Rejection literally changes your brain
According to research by Case Western Reserve University, rejection causes a massive, albeit drop in IQ levels. If this is the case, how do we face rejection at work so that it doesn’t send self esteem, IQs, and therefore quality of work spiraling out of control?
Chad Richison, CEO and co-founder of Paycom says, that success is, in fact, reliant upon failure. “Our philosophy is “fail fast.” I was wrong more than I was right. Paycom today is successful because we expect to fail and fail and fail and at the end, once we have eliminated most other options, we get the perfect answer. Success usually happens when failure is no longer an option.”
Rejection can be turned around as well
For example, in sales, rejection is a part of your daily routine. When you don’t make a sale, you have to move on, or you will miss the next one. You have to look at every rejection as a learning experience. Step back. Look at what happened. Define the successes and failures, and apply them to your next deal.
If you are passed up for a promotion or for a raise, it is difficult not to focus on yourself or your missteps. What you must realize is that there are more components to the scenario than just you.
Your boss, the owner, the CEO all have goals that have to be met in order to run a successful company. Being promoted may just not fit into the formula at the time. It’s just business. It’s not personal. If you can train yourself to accept that, you will respond much less negatively to rejection.
You are, however, allowed to take a bit of time to grieve rejection. Be shocked. Get angry. Accept it. Learn from it, and apply what you’ve learned. Turning negatives into positives is the stuff life is made of, and while it may be tough at first to fail or to be rejected, you will almost certainly look back on it as a learning experience. You may as well start learning from it sooner than later.
