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"I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.” — Sylvester Stallone
This was something that beat me down for a few days and made me question everything in my life.
When I clicked the play button on her voice message and heard the first three sentences, I had that feeling of explosion in my stomach. My body got warm and I had a choking feeling in my throat.
It was almost unnecessary to listen to the end, but I did anyway because I was paralyzed for a few seconds.
She didn’t want to see me again.
We have all been rejected in our lives and it’s not the first time for me either, but it doesn’t get any easier.
There was also this tiny voice in the back of my mind. The voice of the self-fulfilling prophecy about not being good enough, waking up immediately and saying: I told you.
It was almost like a moment of satisfaction because that belief I have been carrying my whole life about not being good enough might turn out to be true. And if it is true, then failing is not my fault at all. I’m just messed up and for that I can blame my parents. It’s a relief and an easy way out.
Good thing I didn’t fall into that trap and I don’t need to blame myself either.
But that voice message was the last drop in the glass of rejections I collected within a month, and it forced me to sit down. Usually I start asking loudly what all these rejections are trying to teach me, as if I were talking to a higher power, to God, or to the universe, waiting for the verdict.
But no one gave me the answer.
Two rejections from employers for trying to level up professionally and another from a girl I really liked.
I’m sure if I had received those nos with more time between them, I wouldn’t have ended up almost losing myself in victimhood. But they came one after another too quickly, and I couldn’t recover from the first one before the next arrived.
There is this saying about relationships that if you have a bad day, like fighting with your partner, you need at least five good days to make things good again. This might also apply to life in general.
The problem is not when you face problems or rejections. It simply gets overwhelming when many of them come simultaneously.
Then you don’t have a stable pillar in your life. When a date doesn’t work out but you are thriving in your job, a rejection doesn’t bother you as much. And it works the other way around as well. When you have success in dating or another area of your life but not in getting a better job or raise, at least you can turn to your partner and feel loved.
This is actually an interesting phenomenon I’m going to write about later.
In that moment, I had the rejections at work and I couldn’t call the girl anymore to talk about the work situation either, because she had also said no.
I had that tough hour, but since then I feel a little more relaxed about everything in my life.
But I didn’t become nonchalant, and I didn’t avoid my harsh feelings either.
I wanted to cry. I was lying on the couch and felt the pain. In my chest, in my stomach, and in my heart.
Maybe I tried too hard?
Should we search for lessons at all? Or just accept rejection as part of life and keep going?
I need more than that.
Maybe rejection helps us to pause and to think.
I have been contemplating it for a week now and letting my mind process those negative experiences.
One important thing came up quite quickly about not being good enough.
The fact that they didn’t choose me and the belief that I’m not good enough are two different things. Which might not be obvious to many of us. It helped me to separate my self-worth from those results.
The other thing that especially hit me is how little control I actually have over outcomes.
And I like to have control.
It helped me to survive in my childhood. It’s important to me to know everything about time, planning, and everything else. I want to calculate all possible outcomes in my mind like Magnus Carlsen, the chess grandmaster.
But life is often unpredictable. If I believe I delivered well in a job interview, it doesn’t mean at all that they thought I was great.
Or when I’m on a date, being polite, showing interest, and making her smile doesn’t mean she will like me.
That breaks the pattern that usually works well in my running training. I can calculate everything, and if I deliver, I get the results.
I thought I was well prepared for those conversations with employers and also for the date.
Still, nothing worked out.
That’s why my other learning is that the secret of success is not always great preparation.
Maybe it is taking on as many attempts as possible, having a lot of rejections and a few wins.
Or maybe it’s being more at peace and more present in the moment. Or being at the right place at the right time.
Who knows?
As I mentioned above, I feel more relaxed this week. It’s like a break. No interviews, no dates.
It’s like another encounter with acceptance that I can’t control everything in my life.
So trying too hard wasn’t the problem.
It was my expectation that good performance and following the right steps would naturally lead to guaranteed success.
This reminded me of what real life is. It can go sideways even if I did my best. But the other way is also possible. It can go well even if I didn’t do my best.
And I’m telling you this now so you won’t be surprised next time you get rejected while you feel well prepared.
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