Managing rejection in my career

Hi,
I’ve become very conscious recently that the career I’ve chosen has a particularly high level of rejection exposure! I’m a freelance journalist… and it sounds obvious that writing, like many other creative pursuits, comes with this. But I don’t think I fully appreciated how much it is a part of the job until recently.
I went freelance last year, and in the moment I thought I’d done a pretty good job of managing it, not letting it put me off, or give up etc. But, I think over the course of the year, the combination of these ‘small cuts’ regularly – plus the first big rejection on my book proposal that I’d spent months working on at the end of the year – all added up. And the result was feeling like my inner core self had been chipped away at, and was less shiny.
I submitted an ask a coach recently about wanting to feel desired – after not feeling like that for a while – and I realised, wow, this is essentially to feel wanted. And that is the opposite to being in a rejection state, which is basically about not feeling wanted.
I know there are reasons why it’s a sore spot for me, due to family history – I have been through periods of estrangement with parents and my mum in particular often gave me the silent treatment growing up. So I recognise that it will be activating this, and the ensuing feelings of powerlessness, even though it’s nothing to do with that.
Anyway, it’s hit me that moving forwards, it would be helpful to work on my relationship with rejection so that it’s not taking so much from me…. Because if I’m going to be able to stay in this type of work long-term, I need to be able to manage that.
Some initial ideas I had were around visualising a form of gold armour when it happens! Or maybe even taking an action which is a form of self-desire. And focussing on examples of being desired (including my work) in my brain, having a bank of these to hand.
I already manage my mind in the moment often, and coach myself around it. But that doesn’t seem to be enough in the long-run. I would like to counter it with something more powerful!!

Any advice on managing this / potential solutions much appreciated.
Many thanks

 

 

Answer:

You’ve done such good work already. Be sure to acknowledge yourself, and celebrate getting that book proposal out! Something that can help with this is to give yourself opportunities to be rejected. What if you purposely made a goal to get 10 rejections, or 100?  What do you think would happen along the way of reaching those goals? What would it bring up for you? What could you learn? That’s the real treasure.  Getting a book published would be the icing on the cake.  When you think of a hero’s journey, and interesting story…what is it like if they just win in chapter 1? They have no obstacles to overcome?

I would also offer that you could work on your story about rejection. If that word brings up a lot, if you need to defend yourself from it, it will be a big deal.  But what if it’s not? What are the reasons a book might not get chosen? Write down everything you can think of, there are no wrong answers, be silly, be creative.  Then look over the reasons. What do you see?