How to Stop the Fear of Rejection From Holding You Back.

How to Stop the Fear of Rejection From Holding You Back

We humans can do anything – anything – but the fear of rejection is so powerful that it can make us step back from life in case we get hurt. That’s completely understandable. Completely. But we miss out on so much by doing that.

All of us at some point have done something bold and brave and daring – because the risk was worth it. We’ve chased, caught, kissed, asked, shared and bared our wanting soul for something that was too important to walk away from without trying.

Anyone who has lived life at all will know that sometimes those risks don’t pay off.  It hurts when that happens. Sometimes the pain can be breathtaking. Other times though. Other times those risks that come with a hefty chance of rejection, take you and your life somewhere extraordinary. It’s how the magic happens.

So let’s not pretend that rejection doesn’t sting. It does. Sometimes it’s excruciating- but we always find out way out of the fire. However hard we hit the ground, we always manage to get back up, dust off and keep moving forward.

[bctt tweet=”The right things will always find you – but first you might have to fight for them. Here’s how.”]

The fear of rejection is real. So are the things we miss out on because of it. Here’s how to stop it holding you back, so you can clear the path to the things that are too important to let slip away without fighting for them first:

  1. Look at what it will give you.

    There’s more to gain that what you’re going for. Whether or not you get what you want, there will be other things you’ll get from trying. Know that like any fear, every time you confront it, the easier it will be push through it next time. You’ll officially be braver, more resilient, smarter and more ready for next time – and there will always a next time. 

  2. What you focus on is what will become important. 

    You’ll always be able to think of more reasons not to take a chance than reasons to go for it, and there’s a reason for that. Humans are wired for survival, which means we tend to be risk averse. This pulls our focus more towards what we have to lose, than what we have to gain. Whatever you focus on is what will become important. Catch yourself fixing on the potential for rejection, and gently shift yourself towards what you have to gain. When it comes to the things that light you up, it’s never a numbers game. All the reasons not to take the chance just don’t matter, because the only one that matters is this: That risk you’re about to take might be the thing that takes you somewhere extraordinary. 

    [irp posts=”86″ name=”I Should What? Bigger, Bolder, Braver in 28 Moves or Less”]

     

  3. Rejection gets you closer to what you want.

    The right things will always find you, but sometimes you have to fight for them. Someone or something is waiting for you. Exactly you. Take the chance, because this might be it. If it’s not, know that you’re a step closer to what you’re looking for, and what’s looking for you. Keep going until you find it and know that whatever risks you take and whatever rejections you go through, none of it will matter when you find what you’re looking for – which you will.

  4. That thing that feels like death is actually shame.

    Fear of rejection comes down to a fear of shame. Shame exists to stop us doing stupid, anti-social (but sometimes really funny!) things, but too much of it will flatten you. The problem is that shame can start showing up for every party – but you don’t have to let it in. Shame can be awful – I know how awful it can be – but it’s never fatal. It’s never that. It’s controlling and it’s heavy handed, but it’s nothing you can’t deal with. It’s a really human emotion and we’ve all experienced it before. We’ll all experience it again. Some of us many times before the week is out. Don’t let it be the demon in the dark. See it, feel it and let it in. The more you can acknowledge it and recognise it for what it is, the less control it will have over you.

  5. Let yourself be vulnerable – it will be one of the best things about you.

    Taking a risk means being vulnerable. Own your vulnerability, for the beautiful, messy, very human quality it is, and know that it’s one of the best things about you. 

  6. Make it real.

    Is it more important that you stay safe or more important that you have a go? How will your life be different if you get what you want? What will happen if you get rejected? Who will care? How important is that to you? What would it be like to give up right now and make the decision to stay safe? What will you miss out on? Understand the full consequences of your decisions, and remember that not making a decision is still making a decision. You spend so much time on the consequences of not getting what you want. Fears are often faceless – they feel bad but lack substance and are often related to feelings and thoughts that are leftover from long ago. Tease them into the sunlight so you can have a good look at them. Then you can decide what to do with them.

  7. Let your fear win.

    Okay. Stay with me. When deciding whether or not to take a risk, we spend our time between what it would be like to get what we want, and what it would be like to be rejected – but it’s all speculation. What we don’t do is feel what it would be like not to take the chance at all. The force to move comes from fully experiencing what ‘is’. Decide not to take the risk. Decide to let go of what you want, and spend some time fully experiencing what that’s like for you. Walk away, turn your back, and feel it. Really feel it. It’s very likely that if something is really important to you, deciding to walk away without fighting for it will feel really bad. So bad that you’ll be motivated to take the chance, because as bad as rejection might feel, giving up on something you really want will feel worse.

