- Rejection is one of the most normal,
if not most painful, (laughs) part of life
and it affects everyone, no matter who you are.
So today, we're going to talk honestly
about three ultra practical ways to handle rejection,
specifically at work.
'Cause let's be honest, that's one of the places
where it's likely to happen the most often.
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(calm jazz)
And by the end of this video,
you're gonna have three, well, I hope they're surprising,
ways to cope with rejection at work.
Because, perhaps I'd say counterintuitively,
these killer techniques about rejection at work,
well they've worked for literally hundreds of women
in dealing with rejection in finance, law, technology,
but they actually, these techniques have nothing to do
with your career.
I'm Dr Suzanne Doyle- Morris and I have spent
the last 15 years helping women in male-dominated fields
get the careers they want
and the careers that they totally deserve.
If you stay to the end, I'm gonna share with you
one of the biggest rejections I ever had to face
at work, and let me tell you, it wasn't pretty,
and the mistakes I made that went with it.
Are you ready? (laughs)
First thing, schedule a wallow day.
So yep, get that diary out and schedule it.
Or even a wallow evening.
If the rejection wasn't massive because, as a working woman,
I know you and I know you have other stuff
to get on with. (laughs)
But the key thing is if you don't give yourself time,
proper time, you're likely to wallow
in the pain of rejection for far longer,
just kind of wondering all the time.
They key thing, though,
is to limit to no longer than a day, so use it.
Eat chocolate, cry, see friends,
make it jam packed. (laughs)
The important thing is to recognize how you're feeling,
'cause it is completely okay to feel disappointed or angry
or even embarrassed or that unseemly mix of feelings
that affects all of us, all three at once. (laughs)
But looked over, being looked over for a promotion
or losing a contract
or having a proposal turned down is hard.
So please, give yourself time to accept those feelings.
Allow yourself that time to wallow
and do not feel guilty about it.
It is easier to build resilience if you accept
and analyze those feelings.
Allow them the time they deserve, but put a deadline on it.
And then, you'll be ready to move on.
As a heads up, if I need a bit of time to wallow,
at my most productive, I'll take a walk with Angus Khan.
At my least productive,
I will binge on some high quality dark chocolate.
But are equally likely to lift my mood,
albeit one is a bit better for my waistline.
So let me know what you do for your wallow days
in the comments section below.
The second practical step is to schedule some time
with your closest friends.
So, again, this is a diary exercise.
You remember your closest friends, right?
Now these are the people that often fall
to the bottom of our list in the day to day melee
for women of boss, team, kids, partner.
And at the bottom, just under our exercize routine,
often, is friends.
As I said, rejection is normal.
So no matter matter how good
our friends' lives appear to be,
they will have experienced rejection at work too.
Most women, in particular, are not trained for rejection.
And if you're heterosexual in the dating world,
it's often us being pursued.
So let's be honest, rejection really perplexes us,
so we don't deal with it well at all,
which is surprising since it affects us all. (laughs)
Surprisingly, the most common Google search phrase
about boyfriends is actually
my boyfriend won't have sex with me.
So women, we know rejection (laughs) but it still throws us.
Hearing how your friends handled bad news
or being overlooked at work,
well it does three vital things.
It's certainly consoling, it makes you feel less alone,
and third, it helps you put it in perspective.
This moment that you're in now, it sucks,
but it's just part of your life and having a career
that is worth winning in.
So to help you put it in perspective,
look at the most successful person you know.
They will have faced many rejections in their careers,
but they don't let it define them any more
than you're gonna let this define you.
And if you can't think of anyone,
well just google famous career rejections
and you can read about everyone from Walt Disney,
Madonna, Bill Gates, or everyone's favorite, Oprah (laughs)
and many, many more.
'Cause I guarantee you, anyone that you think is great,
well they have been where you're sitting right now. (laughs)
The last thing to do is to accept
that if you've been turned down for something,
well try to see it as objectively as you can.
And I realize this is probably the hardest
of all of the three practical steps.
Don't worry.
I'm certainly not going to give you my dread words
of not to take it personally. (laughs)
But the truth is that your rejection
was probably a complex decision
and based on so many factors,
most of which are completely beyond your control.
They will range from the sublime,
like how good alternative options were,
to the absolute ridiculous, like how distracted
or even hungry the person was who had to make that decision.
For God's sakes.
You may know research that shows that court decisions
are most likely to go against a defendant
if the judge has to make a ruling
before the lunch break. (laughs)
It is time to start focusing on that which you can control,
whilst also recognizing that many things
that go into rejections, well,
they're things you can't control at all. (laughs)
So in order to focus back on the things
that you can control, look objectively at the situation.
For example, if you've been rejected
for a job or a promotion, ask for feedback.
Then use that feedback as like a mini action plan
to create a plan for how you can improve going forward.
Now you've got your three very practical steps
that are going to help you face rejection,
'cause it's gonna come again. (laughs)
And I'm gonna share one of the hardest of rejections
that I have shared in my work,
and it was a rejected proposal from a corporate client.
Now, she was someone that I had been working with
for many months on our earliest, serious games prototypes.
And after many months of iterations,
she finally told us that she wasn't able to buy at all.
In the time we'd finalized the prototype
and finessed the proposals to get right
for yet another internal audience
that she had to share it with.
Her burning platform?
Well it had simply moved on.
There was going to be no sale,
which meant that six months of hard work
felt like it was effectively going down the drain.
Now, I've got to be honest, this was so tough,
and all the more so since I picked up this email
with this very news when I landed into the arrivals gate
of a week's holiday abroad.
Now I was low for the entire week
which affected how present I was with friends
that I rarely got to see.
If I had focused on the three tips we've covered today,
I probably would've been able to salvage more of my holiday
and appreciate it for what that week was,
rather than focusing on what I wasn't getting back
from my career once I returned.
So while I wasn't personally smart enough
to benefit from these three tips myself all those years ago,
they do work well now for my clients.
'Cause I have talked through many
of these tips with clients.
A recent one, who first contacted me six months
after she had lost her dream job.
She was in a funk when I met her
and it's helped her bounce back quickly
after losing that job in an organization that,
at the time she'd entered it a few years before,
it felt like the culmination of a 30 year career.
So, leaving, well ouch! (laughs)
As you know, career rejection is hard
and, just like her, you may need help to get through it.
In order to help you build a support network
to get through the workplace rejections
that will come your way,
I want you to consider enlisting coaches and mentors.
I've created a how to find a mentor in five steps
that is the best way to introduce mentoring
into your day to day working life,
or when you get back to a new career.
I've given this advice to literally thousands
of my coaching clients and it's really
the easiest way to start.
All you need to do is click the link in the description
and then enter your email address.
If the rejection that you are dealing with right now
(laughs) maybe is that you've been made redundant,
well then I've got a video for that,
which I'm gonna link to up here.
And if you found this particular video useful,
well give it a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel
to get videos on career success every week.
But before you head over to my playlist
on coaching and mentoring that I just mentioned,
well, I want you to pick a social network
that you're part of.
Take a screenshot of this video and copy the link
and share it on that network of choice
that you rely on.
Because if you liked it, well it's likely
that others in that network will benefit too.
A network is simply about being a resource for other people.
A parting bit of advice on coping well with rejection,
don't get stuck on point number one.
That is the wallowing and dark chocolate bit. (laughs)
Use your wallow day, but don't be afraid to move past it
and ask for help.
Friends and colleagues might be able to help,
no doubt, which is great.
But more specifically, coaches and mentors are brilliant
To help you get through tough times of your career
so that you can get to the great days ahead.