By the time we start school, most of us have heard the word “no” a lot. Parents tell children not to do unsafe things—a form of rejection. Most of us learn from these rejections and decide what to do next.
In school, we experience a ton of rejection. As a short child with zero athletic ability, no sports team ever chose me to be on their side. I became accustomed to sports team rejections. By the time I got to high school, I no longer had to participate in mandatory team sports. I still had gym class, but I had alternatives.
However, I still vividly remember some rejections because they made a difference in my life. In high school, the faculty advisor for the debating society told me I was not allowed to run for a leadership position. When I asked why, he said, “Girls don’t do that.”
That was the first time someone rejected me because of my gender. It was not the last. But this rejection taught me something quite important: meritocracy was a total myth. If I wanted something that supposedly depended on my capabilities, I had to prove myself more or create a different environment. That rejection helped me create a much better life.
I’ve experienced lots of rejections since then. In my professional life, hiring managers (internal and external) rejected me. Potential clients have rejected me for many reasons. And I will spare you the romantic rejections from potential life partners.
Friends sometimes reject us—or we reject them. Even with the pain of a rejection, I often discover that I am better off without these people.
Rejection—on either side—can help us create better lives.
Use Rejection to Build Something Better
Every time someone rejected me, I needed a little time to consider why. Since romantic rejections have many potential causes, I’ll focus on the professional rejections here.
Why do people reject us professionally? Sometimes, we challenge their thinking. That faculty advisor literally could not imagine a girl could compete with the boys and win. He did not want to see that possibility. That’s often the case when people reject us based on gender or some other personal characteristic.
Sometimes, they think they can see our potential more clearly than we can. On my other blog, I wrote an article about being too valuable in a current position to get a promotion.
But sometimes, our value is not clear enough for people to accept, not reject us.
This might well be worse with the advent of AI. I want AI agents to help me in my business. There are plenty of things, including general website maintenance, that I hope will be AI’d in the near future. I can see that automation—and it’s not here yet.
If you worry about rejection, or you already have felt the rejection, how can you build a better life from that rejection? What would you have to do to capitalize on that experience?
In high school, I found another club to join and had a great time. In my work, I have found other jobs. As a consultant, I’ve taken tangents from my original path to create more value, for my clients and for me.
While we can accept rejection “gracefully,” we don’t have to stay there. Instead, we can learn what might offer more value and more opportunity for us. That’s how rejection can help us build better lives.