  8. Don’t hesitate. Take a breath and jump.

    We turn so much of life into a waiting game – waiting for the right time, the right day, the right moment, the right feeling, the right ‘one’. These are all the excuses w call on to feel better about not taking the chance that might lead to the very thing we want. Waiting breathes life into fear. It’s one moment. Don’t make it bigger than that, because if that one moment doesn’t go as planned you’ll be fine. You really will. Because it’s one moment of so many more to come. When it comes to the things that ignite you, there are risks that will always be worth taking. The risk you might miss out by waiting too long isn’t one of them. 

  9. Trust your capacity to cope.

    If you get knocked down, you’ll get back up. You’ll cope. You really will. Don’t believe your head if it tries to tell you otherwise. It’s just trying to keep you safe. You’ll always be stronger than you think you are.

    [irp posts=”771″ name=”The Way to Thrive: Emotional Intelligence – What, Why, How”]

     

  10. Thoughts, feeling and action.

    What we do is driven by three things – thoughts, feelings and action. The mistake we make is letting thoughts and feelings rule the day. The feeling is fear – and yeah – it’s a big one, but so it courage. That sense of feeling stuck comes when thoughts are allowed to build up fear more than courage. Thoughts are sly little ponies that make feelings bigger than some of them deserve to be. Behaviour is often driven automatically by thoughts and feelings but it doesn’t have to be. The key to doing something differently is to be more deliberate. Separate thoughts, feelings and actions, see them for what they are, and make more conscious decisions. You can think scared, feel scared, and act brave. Sometimes it’s good to let your heart lead the way – your head will catch up when it’s ready.

  11. Take the hit.

    Rejection is part of life. The only way to avoid it is to live half-heartedly – and you’re meant for better than that. Risk always comes with the potential for happiness and the potential for heartache intertwined – it’s why it’s called a risk. When you open yourself up to reward, you’re also opening yourself up to rejection, but to shut down the risk of rejection is also to shut down the possibility of reward. Rejection won’t break you, but regret has a way of changing you forever.

  12. For long will it matter?

    Will the rejection matter in tomorrow? In a week? A month? A year from now? 

  13. See rejection as opportunity.

    Part of finding out what’s right for you is finding out what isn’t – and the only way to know that is by checking it out. Sometimes you have to move towards things so if nothing else, they’ll move out of the way and free up the space for the right things to find their way to you.

  14. What if rejection is the beginning.

    What if rejection isn’t an ending but the beginning of something new – a new path, a new career, a new city, a new chance to love and be loved right back. With rejection comes new opportunities that you couldn’t have seen coming. Take the chance – you’ll either end up with what you want or one step closer to it.

  15. What would you tell your best friend to do?

    What would your advice be to someone you love? ‘Go for it,’ or ‘You’ve got this,’ or ‘Rejection won’t break you so just do it,’  – or – ‘Yeah no. Best stay safe,’ or ‘Bit risky – best not.’ It’s very possible that the advice you would give to someone else is different to the advice you would give to yourself because when it’s someone else, you’re free from the bad feelings that come with rejection. Here’s what you need to remember: The pain of rejection is just a feeling. It’s not a life sentence and it’s not a defect. It’s your brain doing what sad brains do for a while. Like all feelings it will come, and then it will leave you alone. It’s easy to help other people to fly because you can see the reward and the rejection for what it is – the chance of temporary pain for the chance of something wonderful. You deserve the same wisdom.

    [irp posts=”723″ name=”14 Moves to Get You Out Of Your Way”]

     

  16. And whose messages are they?

    If the fear of rejection is holding you back, where are the messages coming rom? We’re all a messy wonderland of ‘should’s’ and ‘should not’s’ and usually, they’re the messages we took on while we were growing up – from schools, parents and experience. They become the automatic drivers of behaviour. Check your messages around risk and rejection and whether those messages still work for you or whether they stifle you. When messages become automatic, they prescribe behaviour across all situations, rather than selectively. You’re in a different environment now, with new wisdom and new truths. If the old ones are holding you back, shine a light on them and show them the door. Staying safe might have worked really well for you once – but maybe not so much anymore, not in every situation anyway. Your memories of not succeeding might be loaded with shame and awful feelings. If you’re with different people and in a different environment, it doesn’t have to be that way any more. Rather than living by the old, automatic, unexamined messages about what you ‘should’ do and who you ‘should’ be, find them and see if they’re still relevant. Do they help you or do they get in your way? If they’re not serving you well, get rid of them..

