How can I overcome rejection?

How can I overcome rejection? I absolutely love this TED talk by Darryll Stinson about rejection. It is one of the most inspiring things I have ever seen or heard, and will certainly help me to change my attitude.

Rejection makes us feel like we are not good enough. It makes us question and doubt ourselves.

Darryll suggests we should stop being afraid of rejection, and allowing it to make us discouraged. We don’t need to prove to the world that we are someone worth loving and paying attention to. Instead, we should see rejection as something positive, and he shares two ways that we can use rejection as a catalyst to our success, as well as proof of our value and uniqueness.

The first tip is to view rejection as projection, when someone else psychologically puts their undesirable emotions onto another person, rather than admit to their own unwanted feelings. Rejection says a lot more about that person’s inward turmoil than our own value.

Darryll shares a story about how he allowed bullying to diminish his confidence and self-esteem, and how he managed to turn this around. Rejection is a contributory part of anxiety and depression, and can cause people to dislike themselves and indulge in unhealthy activities. If we can see rejection as projection of other people’s issues, we can learn to celebrate our difference. The thing that people reject can be a crucial part to our success.

The second tip is to view rejection as protection, and work out how to use this for our own good. Rejection may be protecting us from something or someone that isn’t meant to be in our lives anymore.

Darryll’s second story is about how a sports injury ended his dreams of playing professional football. He felt that because life had rejected all his hard work to become a professional athlete, that he didn’t just fail, but was a failure. This drove him into a dark depression, and he had counselling which helped him to see that the rejection might be protection from a career that wasn’t right for him. He spent the next few years researching purpose and meaning.

We can learn to stop viewing rejection as a negative, humiliating force that means we are less valuable or our future is unsure. Instead, we can view rejection as a necessary development tool and catalyst for success. Highly successful people have overcome rejections in their lives, and we can go back to moments of rejection in our own lives and reframe them as projection or protection. This can unlock new paths in life that are beyond what we can imagine.

Project 365

I set up this website after deciding that I want to build a more creative life for myself, so I can give up my job and be in control of my own destiny.

I have set myself a goal of publishing an article on my website every day this year, to document my journey from employment to self-employment.

The name I chose was Project 365 because I see this as a year that I have dedicated to learning and self-development, as I countdown to freedom. It started on 1st January 2021, so I have 178 days to go!