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It’s not about you. How to reframe rejection as an opportunity—not an obstacle

Rejection isn’t inherently negative, writes Alice Lemée. It’s our interpretation of it that determines whether it becomes an opportunity or an obstacle.

It’s not about you. How to reframe rejection as an opportunity—not an obstacle 
[照片:昆斯伯里/盖蒂图像]

在2021年1月的第二周,我的三个自由职业者客户都让我走了。几乎一夜之间,我的每月收入从5,000美元下降到零。这似乎是偶然的,这三个是如何一次剥离的。让我们不要糖衣 - 感觉像是拒绝的。

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无论是轻微的不便还是重大事件,拒绝的情绪伤口都深深地流逝。我们将追求一个开花的机会,只能与拒绝的荆棘相遇。最终的刺痛是痛苦的。

但是,拒绝并不是固有的负面。是我们的interpretationof it that determines whether it becomes an opportunity or an obstacle. And in my case, with careful reframing, losing those three clients was one of the best things to have happened to me.

为什么拒绝会受到伤害,以及我们如何内在化

There’s no downplaying the agonizing shame and embarrassment that rejection can bring forward. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies已经表明,拒绝背负的感觉从刺激身体疼痛的相同神经途径中。实际上,一项研究甚至发现服用泰诺可以减少情绪痛苦的抑制作用。所以,如果您收到的话,也许会弹出一对那可怕的“我们需要说话”文字。(开玩笑。)

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除了科学研究之外,我们的主流文化将失败和排斥视为同一枚硬币的两个方面。如果您跳过了晋升,您会告诉您的同事如何“拒绝”您或您如何“失败”。

我们会开始相信这是因为我们缺乏某物。这就是为什么我们痴迷于拒绝的原因 - 这给了我们的自我一个强迫思考自己的理由。我不够聪明吗?她为什么要获得晋升而不是我?

拒绝个人阻止我们成长

Rejection can be an opportunity for reflection, a sign of growth, or a marker of success. But our knee-jerk interpretation of rejection enshrouds it with negativity.

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For example, when we tell ourselves that . . .

  • Rejection is to be avoided → We pre-reject ourselves.We’re dodging a bullet, right? But this means pre-rejecting ourselves—avoiding applying for jobs, not proposing new initiatives at work, or not asking someone out—before they even have the chance to say no.

  • Rejection happens我们→世界正在吸引我们。When we feel as though rejection is unfair, we’ll feel like victims. But in reality, life isn’t out to purposefully hurt us—it’s completely indifferent. This neutral mentality is key in helping us continue to take brazen chances.

  • 拒绝是永久的→我们停止尝试。当我们告诉自己拒绝是永恒的时,我们将自己掌握在未来的类似机会上。但是,仅仅因为您被拒绝了特定的机会(例如,在您梦想中的工作中的角色)并不意味着您的机会永远被射击。卡拉·林(Cara Lam)就是一个光辉的例子。

Why rejection has “very” little to do with you

It’s hard to not take rejection personally. The key is to rein in our emotions by the application of reason. Here are three reasons that rejection isn’t usually as serious as it appears.

1. It’s a method of communication

如果我们经历了情绪痛苦,拒绝会传达信息。博客作者Amy Tang说明此消息包含的内容:“这只是有关您与您被拒绝的兼容性的信息。”

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您如何处理此信息?好吧,这取决于你。但是从表面上看,拒绝只是有关兼容性的信息。拿麻省理工学院的公告关于为什么他们在短暂休息后重新建立了SAT/ACT要求:研究表明,标准化测试准确地预测了麻省理工学院的学生学术成就。

Here’s what they said about the change:

”When we talk about evaluating academic readiness for MIT, that doesn’t mean we are measuring your academic potential, or intrinsic worth as a human. It only means that we are confident you, at this specific moment in your educational trajectory, can do well in the kind of hard math and science tests demanded by our unusual education.”

If you’re rejected by MIT due to SAT/ACT scores, it communicates simple information: your quantitative skills are a mismatch with MIT. Nothing more, nothing less.

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2.我们的内部叙述不是事实

在我们的脑海中,世界围绕着我们。我们通过个人观点过滤所有互动。如果有人拒绝您,他们必须对你不好。但是新闻快讯:我们的想法为零,他人在想什么。

Brianna Wiest,作者101文章将改变您的思维方式,explains,“我们假设人们认为我们这样做的方式是因为我们所知道的全部叙事和过程。”实际上,有一百万发生的事情我们看不到。

我们拭目以待the job rejection. But wewon’t看看公司如何与他们一起工作数周的内部雇用。我们拭目以待“在下午8:52阅读”通知。但是我们won’tsee how the other person is driving and can’t text back right away.

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3. Rejection addresses only a sliver of our identity

拒绝可以触发我们重新评估我们所有的自尊心。但是拒绝只解决了我们身份的一小部分。假设您提出了一项新计划,而您的老板则通过它。是你的主意that was measured and evaluated, not your entire intrinsic worth as a human.

How to reframe rejection as an opportunity—not an obstacle

通过仔细的重新构架,拒绝可能是您可以体验到的最具建设性的事情之一。即使您可能在一周内失去了三个固定客户端(像您的真正)。

将拒绝视为增长的标志

您最近被拒绝了吗?惊人的!这表明您正在生活中前进。因为如果您没有偶尔会被拒绝,那么您会避免改变并保持停滞状态。

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考虑一下您要追求机会的拒绝信号。世界不会给您机会 - 您必须去那里要求他们。

当我的三个保留客户下降时,这与我追求保留协议的事实有关。作为自由职业者,我渴望找到可持续的收入,而保留者是一个很棒的解决方案。当然,它没有解决。但这表明我正在尝试一些可以适合我和我的业务的新事物。

更不用说,拒绝是健康抵抗力的迹象。例如,如果人们拒绝您的服务费率,这可能表明您的价格是完美的。您不应该吸引所有人。

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将拒绝视为学习机会

You might not notice it right away, but rejection is a rich learning opportunity.

您可以使用它来收集有关特定情况的数据。假设您在求职中忙碌,并将您的简历发送给20家公司,只是从一家人那里回来。

What would happen if instead of lamenting your unreturned calls, you tweaked your résumé? Would the outcome change? Treat rejection like a data point, make necessary adjustments, then continue running your experiment.

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拒绝也是改进的机会。这一切都始于问:“为什么不呢?”不,这并不意味着要改变某人的想法。相反,这是关于理解决定背后的推理,因此您可以将其用于改进。

Rejection worked for me

After my three clients left me in the dust, I took a step back to analyze the situation.

At the time, I was on the precipice ofburning out。我在10小时的工作日中时钟,这(可以理解)给我的人际关系带来了压力。经过拒绝的耻辱,另一种感觉是:解脱。

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I took a few weeks off to recuperate and recover. Once I had, I asked my clients what happened. It turned out, none of it was personal: one had a dwindling budget, another a dramatic brand pivot, and the third, a new in-house hire. (And even if it had been personal—say, negative feedback on my writing—it would still have been a learning opportunity to improve my craft.)

我的前客户并不表示我的内在自我价值。但是这种拒绝为我提供了更新我的机会入职过程,cold-pitch new clients, 和急需的休息

另外,好是坏,都是材料。证明:拒绝导致了本文。

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这个文章最初出现在Zapier’s blog并经许可转载。


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