Submitted by Sabina Hitchen on | 0 Comments
I have a new business crush: it's on rejection. Okay maybe I'm not in love with being rejected, but I'm learning to love the process of asking for things that I've never really asked for before, or that I haven't asked for firmly or strongly enough. Why didn't I ask (or ask hard) before? Well no matter what surface level excuse I gave it was more likely than not due to a fear of rejection. A fear of hearing no. Now when I think about my old way of life I can only think to myself "Oh Sabina, by not going for those opportunities and asks you were actually rejecting yourself and your business/life dreams!"
As is the case in many things in life (and Indigo Girls lyrics): the hardest to learn is the least complicated. For me, the path to being okay with the potential of rejection, and even facing it head on, can in a large part be attributed to a video that became my catalyst for personal and professional change.
The simple fact that I am an entrepreneur and have been for years shows me that I tend to have a fearless/risktaker bone in me. Otherwise I probably wouldn't be here. I actually think I wasn't as afraid of rejection when I started my first business as I was later on in professional life. But soon I started thinking - I'm holding back, I can tell! I'm therefore holding my business and myself back, and I decided to make a change. The universe was clearly listening because that same week I watched a video on rejection. It was Jia Jang's Tedx talk on 100 Days of Rejection and it was a gamechanger for me. Instead of telling you why it was or what it's about I urge you to squirrel away twelve minutes for yourself (we all have 12 minutes) and watch it. Then think about what parts of your life you're holding back in because you fear rejection. Stop fearing it and start embracing it! Join my fan club! Because the more you take the fear out of the process I promise you, the more "yes" answers you'll get! And the no's? I welcome them too, as they're a sign to me that I'm actually trying and going for it!
Find Jia Jang's TEDx Talk HERE or click on the video below and get ready to have you mindset about rejection changed forever!
