Changing the way you see “no”
Each rejection is a blessing, and their reasons have nothing to do with you.
Rejection!
Oomph, doesn’t that sometimes feel like a modern-day life or death scenario?
Your fight or flight responses get activated.
Or you might even preemptively avoid it because you don’t want to deal with all the different scenarios playing out in your head.
Why does hearing the word “no” often create such a gut wrenching reaction or even something we avoid?
Instead of being upfront with someone, we come out with the roundabout “no” answers.
“Maybe, I’ll think about it” = no
Saying a lackluster “yah, totally” or pacifying “sure, that sounds good” but never following up on it = no
Detouring the conversation to avoid giving an answer = no
And we’ve ALL heard of the term “ghosting” when it comes to dating = noooope, and I don’t want to tell you directly, and we also experience this with leads or potential clients who do the same.
“While we have absolutely no control over the actions of others, we do have total and complete control over how we react. What if we decided to make each no we received and every rejection we encountered something that empowers us? Instead of avoiding rejection, what if we made the decision to seek rejection? Instead of avoiding no or perhaps simply tolerating it, what if we went out of our way to actually go for no!”
―Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz
Authors of “Go for No! Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There”
Seeing rejection differently
Exactly like that quote mentioned, what if we normalized rejection as a part of the process and didn’t take it so personally?
When we get rejected or hear the word “no” in all its creative forms, we create stories in our heads about what that means about us or what we’ve done.
All the self criticism and self judgement can typically fall under these two categories:
“They don’t like me.” or “I wasn’t enough.”
But NONE of these are facts, they’re merely an opinion, a certain perception, and merely one possibility.
You don’t know the other person’s true reasons.
Oftentimes when people say “no”, it’s mostly about them and their own reasons.
Ok, sure. They might project it onto you as an excuse, but underneath their reason is merely “this isn’t the right fit for me.” (See, it’s still about them.)
Sometimes, they’re not even fully sure of why they said “no” outside of the feeling of “no, I don’t want this.”