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What do you mean, don’t take it personally? Putting yourself out there is a personal risk. Actors try out, singers audition, writers query, job hunters apply, politicians run for office. Where do you get the resilience to persist through rejections, defeats, and bad reviews for the sake of the risk that pans out?
“Maybe it won’t work out. But maybe seeing if it does will be the best adventure ever.” This quote’s been showing up anonymously on social media, and I love it. One source of resilience for me is a sense of curiosity, exploration, and growth. I can learn through every encounter, so none of it goes to waste. Paradoxically, another source of resilience is to get over myself—to remember I’m one of many and none of us is perfect. As I wrote last October, belief in oneself can mean belief in one’s ability to improve, to keep honing one’s craft. Rejection can serve as a sharpening tool. How do you bounce back from rejection? Please comment to share what works for you.
4 Comments
Rhonda Peterson
9/4/2017 02:09:18 pm
Related to jobs and work proposals, remembering times when I was on the other side of the fence in a hiring position, and was faced with a stack or resumes in which there were more qualified candidates than I wanted to interview.
It's nice to hear the other side, that rejection doesn't have to mean one didn't measure up - it's just that lots of other people measured up, too. In querying agents, the most common response is either a form letter or nothing. Any individualized feedback is a treasure, even when it's packaged with a rejection.
Lisa
9/5/2017 05:03:14 pm
In terms of job rejection, I can only think of one potential client who didn't hire me. And when he wrote to me that he wasn't going to, I was relieved, and realized I didn't want to work for him anyway, but I had not yet formulated that in my own head, or why. He told me flat out during the interview that everything was going to be rush work anyway. So in a way maybe that was a personal rejection, because it wasn't a rejection of a creation of mine? He rejected ME before there was a creation to reject.
The personal/professional distinction doesn't fit my life so much these days as in times past. Rejection of things I did as work-for-hire, or in the capacity of employee, was disappointing but rarely crushing. It belonged to the client or employer anyway, and sometimes our visions didn't match. The writing I do now is mostly by my choice, which both helps and complicates matters. In your phrasing, it represents a larger part of me. Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. Archives
November 2023
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