Dealing with rejection in your job

In today’s uncertain job market, you never know when you will be shown the door. Even if you do not lose your job, just being put down by your boss or colleagues can be equally demoralizing. There are many ways in which you may experience rejection at work place. If your ideas are not being heard or you are just being ignored; if you do not get a raise or a promotion; if you are not a part of the ‘in’ crowd in your office, if you do not get the job that you applied for; all this can take its toll on you emotionally. These rejections can make you lose your self-esteem, and make you doubt your abilities. So much so that you may start looking for another job, or may consider switching your career path!

What should you do to overcome this emotional turmoil of rejection? How should you handle rejection? First of all it helps to know that even some of the most successful and famous people in the world have faced the same dilemma that you are facing today. J.K.Rowling, the famous author of the record breaking ‘Harry Potter’ books, used to live on welfare before she hit it big with her ‘now phenomenal’ book. Albert Einstein flunked the entrance exams to the Swiss Polytechnic Institute. Abraham Lincoln’s failures and rejections are legendary. Thomas Edison was shown the door of his school at a very early age. Even someone as successful as Amitabh Bachchan was rejected many times before he signed up for Saat Hindustani.

Does it help to know that you are not alone? So many people face rejection, but so few make it work for them. Where are you placed? Most people make the mistake of making rejection affect them negatively. Don’t let it happen to you. Yes, one can’t deny that it does feel terrible to be rejected. Your self- image does take a beating. You do feel lousy. But don’t let this feeling last longer than a couple of hours. Look at this rejection as an opportunity that can change your life for better.

The first thing to do is to ask for an explanation. If you have been turned down for a job, or a promotion, calmly and coolly ask your rejecter for the reasons. Sometimes the reasons have nothing to do with you. The decision may have been based on something to do with the company, such as budget constraints. Even if the reason has something to do with you, knowing that reason helps you improve yourself for future.

Always remember not to take rejection personally. Your job is just one facet of your life. There are other important people in your life who dote on you, respect you, and love you. Whatever someone in the workplace says or does that causes you pain is not often personal. That person does not necessarily have something against you. He may be working in the interest of the organization. Your talents may not be suitable for a higher position. After all every one reaches his level of incompetence some day! Your day may have come sooner than others. Accept your limitations in this one area of your life gracefully.

Let go of the need to change what has already happened. If you envy the person who got the promotion, or got the job, or got the raise; you are only making the matters worse for you. Let go of the need to change others. Allow yourself to let go of the feeling of being rejected. Take the decision in your stride. Don’t try to reject the people who rejected you in the first place. It does not help. Relax and forget about what others think. The important thing to know is what ‘you’ think of yourself. If you treat yourself with respect and dignity, the others would do the same.
Take control. Don’t feel like a victim. Don’t let the rejection get you down. Don’t lose interest in your work. Let go of your hurt feelings by re-enforcing the confidence in your strengths. Remember that only you have the power to determine how you feel. Use that power NOW.

Others can ‘reject’ us only when we reject ourselves. Let us not give that power to others. Self-esteem can neutralize any fear of real or perceived rejection. When we love, accept and honor ourselves, we re-gain our power. Louise Hay, the author of bestseller ‘You can heal your life’, asks everyone to look into their eyes in the mirror and repeat, ‘I love and accept myself exactly the way I am.’ I have worked with this magic sentence. It raises one’s self esteem by leaps and bounds. After that the fear of rejection becomes a thing of the past. After all ‘others’ are just mirror images of ‘us’.

By: Chitra Jha

Predict your future!

You can predict your future. You really can predict your own success or your own failure. “Nonsense!” you say? It really is true.

Consider this. If you have absolutely no control over your future, then why worry about anything? Whatever is going to happen to you is going to happen anyway, right? That’s called fate. And believe it or not, that in and of itself is a prediction.

It is true; we have absolutely no control over many things in life. I cannot control the stock market, can you? I cannot control the housing market, can you? So many things are simply out of our control.

But, one thing is very much in your control, your own mind. You can choose to think about anything that you want to, at any given time. Right now, for example, you could choose to picture a skiing elephant.

If you did indeed, just now, picture a skiing elephant it is because you decided to think that. I may have made a suggestion, but you made a decision to think it and picture it. The same is true if you chose not to think about a skiing elephant.

So what does this have to do with predicting our future? Because we are always talking to ourselves, it has a great effect on our future. The words we speak to ourselves will either cause new things to happen in our life or they will help to perpetuate the road we are on.

Years ago, I used to go bowling once in awhile. It was just for fun with friends and I would go once or twice a year. The scores on my first three frames were always horrible. Do you know why? As soon as I would grab the ball when it was my turn, I had the thought, “Don’t throw it in the gutter; don’t throw it in the gutter!” That was my self-talk. And, I didn’t know it at the time, but that was my prediction. Almost always in the first three frames, I would have at least two or three gutter balls.

But, once the game got going, I would shift my focus from the ball not going into the gutter to hitting the pins. I didn’t know it, but again, that was a prediction. And even being a very inexperienced bowler, my scores increased. I even got a strike once in awhile.

Now I know there are people who say, “Oh I’ve heard all this positive stuff before and it just doesn’t work for me.” That is self-talk and that is a prediction. I have also heard people who say other things, like, “Nothing ever goes right for me; I never catch a break.” Or, “I knew that was going to happen.”

Self-talking becomes future predictions. These predictions always produce results.

Those who are successful in life don’t dwell on what they don’t want to happen, but instead they dwell on what they do want to happen. They don’t dwell on their past failures and losses. Instead, they remember past successes. These memories, whether they are successes or failures, will evoke feelings and emotions. These feelings and emotions leave an imprint on your subconscious mind which is just as vivid as a reoccurrence of success. And, these thoughts are a prediction of what is going to happen.

Many of those who teach self-help and self-esteem courses say to see yourself as though you have already achieved what you desire in life. They encourage people to positively remind themselves over and over of where they want their life to go. So much of this is based on the dynamic truth, “as he thinks in his heart so is he.”

You cannot control nor can you predict many things going on all around you. But you can control what you think about. And most importantly, you can control what you tell yourself about yourself; your self-talk.

You really can predict your own future. You can set your own course regardless of the situations and conditions of the world around you. The Creator gave you free will so that you can choose your thoughts and thus control your own self-talk.

So, what’s in your future?

By: Michael A. Verdicchio