  17. Talk about it.

    Rejection almost always gives you a good story to tell. Own it, because it’s yours – and use it to bring the best of you into full view – the positive, funny, brave, resilient parts of you that might otherwise stay hidden.

Playing it safe will keep us safe, but it won’t do much more than that. Life happens in the deep water, with the  waves, the chaos and the unknown. Somewhere between the fear of failing and the courage for it not to matter is where the magic lives. It’s the deep breath in, the brave step forward and the boldness to live life like you own it that actually makes a life. It’s the stuff of passion, ignition, courage and full living.

The biggest threat to getting what you want is your decision to stay safe. Be proud of your brave, fierce, open heart and listen to it – it will take you to where you need to be.  

13 Comments

Jen H

I wish it was this easy, for me its not. But I’ve learned to fake it because that’s what the world expects, the price of doing business. It doesn’t get easier, and it sucks away the joy of the experience, because its ongoing. For me, jumping in the water, deep or shallow, is ice-cold. And it never warms up…

Reply
Martha

This is the best I have read…the reminder that fear is faceless! I will always remind myself of this everytime I find myself frozen in fear of the unknown. You are so encouraging I almost feel for a moment like I can do it right away, whatever I have been postponing for years.

Reply
Justin

I’m shocked at how much this related to me. I just got rejected today, but after reading this article, I realized that I am glad that I did go for it and asked the girl I liked out. It is better that I went for it, rather than always wondering what her answer might have been.

Thank you for helping me.

Reply
James E

thank you for this page,you clarified everything i need to hear.i wasnt raised in a normal family.so i dont have people skills.but your page was so soft i escaped the chaos for a min reading your page.thank you.jimmy

Reply
Ben

Hey great article!:) I was wondering though if one really recovers fully from rejection. Wont our self-image be affected, causing self-fulfilling prophecies to harm us permanently? After I got rejected by a girl I noticed that I was way more frightened to ask a girl out the next time.
Isnt risk taking safe only, if you dont take failure personally?

Reply
Sharon

Hi Ben,
Risk and safe are opposites. Playing safe is not participating at all.
Like Karen wrote, rejection triggers shame and that emotion is the one you need to say goodbye to. Once you no longer make the connection between rejection and shame you are home free.
Question is why does rejection bring in shame? what is so shameful about being rejected? and also, that emotion is yours alone. no one else shares it with you. so you actually have the power to decide if you want it around or not 🙂

Reply
Amit

I was researching about fear of rejection. I have read so many article but this is my last article because I have found everything here that I was searching for.
Thanks Karen for providing such a great and valuable information. 🙂

Reply
Patricia

Please expand on the concept of shame. I can’t quite wrap my head around it, though I know it must be a part of my struggle as a daughter of a full-fledged judgmental narcissistic mother and a just as judgemental but codependent father. I am just now at age 60 beginning to find and use my voice and recognize that fear of failure has limited me for years. I recognize the description that shame feels like death, but I’m having trouble with the concept and how it’s played a part in my life. Thanks.

Reply
Sue F

Hi Patricia. There are some fantastic books relating to shame and its impact on us. I’m 62 and all throughout my life various things that happened in my family just didn’t feel right but I could never put a name to it. Last year I discovered that it was shame. It was a real eye opener. I’ve also discovered some tools to help me with the “shamers”! The one thing that I learned was that it wasn’t me. Good luck!

Reply
Patricia

Thanks for your reply, Sue. I had the exact same feelings, beginning in adolescence or before, and persisting through adulthood, even now, but not until the last few years could I put my finger on it. I’ve read many books on toxic parents and narcissism, but now I’ll be doing a search for books specifically on shame.
Thanks for the suggestion.

Reply
Marianne

Brene Brown’s books on shame are amazing. Read them and change the way you perceive yourself and others. You think it is just you, but shame effects everyone.

Reply

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Lead with warmth and confidence: ‘Yes I know this feels big, and yes I know you can handle it.’ 

We’re not saying they’ll handle it well, and we’re not dismissing their anxiety. What we’re saying is ‘I know you can handle the discomfort of anxiety.’ 

It’s not our job to relive this discomfort. We’ll want to, but we don’t have to. Our job is to give them the experiences they need (when it’s safe) to let them see that they can handle the discomfort of anxiety. 

This is important, because there will  always be anxiety when they do something brave, new, important, growthful. 

They can feel anxious and do brave. Leading with warmth and confidence is about, ‘Yes, I believe you that this feels bad, and yes, I believe in you.’ When we believe in them, they will follow. So often though, it will start with us.♥️
There are things we do because we love them, but that doesn’t mean they’ll feel loved because of those things.

