I have been dying to write this newsletter... okay, I love Halloween and you are all the beneficiaries my bad puns.
Speaking of Halloween, in his book, On Writing, mega-successful horror novelist Stephen King described his
attempts to get published during his teen years.
He began submitting short stories around the age of thirteen. After receiving his first rejection letter, he pounded a nail into his bedroom wall and impaled the letter on it. At age fourteen, he said, “the nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on
writing.”
He also got feedback and worked to improve but still his first book, “Carrie” was rejected 30 times.
Now you might be thinking, that’s writing. Those are just letters.
Here’s the thing about fear of rejection: it’s an emotional response. That horrible gut wrenching feeling is the same whether you get a letter in the mail, a text on your phone, or a ‘no thanks’ from the person sitting in front of you.
The feelings brought on by a rejection are the same. And so the stories of people moving through those feelings should inspire us
all.
And that is also why we never diminish or negate the emotional reactions that people have. They are real and they are powerful.
That said, cognitive therapy suggests that your interpretation of situations influence your emotions: tell a different story to yourself and you have a
very good chance of having a better emotional response.
And that’s what ‘go for no’ is all about. Telling a new, empowering story about failure, rejection, and the word no… so it’s not quite so scary.
