How Can You Overcome The Fear of Rejection?

Here's the thing about rejection...

When you truly understand it, you'll eventually stop being afraid of it.

That doesn't mean it won't sometimes feel bad. When you're emotionally invested or have high hopes, it still will at times.

But you'll stop fearing it when it stops affecting how you feel about yourself - and when you truly understand and accept what rejection really is (and isn't).

So, let's dive into the facts that will help you get there faster, as long as you put in the work to internalize them.

Rejections are usually about the situation, not the person.

Most people believe that getting a rejection says something about who they are as a person. That it means they’re not “good enough” in some way.

But that’s not what rejection is, at least not in the vast majority of cases.

You see, in most cases, people reject situations – not people. Let's explore what I mean by that.

If the rejection comes from someone who doesn't know you well, this should be pretty obvious. After all, they don't truly know you, so their lack of interest isn't about you but about how they imagine that you might or might not fit whatever they want for themselves.

But this is also true for people who already know you well.

How? Well, the reason they know you well is that they've chosen to interact with you over and over again. This means that the odds of them actually disliking you are very low (unless they're social masochists).

So the reason they're saying no to whatever they're saying no to isn't because they don't think you're a "good enough" person. It's because whatever that thing is just doesn't fit what they want for themselves.

In other words, a rejection is not a reflection of your value - but about whether the thing they're saying no to is compatible with their own goals or desires.

Does that make sense?

The only people who can reject us as people are our closest, most beloved ones—the ones we’ve been truly honest and genuine with for long enough for them to know us deeply.

Barring significant conflict, this only tends to happen when we grow apart enough to become incompatible.

If that happens, what we should focus on is what changed and whether that is something that we want to work on or if our growing apart is a sad but necessary thing for us to continue living our best life.

But what does it really mean to reject a situation?

When two people meet – for any reason and in any circumstance – there’s a lot more going on than who they are.

Yes, both are part of the situation that is being created, but only a small part of it.

Other things play an equally large role, like, for example:

• Which other experiences they’ve had recently.
• What each of them is thinking about at that moment.
• Whether they've been in similar situations before - and what happened then.
• Alcohol and other intoxicants (even simple things like caffeine sometimes).
• The people and circumstances around them in that moment.
• Energy levels, health, mood, hunger, and lots, lots more.

If you, for example, walk up to a stranger at a dinner party or work conference to strike up a conversation, you can only control a small part of that interaction.

You can, to some extent, control your timing and what you say and do. But that’s about it.

You can’t control what’s going on in their thoughts, in their day, in their emotions.

And since you can’t control any of those things, you also can’t hold yourself responsible for them.

Now granted, if you walk up to a stranger and say something rude, you can expect them to reject the you that you're presenting at that moment - and that will mostly be your fault.

But when you communicate in ways that are genuine for you, and someone dislikes it enough to pull away from you, they're simply revealing their incompatibility with you - not that there's anything about you that's not "good enough".

In the vast majority of cases, interpreting rejection as a comment on your worth when you have no idea which factors are influencing people's decisions - and even less control over those factors - is completely unreasonable.

It's about the same as blaming yourself for someone not eating the fish you cooked for them when they never told you that they had a seafood allergy.