Of course our kids know we love them, and we know they love us. But sometimes, they might feel disconnected from that feeling of being ‘loved by’. As parents, we might feel disconnected from the feeling of being ‘appreciated by’.

It’s no coincidence that sometimes their need to feel loved, and our need to feel appreciated collide. This collision won’t sound like crashing metal or breaking concrete. It will sound like anger, frustration, demanding, nagging. 

It will feel like not mattering, resentment, disconnection. It can burst through us like meteors of anger, frustration, irritation, defiance. It can be this way for us and our young ones. (And our adult relationships too.)

We humans have funny ways of saying, ‘I miss you.’

Our ‘I miss you’ might sound like nagging, annoyance, anger. It might feel like resentment, rage, being taken for granted, sadness, loneliness. It might look like being less playful, less delighting in their presence.

Their ‘I miss you’ might look like tantrums, aggression, tears, ignoring, defiant indifference, attention-seeking (attention-needing). It might sound like demands, anger, frustration.

The point is, there are things we do because we love them - cleaning, the laundry, the groceries, cooking. And yes, we want them to be grateful, but feeling grateful and feeling loved are different things. 

Sometimes the things that make them feel loved are so surprising and simple and unexpected - seeking them out for play, micro-connections, the way you touch their hair at bedtime, the sound of your laugh at their jokes, when you delight in their presence (‘Gosh I’ve missed you today!’ Or, ‘I love being your mum so much. I love it better than everything. Even chips. If someone said you can be queen of the universe or Molly’s mum, I’d say ‘Pfft don’t annoy me with your offers of a crown. I’m Molly’s mum and I’ll never love being anything more.’’)

So ask them, ‘What do I do that makes you feel loved?’ If they say ‘When you buy me Lego’, gently guide them away from bought things, and towards what you do for them or with them.♥️
We don’t have to protect them from the discomfort of anxiety. We’ll want to, but we don’t have to.

OAnxiety often feels bigger than them, but it isn’t. This is a wisdom that only comes from experience. The more they sit with their anxiety, the more they will see that they can feel anxious and do brave anyway. Sometimes brave means moving forward. Sometimes it means standing still while the feeling washes away. 

It’s about sharing the space, not getting pushed out of it.

Our job as their adults isn’t to fix the discomfort of anxiety, but to help them recognise that they can handle that discomfort - because it’s going to be there whenever they do something brave, hard , important. When we move them to avoid anxiety, we potentially, inadvertently, also move them to avoid brave, hard, growthful things. 

‘Brave’ rarely feels brave. It will feel jagged and raw. Sometimes fragile and threadbare. Sometimes it will as though it’s breathing fire. But that’s how brave feels sometimes. 

The more they sit with the discomfort of anxiety, the more they will see that anxiety isn’t an enemy. They don’t have to be scared of it. It’s a faithful ally, a protector, and it’s telling them, ‘Brave lives here. Stay with me. Let me show you.’♥️
.
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#parenting #childanxiety #anxietyinkids #teenanxiety
We have to stop treating anxiety as a disorder. Even for kids who have seismic levels of anxiety, pathologising anxiety will not serve them at all. All it will do is add to their need to avoid the thing that’s driving anxiety, which will most often be something brave, hard, important. (Of course if they are in front of an actual danger, we help anxiety do its job and get them out of the way of that danger, but that’s not the anxiety we’re talking about here.)

The key to anxiety isn’t in the ‘getting rid of’ anxiety, but in the ‘moving with’ anxiety. 

The story they (or we) put to their anxiety will determine their response. ‘You have anxiety. We need to fix it or avoid the thing that’s causing it,’ will drive a different response to, ‘Of course you have anxiety. You’re about to do something brave. What’s one little step you can take towards it?’

This doesn’t mean they will be able to ‘move with’ their anxiety straight away. The point is, the way we talk to them about anxiety matters. 

We don’t want them to be scared of anxiety, because we don’t want them to be scared of the brave, important, new, hard things that drive anxiety. Instead, we want to validate and normalise their anxiety, and attach it to a story that opens the way for brave: 

‘Yes you feel anxious - that’s because you’re about to do something brave. Sometimes it feels like it happens for no reason at all. That’s because we don’t always know what your brain is thinking. Maybe it’s thinking about doing something brave. Maybe it’s thinking about something that happened last week or last year. We don’t always know, and that’s okay. It can feel scary, and you’re safe. I would never let you do something unsafe, or something I didn’t think you could handle. Yes you feel anxious, and yes you can do this. You mightn’t feel brave, but you can do brave. What can I do to help you be brave right now?’♥️

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