Dealing with Rejection
Twice rejected in four weeks. Here's how I dealt with it — and what I learned from sitting with the discomfort rather than running from it.
“A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success.” — Bo Bennett.
Twice in the space of four weeks, I found myself on the wrong end of a decision I’d been hoping would go the other way. I’m not going to go into the specifics — that’s not the point. The point is what happened in the hours and days after.
I want to write this down. Partly as a permanent reminder to myself, partly because someone else might find it useful.
When the call came, I knew from the first few words. The full range hit at once — anger, upset, nausea, a heart rate that felt entirely disproportionate. I got off the phone and tried to carry on. Couldn’t. Those around me could tell something was wrong, and I pushed them away. I nearly made myself ill.
Then I did something that turned out to matter: I found somewhere quiet, sat down, and wrote everything out. Brain dump, no filter — what was said, what I felt, what I thought I might have done differently. It took an hour or two. By the end, the cloud had started to lift.
On the train home that night I turned those notes into something resembling a plan.
A month on
Things have settled. I still turn it over occasionally, still second-guess moments I can’t fully reconstruct. But I’m glad I forced myself through that extra hour of discomfort — because what came out the other side wasn’t self-pity. It was something to work towards.
The notes gave me tangible things to act on. More importantly, they gave me a goal.
That’s the thing about rejection. It’s only wasted if you don’t do anything with it.