I just finished reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly (I know, I’m late to the party) and I’m feeling pretty determined to make mistakes, be uncomfortable, and get nice and cozy with rejection.
If that sounds awful to you, keep reading.
Failure used to be the absolute worst thing that could happen to me. As a kid, I always wanted to be good at things and if I wasn’t I simply avoided doing them. In retrospect, this was incredibly problematic. Sucking at sports definitely kept me from developing even a shred of muscle mass until my late twenties, for one thing.
Of course, the problem was much bigger than that. Trying to be perfect had me in a constant tizzy, and made professional progress incredibly difficult.
These days, I’m getting used to failing from time to time. To admitting that something didn’t go as well as I hoped.
Because when we’re in business for ourselves, rejection is a constant. Unfortunately, most of the time we only hear the success stories: so-and-so made multiple six figures and Miss Thing sold out her launch in two hours.
We don’t hear about the struggles. The failures big and small. The fact, for example, that…
- Only two people bought the e-course you spent a month creating
- Only your dad responded to the heartfelt email you sent your list
- Your webinar was a total bust
- A publication your clients love hated your pitch
- That really wonderful potential client decided to work with someone else
It’s hard, and it’s ugly, and it hurts.
But if you’re never rejected, you’re probably playing it safe—too safe.
You probably aren’t taking the chances you need to take to truly thrive, in business and in life.
I know you know this already. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t even be reading this.
But if you’ve been rejected lately, or if you simply aren’t succeeding the way you want to be, you’ll want to read my guest article for Paul Jarvis’ Creative Class, just out today.
How to bounce back from rejection.
Consider it a little boost to remind you you’re awesome.
Read it, bounce, repeat.