How do you respond to rejection?

I do agree that feeling rejected is one of the more awful emotions in the world and it sorta feels like the world is crumbling around us. It makes us question all sort of things and makes us feel a little peeved, irritated, annoyed, angry, hurt and so many other things. It also feels as if there is no way out of it.

But isn’t there a way out of it? Or is it that we choose to feel so? Here are 10 things which could help you handle it better.

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1) Allow yourself to feel the emotion for a while

– Give it some time, let the emotions and thoughts settle down. I do agree that the initial reactions could be of anger, hatred, despair, laughter and a lot more things. Let the thoughts calm down a bit till you realize what exactly it means to you.


2) Remember you are not the only one rejected

– Well hundreds and thousands of people get rejected everyday, if every one of them would keep feeling bad for every smaller reaction, life would be complete with melancholy, depression, negativity and a lot more emotions which you wouldn’t want to take part in.

Understand that you are not the only one and there are people facing challenges on a daily basis, helps you get in touch with the truer thought. I am not equating you to others, all I am saying is that you are not alone in this.


3) Do not take things personally- sometimes its not you who is rejected, it’s the ideas

– What are the reasons for rejection? Is it your behavior or your own self? Is it something you can change or is it something intrinsic? Most times we realize that the rejections are mostly to behaviors and traits and not to the inner self.

This must calm you down cos if it is a trait or a behavior, it means you can change it. Maybe it is too late to go and revisit the same place but it does mean that you can go with a difference to other places, some which are better than the current one with a renewed thought process.


4) Don’t crib on it or sympathize.

– Well it always is the easiest of the tasks to allocate blame and say a lot of things including that the person who rejected you was wrong, corrupt, didn’t have a moral sense and so on. But my question would be, of course we feel hurt, but the rejection has already happened. What do you do to mitigate the effect? Sympathy is not going to earn you any solace, nor does self pity.

At some point you would have to face the reality and realize that it has already  happened, what to do is what you do next. You can’t spend time feeling bad about the problems of the past sacrificing your present and future for the same. Take action, not pity!


5) You are the one responsible for your happiness- keep yourself happy

– Own up, take responsibility. Even if it is someone else’s fault take up the responsibility. I do know it is not the first thing you’t want to do. But think of it this way, you can always point fingers but the other person is not going to do anything for you or to effect a change in your life.

You have to be the creator of change. Take that responsibility, own it, try and identify the message and try to look at the solution. The problem is long gone, it has already happened while it was happening. You have to make the changes and responsibility is the only sensible way to.


6) Keep yourself engaged.

– Take actions, keep yourself busy. The more you think about a negative strand of thought, more it creates a web around itself and more you keep feeling bad about yourself. Rejection has already made you feel bad about yourself, why do you give another opportunity for something else too to make you feel bad? Is it that easy to make you feel bad about yourself?


7) Try analyzing the reason for rejection
  • Ask the right questions – WHY? Not how could they do this to me?
  • Ask What can I do better, not what I can do to get back at them.
  • Ask – what is it trying to tell me? Not why does this always happen to me
  • Ask – How can I solve this so that this problem doesn’t bother me anymore. Ask questions where you can get action and where you can get results.
  • The other questions are more of a waste of time. They are not going to lead you anywhere. Instead they will make sure you will feel bad about yourself.

8) Be with exciting people

Be with people full of energy and life. Make jokes about it, laugh about it. The one thing common that most achievers had in life is that they had a great sense of humor and they had thay amazing capacity to laugh at their own mistakes.

Try doing that, life seems a lot simpler and easier. Stop taking it so seriously, you will always have another better chance to make things right.


9) Understand most of the times rejection at something is a way telling you have a better option

– A rejection need not mean that you are not fit for something. It may also mean that there is something for you which you are not seeing. There is a solution for you staring in the eye which you are not acknowledging.

