Rejection, how many of you are afraid of it? How many of you don’t want to face it? Every one of us. But we all are aware of the fact that rejection is an inevitable part of our lives. Every person existing in this world has been rejected at least once, leading them to feel ‘worthless’ and ‘disheartened’. Many people lose their self-worth because of this horrible thing called rejection.
It’s true that rejection is hard to deal with, but only a person who comes up with a strong front even after being rejected is the one who succeeds. Rejection is a type of negative motivation and a person who perceives rejection as a motivation has the ability to move mountains. First of all, let’s get acquainted with the concept of negative motivation.
What is a negative motivation?
Negative motivation is the type of motivation in which you expect a punishment if you don’t work hard for your goal. This keeps you going because of the fear of punishment, i.e. rejection, insult or anything that would bother you. Negative motivation is different from positive motivation because it makes us work hard in fear of bad results. Whereas positive motivation makes us work hard for the need of success and achievement.
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear”
So, now we know that rejection is a form of motivation for us. But, how many of us consider it to be a motivating factor? Only handful of people. And they are the ones who achieve their goals undoubtedly.
The idea is to see the positivity in everything. We have to be an optimist in order to derive motivation even from a negative situation like rejection. If you lose hope on being rejected, then what is going to take you to your goal? None other than you can work hard for your goals and achieve success and satisfaction in your life.
Abraham Lincoln, who became the 16th president of USA in 1861, failed and got rejected several times before achieving this honorable title. His life can be summed up by the following:-
1832 – Lost his job.
1832 – Got defeated for a legislature.
1833 – Failed in business.
1834 – Got elected to the legislature.
1835 – His wife died.
1836 – Went through a nervous breakdown.
1838 – Got defeated for speaker post.
1843 – Didn’t get nominated for Congress.
1846 – Got elected to Congress.
1848 – Lost renomination.
1849 – Got rejected for land officer post.
1854 – Got defeated for Senate.
1856 – Didn’t get nominated for Vice-President.
1858 – Again defeated for Senate.
1861 – Elected as the President of USA.
He took motivation from his rejections and failures rather than being upset and de-motivated. He came up with a stronger front every time and finally succeeded in achieving his goal.
Another example is the renowned writer, J.K. Rowling, who wrote the Harry Potter series and won the hearts of millions of people.
“By every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew”
– J.K. Rowling
Yes, she said that! Wondering why? Well, she didn’t gain fame overnight too. Her mother died leaving her in depression and despair. She fell prey to an abusive marriage and got divorced after some time. But, now she had a daughter that she had to raise all alone. She kept working on completing her book even after all the struggles she was going through because she knew she had no other option for earning a livelihood.
After completing her book, she approached various publishers only to get rejected. She got rejected by 12 publishers! But she didn’t give up. This spirit of her lead to her success. Her book finally got selected by a publisher and it became one of the bestselling books in the world!
Her hard work and spirit paid off! And most importantly, rejection didn’t shake her, it made her stronger!
Great personalities indeed!
All we got to know from their inspiring stories was that rejections do not break you, they make you! Take every rejection as a fresh challenge that you have to overcome and achieve your goal with excellence.
“Every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better.”
