Rejection Builds Character: How To Persevere When You've Been Turned Away

Rejection is a difficult feeling to overcome. Whether that feeling registers immediately, or it takes you a while to understand why you were turned away from an opportunity, it’s hard to deal with that emotion.

Unfortunately, rejection is part of everyone’s life, at least for a while. As a 20-something trying to figure out your place in the world, rejection is inevitable in two areas of life: careers and relationships.

While rejection hurts, there is one positive thing that comes from it: determination. It’s a challenge to work hard, achieve a specific goal and prove someone wrong in the end.

However, rejection will rear its ugly head at one time or another before someone finds his or her path to success. Corporate America will call you a lazy Millennial. Hiring managers will turn you away from most of the jobs you apply for without so much as a “thanks, but no thanks” response to your application.

The fact that certain employers turn you away is a good thing, however. It’s fate telling you to move on and work your way down a new path. It’s important to remember that this particular rejection isn’t personal; it’s business. This makes it much easier to take the rejection with a grain of salt.

Take time to learn a lesson from this crappy situation. Think about the skills you have now and how using them will benefit the next company you apply to.

Think about your dream job because now might be the time to pursue it. Strategize, network and use what you know now after being rejected from so many jobs to impress a hiring manager. Use the lessons to your advantage.

In relationships, rejection is much harder to handle because it is personal. Being rejected by someone is literally that person saying, "I just don’t like you enough; it’s actually your whole self that I don’t have feelings for."

Romantic rejection is difficult to take whether the relationship is new and exciting, or old and comfortable. There are two natural reactions: try and win the person back, or go to a dark place emotionally.

Staying friends with someone is difficult, and unless both people are mature enough to make the move from romantic to friendly, it’s not possible.

If you spent hours upon hours thinking about the relationship and what went wrong, do yourself a favor and turn that wasted time into productive time.

After you sulk for an appropriate amount of time and stop being delusional about getting back together with your ex, find the lesson. Even when rejection is totally personal, use the hurt to your advantage.

There are entirely too many people alive and single on this earth to be sad over one person for a prolonged period of time. Grow as an individual, and don’t make the same mistakes in your next relationship.

A breakup is fate telling you try your efforts and find luck down another path.

Getting rejected from anything hurts and, frankly, it really sucks. It’s a hit straight to your self-confidence and can make you feel worthless. It’s all too easy to sit around and sulk in your pessimism, but that will stunt your growth as a human being.

The only way to overcome rejection is to beat the odds and throw shade on the people who didn’t believe in you when you make it to the place they said you couldn’t.

Photo Courtesy: We Heart It