(photo: @isaiahrustad)
Why do you take rejection so personally? Why does it hurt you so much – for days, weeks, months, or even years?
The short answer is because you just haven’t been rejected enough. You haven’t survived through it enough times to be able to say, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad.”
The long answer is because when you’ve worked so hard to protect yourself, anything that threatens your ego is devastating.
Here’s the progression:
You feel insecure -> You build a wall to protect yourself -> You refuse to put yourself in vulnerable situations that challenge your insecurities (such as being rejected) -> You take chances rarely and when they don’t work out, your entire wall comes crumbling down -> You become angry, frustrated, or depressed
Because of all this, rejection becomes much more personal and toxic to your self-worth.
For example, let’s say you’re inexperienced with women. One day, you finally muster the courage to kiss a girl. She turns away and she tells you she’s not interested. She was your only chance and you blew it.
Of course that’s going to feel like a devastating loss. So far your only reference experience is getting rejected. Zero out of 1 girls kissed you – a 0% success rate.
But you shouldn’t stop there. What if you pursue another girl? And what if you go for a kiss, and she kisses you back?
Now you have a POSITIVE reference experience. You see that the other rejection was an isolated occurrence and temporary. It wasn’t the end-all-be-all of your romantic life. And now you have a 50% success rate.
You can see how your odds dramatically improve with the more chances you take.
So if you think rejection is horrible, just remember: avoiding rejection is a guaranteed way to stay insecure and not see the results you want in life.
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