There is something more fun and better which will elevate you and your life and this one goal of getting at something was an impediment for the process. Try appreciating the rejection for a change, it will set you free.


10) Take things as a challenge, come up with better solutions

– There are ways of looking at a rejection. One is to put your head down, feel bad about yourself. You don’t have to put in too much of effort for this, it sorta happens naturally. And the society will help  you make you feel worse. But look at it in a different sense. Awaken the sleeping challenger in you.

Ask how dare they reject me? I am not going to take this as an answer. I am going to show and answer to all including myself as to how better I can be, what solutions I can come up with. Remember a rejection is not an action directed on you, but you can use it well only if you decide to.

The choices are always in your hands, you just need to decide which choice you are going to exercise and how. You can either feel bad or start working. You will get the results which you focus on.


27 thoughts on “How do you respond to rejection?”

  1. True, I think I would be lying through my teeth if I say rejection wouldn’t have a great effect on me. I think a rejection, even a very small one hurts terribly. But more than that is the hurt when we give up on ourselves, sometimes it may be many reasons why people project rejection, also we gotta realize that rejection is not denial, it is not discouragement, it is a simple feedback saying something somewhere is not right, we can even try to work on it and make it work in our favour.

    I guess we all have different ways of tackling it, the more it makes us grow, the better we get I guess.

  2. Thank you Preethi :)..

    I agree,, closure does play an important role, the constant thought of why in the mind is quite a demon to satisfy. I guess sometimes people are lucky enough to get a closure and sometimes the unfortunate few have to keep guessing. But I guess something remarkable in a situation like that is that it makes you probe inside, it makes you ask yourself as to what could be done better, how can I be better, How can I elevate the quality of my life. That perhaps takes life to a whole new sector.

    I really like the Shiva trilogy statement you mentioned, it is absolutely beautiful.. Apathy most certainly is the worst part of life, Hate means that you still have a place in their mind but apathy, that probably is the worst thing to happen.

    But like you said, everything has a time period and so does mourning, reminds me of the quote – A person who thinks more than necessary suffers more than necessary. Maybe true ;)

  3. well thought up and quite comprehensive :) i do believe that closure is what every person who has been rejected is looking for. Expecting an explanation, we could give an arm and leg to find out what the other person is thinking and to see if we can set right the misunderstanding or bad feelings, not so we can regain their confidence but for closure..what we fail to realize is that this person who does not even have the time to hear you out…is surely not worth it. In this context I would like to quote amish tripati in the shiva trilogy “The oppposite of love is not hate. Hate is just love gone bad. The actual oppposite of love is apathy. When you don’t care a damn as to what happens to the other person.” seriously…we need to move on and get a life..while we are in mourning the other person has already moved on!!

  4. Rejection hurts. But it’s impossible to avoid it altogether. And, taking rejection personally makes being rejected much more difficult for you emotionally,
    Excellent write up Vinay Nagaraju !!

  5. Thank you Anirudh. Very pleased and happy to be reading this. I am so glad to know that you are liking the articles, would love to keep them coming :)..

    Warmest welcome to Inspire99, lots to come and would love to keep hearing from you :)

  6. Wonderful post Vinay. Have been reading your posts for quite an amount of time now and your posts are really inspirational!!!Keep the good work of yours coming ahead too..:)

  7. Thank you Krishna :).. I have always been a fan of comments from you. Almost always, it does open up a new and genuine line of thinking.

    Very happy to know that you were able to relate to most points here, gives me the feeling that I am finally able to write something closer to the truth. I guess it is these rejections which teach us the value of acceptance and so many times it is so easy to be caught up that we tend to forget how much of a value add they can make.

    Nice to hear from you Krishna, looking forward for more such elevated conversations :)

  8. Nice one Vinay.. Really helpful and I personally can relate to most of the points. Because I have faced more rejections in my life than acceptance. But that’s how life is and we have to follow these challenges put on us by our beautiful life and conquer each one.
    Thanks for the post.

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