You should be setting rejection goals

This past fall, I set out to get rejected as often as I could. A healthy fear of rejection lives inside most people, and has some of us in a chokehold. Being rejected is seen as, at worst, an embarrassing personal failure, and, at best, an obstacle standing in the way of our hearts’ desires: a dream job, a thriving social circle, a first date with a gorgeous future partner. Last year, it dawned on me that I was actively avoiding rejection in my writing career in order to keep myself safe — and small. So I set my sights on denial. I dreamed up a project called November of NO and gathered an online group of 15 people to join me in my quest. “We’ll build resilience by inviting no’s into our lives, all in the pursuit of getting to yes,” my pitch went. The point was to make rejection itself the goalpost to reduce the fear and stickiness around it, and simultaneously get closer to our objectives. We set goals to eagerly get rejected from job applications, film grants, pitches (my personal goal as a freelance journalist), and other targets of our yearnings. Each week, we logged our attempts, rejections, and finally, any yeses we received. I aimed to get three pitch rejections a week, or 12 in total. When I shifted my attention to rejection rather than success, it felt so much easier to do the work — my perfectionism-forward world was topsy-turvy, and getting a no was suddenly worth celebrating. By the end of the month, I had racked up seven rejections and landed three new editorial assignments. Sera Bonds, a November of No group member who has long worked in nonprofit development, says she sent out around 80 total asks that month. It was also her first time tracking the number of rejections she received, even though rampant rejection has been a part of her work for 30 years. “I feel like about five years in, I really learned that there’s a critical mass of nos you have to get to get to the number of yeses you need, and it really has nothing to do with me,” Bonds says. “When I ask somebody for money, or I’m looking for a contract or a collaboration, most of the time the reason they say no is something on their end. So now I just trust it, and I don’t take it personally.” Bond says that attitude has seeped into other parts of her life, too. “I don’t take it personally when friends can’t hang out, or my teenagers say no,” she says. “A no is actually a yes to something else.” Learning to see rejection as opportunity rather than failure can lead to more satisfaction in many aspects of life, from work and personal goals to dating and building strong relationships, experts say. And research has long shown that having high rejection sensitivity can mean developing low self-esteem; avoiding closeness in relationships, especially romantic ones; and is linked to a higher risk of other mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. Plus, failing, regrouping, and getting back up again builds resilience. As the adage goes, you miss every shot you don’t take — and even missed shots can help you take better aim. Ryan C. Warner, a psychologist and consultant, trains his leadership and business clients to adopt a “rejection mindset,” which means learning to approach rejection rather than avoid it. “It’s teaching individuals to deliberately seek out situations where they may fail and, ultimately, that helps build confidence that they will succeed.” Our aversion to rejection is deeply rooted in evolutionary psychology, Warner says. Fitting into social groups helps ensure our survival, so we instinctively learned to avoid any behavior that caused a negative social reaction. Rejection triggers a response in the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions as well as our “fight or flight” instinct. “That emotional pain that we experience from rejection gives our brains a signal: Hey, something’s wrong,” Warner says. “You need to react, or you need to avoid, so you don’t feel that pain anymore. … When this is constantly reinforced, it will ultimately recreate that fear of future rejection internally, [and lead to] avoidance.” Some neurodivergent people might experience rejection aversion even more acutely. Some 6 percent of American adults have ADHD, and people with ADHD can experience rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD), or intense emotional pain when faced with rejection. Anushka Basu, a 29-year-old finance writer based in India, was diagnosed with ADHD after experiencing extreme social anxiety during college, and later RSD, which she says starts subtle but, eventually, “freezes my body and mind.” It was a long process for Basu to learn how to better handle rejection, she says. “It starts with friends and family pointing out your shortcomings,” she wrote in an email. “Then, we go on to internalize it, and before we know it, it paralyzes us. So, in essence, we reject our own selves before anyone else.” How to have a better relationship to rejection It is possible for each of us to build more tolerance to rejection, and even to grow our self-confidence and self-acceptance as we do it. The key is to learn to understand “no” as a hallway to the next room rather than a closed door in your face — and that it’s not usually personal. Helping people with RSD conquer fear of rejection is a key part of the work that therapist Billy Roberts, founder of Focused Mind ADHD Counseling in Columbus, Ohio, does with his clients. “Ultimately, if someone tells you no, the default isn’t that they think you’re worthless or that they think you’re a bad person or not good enough,” Roberts says. “You’ve got to learn to manage your emotions so that you can put yourself out there again — and then eventually you win, because you’re putting yourself in situations where winning is a possibility.” 1) Create rejection goals Warner recommends deciding on an aspect of your life you want to improve or change, then creating tangible goals. He finds the SMART framework helpful — that is, setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This means your goals are actually achievable and trackable over time, and you’ll know whether or not you hit them. For example, if you want to date more, you might set a SMART goal to go on five dates in the next three months, or meet five new people — which necessarily entails putting yourself out there more. Just make sure your goals are realistic. “I think it’s definitely effective for people, having measurable [goals] that you feel like you’re making progress toward,” Roberts says. “But people set themselves up and they’re like, ‘I’m going to apply for 100 jobs this week,’ and then they have a hard time taking action on that.” Carla Birnberg, an author who writes a newsletter about building habits for a successful life, first got more comfortable with rejection when she was shopping her book manuscript around 2000. “It definitely desensitized me to rejection,” she says. Now, she has a goal to get rejected as a podcast guest five times a week. “I would love to be on two podcasts a month, but I know five rejections a week is the only way to get there,” Birnberg says. “It brings me closer to that yes.” She also uses people’s responses and feedback to refine her message, and hopefully get a higher response and approval rate as she goes along. “Rejections aren’t all the same,” she says. 2) Reflect on your rejection hangups Both meditation and journaling are easy and inexpensive ways to get to know yourself better, and have proven mental health benefits. They can also help you interrogate your response to rejection. “Ask yourself, ‘What are some times I may be rejecting myself?’” Warner says. You can also get guided support from a professional with therapy or counseling. When Basu realized she didn’t want to define herself through rejection, she began to analyze rejections in her journal, asking herself why each situation did not work out as she had hoped or expected. Then, she wrote down things she learned, what she could do differently next time, and how this rejection might change her future for good. She began to notice that some rejections weren’t personal, and took note of her own resilience. “In hindsight, I noticed moments where I thought rejection spelled the end, yet I ended up with something better down the line,” Basu says. “I started telling myself, ‘I am good enough.’ … Over time, I started to view rejection as a part of the process towards finding the right prospects. And I began looking at job applications as a numbers game. I knew that at least one would land if I kept at it. I started to view rejections as a need for redirection instead of failure.” 3) Trust that rejection can get easier — and builds confidence The catch-22 of rejection is that you have to experience it, recover, and try, try again to “get that positive feedback loop going,” Roberts says. The more rejections you sail through, the easier it will get, and, eventually, the more you’ll discover that risk, and even straight up rejection, does reap rewards. Roberts wants to remind people that “action comes before healing,” meaning it’s only through repeatedly being rejected, processing your emotions, and moving forward that you will eventually have a reduction in anxiety around rejection. “[People say], ‘I want to feel more confident, and then I’ll ask them to hang out, or then I’ll apply for the job,’ when I actually think it’s the opposite,” Roberts says. “We have to put ourselves out there and embrace the discomfort, knowing that that discomfort will reduce, and take action towards our goals.”