How to Deal With Rejection: 10 Dos and Don’ts

Rejection can make you second-guess yourself and your whole belief system. So it’s important to take a moment (or a few) to evaluate how it made you feel.

One study published in Science looked at why rejection hurts. The researchers found that many of the same brain regions are activated when dealing with rejection, such as when you feel physical pain.

“What you’ve got to understand, and what’s helped me, is don’t beat yourself up constantly,” says Jay. “You’ve got to be kind. Otherwise, you’re going to fall flat on your face and you don’t know how to get up.”

So no matter if you’re learning how to deal with rejection from a crush, a job, or whatever else, it’s important to acknowledge how you feel. And as you do so, you can then decide what you want to do with it.

5. Do remind yourself of your “why”

A life wandering aimlessly is a life without a purpose. Your “why” promotes your sole reason for being present in this existence.

When rejection pushes you down, like a bully shoving a kid in the locker, you can take a step back and see that you are destined for more. 

“That is the core. That is the essence,” Jay says. He adds that reminding yourself of your “why” bolsters your self-concept. It’s a part of self-care. And it gives you the drive to keep moving forward.

5 Don’ts on How to Deal With Rejection

When we’re children, rejection might take the form of being excluded from a game of tag on the playground. When we’re teenagers, we might face the realities of dating and getting dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend. And when we’re adults, it could be being fired from our jobs.

So when you’re seeking how to deal with rejection, keep these five don’ts in mind.

1. Don’t react

So many of our perceived rejections don’t need to be taken personally. Granted, some rejections are slanted as personal attacks, but not nearly so many as we assume. 

It just might be they’re giving suggestions that, to you, sound tone-deaf. For instance, “I just wanted you to know that your pitch was so boring so you could actually get better” or “I thought you should know you really suck at presenting, so you can maybe get some handy hints.”

As Marisa says in her Mindvalley Quest, “Weirdly, in their own way, they think they’re being helpful.” 

And she recommends that instead of calling them out, ask, “Are you trying to make me feel bad about myself?” you’ll likely be surprised to find that much of the time, the answer is: “no.”

2. Don’t take it personally

Let the person that’s bothering you know that you understand they’re being critical but that often, the most critical people reserve their harshest criticisms for themselves.

“[Rejection] is not going to stop your life,” says Jay. Instead, it’s there to help you move forward. So when you’re faced with someone who’s overly critical and rejects you, remind this person that they don’t have to be mean or harsh — most especially not with themselves. 

Everyone is just trying to do the best they can. And we can support each other along the way much more effectively by offering constructive guidance instead of harsh criticism.

3. Don’t get hung up on “what if”

What if…? — That question often triggers negative emotions. 

“What if I did it this way?” or “What if I loved them more?” keeps you in the past and could possibly lead to different fears, like the fear of intimacy or fear of not being liked. Additionally, “What if it goes wrong?” projects you to a place that hasn’t happened (and probably won’t happen). 

Que sera, sera, as the saying goes. Whatever will be, will be. And according to Jay, it takes patience.

“It’s all about time,” he explains. “I say to people all the time, consistently practice patience with prayer and perseverance, and you will get through.”

4. Don’t forget to be grateful

Someone turns down your request for help or you’ve been jilted at the altar — regardless of the “size” of rejection, the stab can still impact your self-worth. And this circles back to your “why.”

One way to do so is through gratitude. In fact, research from the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, shows that this mindfulness practice can greatly affect your brain and improve your mental health. Their results found that when gratitude is practiced daily, it boosts serotonin and dopamine, two neurotransmitters that are responsible for our “feel good” emotions. 

Moreover, it helps lower stress levels, improves mood, and builds resilience. As talk show host Tavis Smiley once said, “Sometimes, rejection in life is really a redirection.” 

5. Don’t let rejection in

Whether we like it or not, we will face people, life events, and circumstances that make us feel excluded, dismissed, alienated, and not good enough. And when someone intentionally tries to hurt our feelings, it’s easy to reciprocate.

That, however, can hurt you, according to Marisa. Her advice? Choose not to let rejection in.

You acknowledge that the person has their own opinion. However, you aren’t going to let what they think to change the way you feel.

“When you choose [not to let rejection in],” says Marisa, “it changes everything.”

How to Define Rejection on Your Own Terms

A massive part of how to deal with rejection is learning how to define it on your own terms. There are a lot of unpleasant emotions that often accompany getting turned down, such as:

• Aggression
• Frustration
• Defensiveness
• Depression
• Grief
• Jealousy

With this arsenal of challenging emotional experiences, the reaction that ensues is often quite negative. Here are a few examples:

He criticized my outfit. Do I really look that bad?
They laid me off from work. Maybe I wasn’t doing a good enough job.
My friend won’t answer my phone calls. I must have made them angry.

Often, the uncomfortable emotions we feel bombarded by after rejection are heavily tied to our perceptions of the event. Looking at the examples above, you’ll see a pattern: event A has happened; therefore, conclusion B must be true.

But what we have to remind ourselves of in moments like these is that we can alter our perception of what’s happening around us to lessen the blow rejection attempts to impart.

Maybe there’s a good reason your friend hasn’t gotten back to you yet. Perhaps you were laid off for budgetary reasons. Or maybe your coworker commented about your outfit, which you interpreted as insulting.

We often take things personally when in reality, the circumstances and events that affect our lives really don’t have anything to do with us — or, at least, don’t have anything to do with who we are as human beings.

When we learn to define rejection on our own terms, in our own way, we can begin to dismantle the difficult emotions that so often arise when we feel rejected.

Unlock the Greatness Within You

Life is full of beautiful experiences — some are euphoric and some leave us feeling wounded. These moments are inevitable, but it’s possible to learn how to react to them so that they don’t take a toll on your mental health.

This is where Mindvalley can help. You can learn from experts in transformational growth, like Marisa Peer in her Uncompromised Life Quest. 

The great thing is, you can sign up for an account for free. You can sample a few lessons from the Quest to get a taste of how you can rise above self-doubt, limiting beliefs, and unrealized success. 

What’s more, you’re part of a global community. So if you feel a little lost, you can always turn to like-minded individuals who understand the need to unlock the greatness within.

It’s like what Jay Fantom said, “Ultimately, you’ve got to understand that it will be okay. If you understand that you, yourself, are a valuable human being, the rejection should never, never define who you are.”

Welcome in.