Here is a seven step framework that you can use to overcome the fear of rejection and step into the life that you were meant to live.
KEY POINTS
Focus on Collecting as Many No’s as Possible – To overcome fear of rejection recognize that yes lives in the land of no. Send out as many proposals, as many job applications as possible. Eventually the yes’s will materialize provided that you are sending out and focusing on just collecting those rejections.
Don’t Think of it as a Rejection – Just think of it as you’re going out there to collect data, and we can only learn and move forward by collecting that data.
Rejection is Evidence That You’re Stepping Outside of Your Comfort Zone – Growth requires some degree of stress. The stress we feel from rejection leads to growth and development.
Visualize Rejection – Think about the moments that you are most worried about rejection, picture that it will happen and how you at your best will respond to it.
Build Yourself Up – Write a list of all the reasons why you are great and why you deserve to achieve your goals.
Decode Your Fears – Really try to understand what it is that you’re actually afraid of with regards to the potential rejection.
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TRANSCRIPT
Do you want to know how to overcome the fear of rejection? Well by the end of today’s episode, you’ll know a seven step framework that you can use to overcome the fear of rejection and step into the life that you were meant to live. Hi, my name is Eric Partaker and I’ve been recognized as one of the top entrepreneurs in the country and the CEO of the year. I’m also the author of two best-selling books, including The 3 Alarms.
All right. So the number one way to overcome your fear of rejection is to recognize that yes lives in the land of no. Now when I’m working in coaching entrepreneurs and individuals to higher levels of performance, often they’ll have goals or something that obviously they’re working towards. So for example, they might be looking to add a certain number of new clients per month, and they tend to focus on the new client additions as their goal, rather than just focusing on just racking up those no’s. So what I do is a bit of a mental flip with them, and I say, look, all I want you to focus on is collecting as many no’s as possible, sending in as many job applications as possible, sending out as many proposals as possible, knowing that eventually the yes’es will materialize provided that they’re sending out and focusing on just collecting those rejections.
The other benefit this has is that by making the collection of the rejections, the goal you’re embracing them. You’re saying that it’s okay to be rejected but once again, of course, the secret is that the yes’es do fall out of those rejections at some point. At some point you don’t just keep getting rejected, you finally do get a yes.
Number two to help you overcome the fear of rejection is to not think of it as a rejection, but just think of it as you’re going out there to collect data. It’s almost like you’re a scientist and you’ve got your clipboard and you’re just collecting data and sometimes the data is positive, sometimes it’s neutral, sometimes it’s negative, but it’s all informative. It all helps you understand, are you doing the right things, do you need to improve? Do you need to improve significantly? Do you need just to improve slightly? And we only learn that by collecting the data, which just so happens in this instance to be called rejection, which we’re trying to avoid.
But if we think about it as data, that we’re just collecting data, then it doesn’t matter if it’s rejection or acceptance we just want to get the data in so that it helps inform both our current and future actions.
Number three, rejection is evidence that you’re stepping outside of your comfort zone. I’m sure you’ve probably heard this before that your growth and development, it isn’t within your comfort zone. It requires you to experience some degree of stress. When you go to the gym, you don’t just walk into the gym and stare at the weights and you get stronger. I mean, that would be great, but it doesn’t happen, you actually have to stress your muscle and it causes it to grow.
And it’s the same with our growth and development professionally and just in life in general, by going through rejection, it’s evidence that we’ve stepped just outside of our comfort zone enough so that we fail, so that we’ve experience stress, which ultimately leads to our growth and development. Again, you stress a muscle, it causes it to grow. You put some stress on your professional career, it’s going to cause it to grow. So treat rejection as evidence that you’re moving in the right direction and stepping outside of that comfort zone.
The number four thing that you can do to help overcome your fear of rejection is to actually visualize it. So think before those moments where you’re most worried about rejection, picture that it will happen, picture that you will be rejected and then I want you to also visualize how you at your best would respond to that.
Not you like your wimpy kind of uncourageous self you, your strongest, boldest, most courageous version of you. How would that version of you respond to the rejection? Would they just be like, okay, next, move on or would they be completely destroyed and go into a puddle of tears and despair. So make sure that you visualize your rejection ahead of time and then also visualize how you at your best would respond to that rejection.
Number five technique to help you overcome your fear of rejection is to pretend you are an investigative journalist and that journalist is going to write a little story on your life that talks about how great you are and all of the reasons that they would use to evidence that article should be in that story. I would seriously encourage you to do this, single sheet of paper, write out your name, why you’re great and why you’re worthy of all of your dreams and then just write a single page.
If that journalist was writing a story about you and your life, what are the points of evidence that they would use to support that headline that you are as great as that headline suggests that you are worthy of your dreams and ambitions. Play that exercise, be the investigative journalist, and you’ll come up with tons of reasons that in the end support your self worth, your self efficacy, your self belief, which is the whole point of that little exercise because by growing your self-worth, we’re actually helping you overcome the fear of rejection because when that rejection happens, if you are at the correct state from a self-worth point of view, it’s almost like a suit of armor that you have on you and so that rejection is just like ping and it bounces right off and it doesn’t bother you and you keep moving on.
Why? Because you’re strong as you are, you believe in yourself and that rejection, once again is nothing more than data, it’s evidence that you’re stepping outside of your comfort zone, it’s not you is the point. You are you and you are worth everything that you’re pursuing.
The number six thing that you can do to help overcome your fear of rejection is to decode your fears. So really try to understand what is it that you’re actually afraid of with regards to the potential rejection? Is it that you think it’s an attack of who you are, your identity? Is it that you think if you’re rejected, it means that it’s a sign, that things are going to be harder for you? And for each of those, I want you to think about the following. So if you view a rejection as an attack on your identity, then that thing is becoming you and that’s just not how it is.
You are separate from that. You are who you are, as I said earlier, you are completely worthy of all the things that you’re pursuing and you do not need to attach your identity to that rejection. That rejection or potential rejection is not you. It’s a separate thing and you are you. Then from the hardship point of view, if you’re worried about a rejection, because you’re worried that it’s going to make life harder for you, well recognize that all good things in life require work and effort and they require going through rejection. So that’s just part of the process. Remember yes, lives in the land of no. So embrace the rejection, embrace the hardship as part of that journey ahead.
Number seven last but not least. Remember that rejection happens to everyone. You are not alone in this. You are not the first person to experience rejection. You are not the first person to want to overcome your fear of rejection, but just recognize that you are not alone. This is completely normal, it happens to all of us and take all of these seven things in totality and I’m sure I’m very confident that they will help you overcome your fear of rejection so that you can start stepping into once again, the life that you were meant to live. If you liked this video, once again, please hit like down below. Let us know. I would love to hear what’s your number one takeaway from how to overcome your fear of rejection. Leave a comment down below. If you think anybody might benefit from hearing this message, please share it with them. Also, don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a future video and I have a free gift for you.
So if you go down to the link in the description of this video, and if you follow that link, you will be able to download a free digital copy of my new book, The 3 Alarms, and I hope you enjoy it. I’d love to hear from you. So don’t forget to leave a comment and a rating as well. And if you’d like to get a copy of my new book, The 3 Alarms, please head over to my website at ericpartaker.com. That’s E-R-I-C, ericpartaker.com, where you can pick up a free digital copy of my new best-selling book, The 3 Alarms.
