Facing adversity and rejection: What you can
do to thicken your skin.
August 17, 2017
Building the
confidence necessary to take failure in stride isn’t easy. And
it certainly doesn’t happen overnight. Like all great habits, you have to put
in the time and effort to build a daily practice of confidence-building
actions. Take these lessons learned from entrepreneurs who have faced numerous
failures as your starting point.
1. Failure isn’t forever.
There’s no way to talk yourself out of a fear
of failure: You just have to keep embracing
challenging projects until you have the experience to understand
that failure isn’t forever.Failure will have consequences, but
don’t let your attitude add extra ones. Get back on your feet and try something
new. Try something easier if it will get you back in the groove.
—Adam Steele, The Magistrate
2. “This too shall pass.”
Rejection or adversity that seems so important
right now will be forgotten by tomorrow, next week or next year. Your life will
go on, and if you stick to your values and what you know to be important,
you’ll weather the slings and arrows of fortune and be all the stronger for it.
—Vik Patel, Future Hosting
3. Failure isn’t unique.
No one goes through life or work without some
kind of adversity, rejection and low confidence. Successful people learn how
to deal with those
inevitabilities, so why can’t I? At least that’s what I tell myself
whenever I start feeling down for whatever reason. Then break it down and learn
from it, so that it doesn’t happen again.
—Ben Walker, Transcription Outsourcing, LLC
4. Criticism doesn’t equal judgment.
What other people think of you is none of your
business. You need to take feedback with a grain of salt. The more you can
distance yourself and not judge yourself, the better you’ll be able to focus on
the actual work.
—Nicole Munoz, Start Ranking
Now
5. Not everything is about you.
People reject you for their own reasons, and
those reasons often have little to do with you. Don’t let it knock your
confidence, because it’s often not a reflection of your competence or
character. Focus on doing good work and making good
choices. Let other people’s judgments fall where they may.
—Justin Blanchard, ServerMania Inc.
6. Time is the greatest teacher.
The more experiences and time you have dealing
with those situations, the thicker your skin will get because you will see a
pattern to what is happening and understand more about why these situations
occur. It has helped me to face numerous situations that seemed horrible at the
time to increase my resilience.
—John Rampton, Due
7. Rejection is a powerful tool.
Have you ever noticed that some of the
greatest stories are about people who have overcome
adversity? Most of these stories are possible because adversity and
rejection make people stronger. Adversity and rejection are useful tools for
anyone who wants to get better and improve in any area of life. Start seeing
rejection as a tool and something useful.
—Mark Daoust, Quiet Light
Brokerage, Inc.
8. Practice becomes reality.
Sometimes it’s hard to be confident and strong
when you’re faced with challenging situations. The best thing to do is to fake
being confident and work through whatever it is you’re feeling. If you really
think about it, you’re not faking it; you’re just practicing good habits.
Simply, if you practice something long enough, you’ll realize you’ve become a
master at it.
—Russell Kommer, eSoftware
Associates Inc
9. Honesty hurts now and helps later.
Training for anything is invaluable. Rejection
is no different. Experiencing it is a quick way to immunize yourself to it. One
mistake is that people often talk themselves down (I suck) or up (Screw
that guy, I’m right) afterward. Trying to calm emotions and apply any
valuable, honest critique
of your performance are quick ways to improve and avoid the
situation in the future.
—Brennan White, Cortex
10. Relationships are key.
I surround myself with people I care about and
I let people who I care about know it. The best way to face adversity or
rejection is to know you have people who understand and love you nearby.
Relationships often allow us to look at situations from new perspectives, and
this can help us see positivity in every kind of situation.
—Zev Herman, Superior Lighting
11. Humility has power.
Humility is
an undervalued commodity, so it’s a great time to buy. Acknowledging the help
and contributions of others on the team prevents you from being too high to
hear the opinions of others, and the lows of not feeling like you can do it on
your own.
—Tim Chaves, ZipBooks
12. Knowledge expands your perspective.
There are some great books on this topic that
go far deeper than we can get into here. The Subtle Art
of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by
Mark Manson and You Are a
Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by
Jen Sincero are two of my favorites.
—Sam Saxton, Paragon Stairs
https://www.success.com/article/12-empowering-lessons-about-failure?utm_source=Maropost&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=SUCCESSLive&mpweb=574-6951825-742741518
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