How to Love Rejection (No, Really)

Zero sign-ups.

A dissolved joint venture.

No response from a guest blog post pitch.

When you’re hyper-creative, a lot of your ideas will be rejected.

By readers. By listeners. By viewers. By clients. By customers. By supervisors. By business partners.

And you don’t always get what you want when you want it.

This can feel like a struggle — or, it could feel like a creative opportunity.

Face the truth to love rejection

Do you reject creative opportunities by letting despair from rejection win?

Success as a professional writer involves adapting to your current circumstances, instead of clinging to romanticized images of how events are supposed to transpire.

Maybe your online course didn’t have a unique selling proposition.

Maybe it was difficult to collaborate with that other brand.

Maybe you didn’t do your homework before you asked if you could write a guest post for that blog.

Maybe you did your best work, but the timing wasn’t right. Rejection and undesirable outcomes can also be completely out of our control.

Regardless, those scared of the truth give up when they don’t like what the truth looks like.

Your attitude is not separate from your writing work. It’s part of your job as a writer, and it can assist or hinder your progress.

The same creative career that requires a variety of smart ideas also requires courage and innovative thinking when those ideas receive bleak responses.

Rejection doesn’t diminish the value you offer

Here’s a potent mindset to practice.

Don’t just accept the rejection — agree with the rejection. Thank the source of the rejection for seeing something that you didn’t see. Consider your possible oversight.

Maybe what you think you wanted wasn’t the best choice for you. Maybe the rejection will keep you moving in the right direction. Who’s to say?

That act of gratitude works in conjunction with the element of adapting to your current circumstances that I mentioned above and can allow you to strengthen your vision, especially during future content editing sessions.

This is creative work.

Rejection doesn’t diminish the value you offer. But when you’re upset because something you thought you wanted didn’t work out, it’s confusing. You might start questioning your value or worth.

The more you do this creative work to not just overcome, but actually love rejection, the less you want the situation that rejected you.

Or rather, you’re less attached to it.

And when you’re less attached to it, it’s easier to recover from the rejection without taking it personally.

Who eats cottage cheese?

Let’s look at how this practice plays out in mundane daily life.

You hit a minor snag at the grocery store. It’s out of your go-to cottage cheese, but a few seconds later you grab a similar brand and move on to the next item on your shopping list.

When you try the new kind, it’s even better than the one you normally buy. You may have never discovered the cottage cheese you love if the original brand didn’t “reject” you.

I know cottage cheese is less emotionally charged than a rejected article pitch from your favorite website, but this is part of your creative job in the realm of the inevitable rejection you’ll receive when you pursue a creative career.

You let go of what you think you want to love any type of rejection and release any emotional charge from the situation. Then, you’re better positioned to see all of the other possibilities available to you.

Turn rejection into resolve

You may or may not be presented with that original opportunity again in the future, but that doesn’t really matter anymore.

Fixation on the past becomes boring.

When you love the truth of the present, new ideas to act on arise in your mind. When you see the potential you can realize, regardless of any past or future rejections, the pain of rejection fades.

And you can get back to work.