Help Your Clients Deal with Rejection and Persevere with Their Goals

Dealing with Rejection - Acceptance is Key

We learn at an early age that we don’t get everything we want. In other words, we have had to deal with rejection since then. This makes you think that people accept rejection easily. The exact opposite is usually true.

People start to develop an invisible shield against rejection. They may show anger or resentment to the people who are serving up the rejection. But, in many cases, it can show who is resilient and who is likely to continue until they get what they want.

No one likes to hear negative comments about themselves. People take it personally. However, knowing the reason for rejection can help change your direction. You can correct the aspects that made people reject you in the first place.

This won’t work with everything. For instance, if a person you are attracted to does not return the favor, it may be difficult or impossible to turn this around. Then again, there are numerous stories of people who persevered even when they were rejected time and again, and won the love of their lives.

Another instance where you may face rejection is during a job interview. Many candidates will pass this off as incompetence on the part of the interviewer, and there are certainly cases where this is true. But, you should always try to evaluate the reasons why the interviewer did not choose you. You’d be surprised at how few people even ask for the reasons. Interviewers won’t typically volunteer this information. Many will feel you don’t care if you don’t ask.

In many cases, rejection is not personal. You may not have the necessary skills when seeking a job, or you may not have enough experience, etc. In other cases, it may be somewhat personal, but it may be in your best interest to get rejected. For instance, if you don’t have an aggressive personality, do you want to pursue a career that requires one? If you are in sales, you need to have this driving personality to succeed.

Use rejection to your benefit. People who accept rejection and don’t give up are usually the ones who eventually get that acceptance. Sometimes, the very fact that you are persevering is what turns the tables from rejection to acceptance. Whose to say that next opportunity is not the one that will accept you? You won’t know unless you continue on your quest.

Notes from Alice: How to Work with Your Clients

Most people feel emotional, to varying degrees, upon being rejected, but it's important to look at the situation for what it is:

• In many cases, it has nothing to do with them as an individual. Help your client understand that people have preferences, there are things going on in their own lives and it's usually not personal. 
• In some cases, it might be because your client is not a good fit. Where appropriate, encourage your client to seek constructive feedback, so that they can take rejection as an opportunity to improve, rather than a negative experience. 
• Life is often a numbers game and that's where perseverance comes in. Often we have to hear no several times before we get to a yes. Encourage your clients to dust themselves off, use the constructive feedback to improve and get back to work again. 

And the best part of applying these strategies is the more your clients can do this, the easier the habit becomes. Soon, they'll be looking forward to those No's, so they can get to the Yes's faster.