it a step further and think I did
gain a few things: bettering my email writing skills, becoming more comfortable with stepping
out of my comfort zone, growing a tiny bit more resilient and so forth.
Moving on to the second story. When I think of rejection, a time that stands out to me
is school. Now, school is a big chunk of a person’s life, like, 13 years? And all 13
weren’t bad by any means, I had some really good times and good friends, but I also had
some pretty bad times where people would be mean to me and alienate me, to put it lightly.
I still have my journal entries from that time where I express a lot of sadness and
even anger, too.
I could definitely make a long video about this topic alone and the things I learned,
but I’d like to share two things. For starters, and this isn’t to say that your school years
don’t matter and that you should just suck it up, but I wish I had understood at the
time that the world is much bigger than your school and the people in it. Who you are in
school or how many friends you have or how popular you are really will not matter as
you enter “the real world” – not even when you enter university. Now, I’m not
saying it won’t matter to you, because going through a tough time in school can definitely
take a toll on your mental health, and you might need to work through it, perhaps with
a therapist, but it won’t matter to anyone else.
The second thing isn’t exactly a lesson, but rather, a way in which I think that period
in my life shaped me: I became someone who always looked for the new person, or the lonely
person, trying to make them comfortable and trying to include them. And sometimes, I might’ve
come across as a bit intrusive, but I’d rather risk being a bit intrusive if it means
I could possibly be the person I wish someone had been for me.
Okay, we have reached story number three on this list, which is about the time when I
essentially got ghosted by someone I had been seeing for a few months. It was really painful,
actually. He eventually reached out to me, but obviously, that door was closed. So, this
is also one of those things that taught me a lot, but I think one of the central lessons
was that: there are some things that we will never understand, and the better we can get
at making peace with that, the less we’ll suffer.
You may never fully understand why someone didn’t respond to you, why you didn’t
get the job, why someone left you, why your friend doesn’t seem to like you. As much
as we wish that each rejection came with a nice glittery letter and a bow explaining
why, that’s just not how things work.
It actually felt pretty good sharing that for some reason. Now, overall, when it comes
to rejection, I just try not to think in extremes. I don’t think “I suck and I’m worthless”
and send myself down a spiral, but I also don’t think “I’m the greatest of all
time and they just don’t know it” because that leaves no space for self-reflection and
improvement.
I’ve found that one of the key factors in finding that healthy balance is honesty. So,
while I try not to dwell and make things worse for myself, I also don’t just brush it off
like it’s nothing. I don’t try to minimize what’s happened or what I’m feeling. If
something hurt like hell, it’s okay to feel that. Just like it’s okay to recognize when
something actually didn’t hurt nearly as much as we thought. Whatever is true, let
yourself feel it and take it from there.
I’d like to thank Skillshare so much for sponsoring us today.
Now, I don’t know about you, but usually I find it heavier to carry the weight of rejection
when I feel like I didn’t do my best. Whether that’s sending an email that was poorly
formatted or half-assing a video when I know I could’ve done better. Not everything is
in our control, but we can always work on bettering our craft. For instance, I want
to become better at expressing myself creatively – both in writing, speech, filming, editing
and overall style.
There’s a class on Skillshare that I’m taking called "Find Your Style: Five Exercises
to Unlock Your Creative Identity" by Andy J. Pizza. I’ve found the class to be not
only helpful, but also really fun to watch because of all his cool editing and the way
he speaks is just captivating.
As most of you know, Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes
on a variety of things. I’ve been taking classes on there for over a year, and I genuinely,
really enjoy it. Whether you want to take a class on writing or coding or creativity,
you’ll likely find it there. Now if you would like to try out Skillshare yourself,
I have a special offer for you. The first 1000 people to use the link in my description
will get a free trial of Skillshare premium membership, and after that it's only around
10 dollars a month.
Alright! That was a fun time. You know, I’ve noticed that people often like to share their
rejection stories only if that story ends in some kind of success, for example, “I
got rejected from 15 book publishers before 1 book publisher said yes”, otherwise we
just see it as a story of how we failed, and why would we want to share that? But I think
sharing and talking about those experiences regardless of the aftermath of the rejection
can be valuable, so I hope that this conversation inspired you to open up about some of your
rejection stories down in the comment section.
Okay. Thank you so much for showing up here today, and I can’t wait to chat with you
in the comments as always. Also, I’ll be sending out the second newsletter tomorrow.
If you haven’t signed up for the Newsletter and joined the Ro family yet, and you’d
like to start your week off with some calming vibes, don’t forget to sign up using the
link in the description box. Alright, take care.