Rejection calls for reflection.
Was it the right opportunity, the right time, the right audience? What could be improved in the way my ideas, my plan, my experience is introduced? What will I do next to make sure next time I can progress towards the goal?
What rejection does not need is forcefulness – I will do it my way – and surrender – I will give up.
Rejection is a second chance.
Some people will like you, some people will not like you, and most people will be somewhere in the middle.
Your responsibility is not to change where people stand.
Your responsibility is to spend more time with people that, for the most part, like you and less time with people that, for the most part, do not like you.
You’ll feel better. And they will feel better too.
You get out of a three-hour meeting where you have discussed important topics for the future of your team, your department, your company.
The first instinct is to share the bits and pieces of information you have collected with your peers – impressions, thoughts, gossips, directions, changes, tasks. If you are leader, you’d probably call right away an extraordinary meeting with people reporting into you, just to make sure that everybody can share in your own frustration, excitement, or whatever it is that you are feeling.
It would probably be a lot better, though, if you would take a moment to actually think about what just happened. Go for a walk. Call it a day. Take a piece of paper and write down what you have heard. Sleep on it. Go on for one or two days before talking to anybody that was not in that meeting about what comes next.
Your confusion does not have to be other people’s confusion.
Sure, sharing is fantastic and it makes you feel a little less lonely. But when you do not yet have a clear idea of what you should share, is it really worth it?
It’s ok to be cheerful even when not everything is going well. It’s ok to be down even when most things seem to be perfect.
We need to be able to recognise that life is made of a multitude of pieces. The one that is in front of us right now is what determines our current mood. And fortunately there is much more for us to appreciate, at any given time.
Try not to have two things requiring your immediate attention at the same time.
Always choose one. Keep it front and centre as you dedicate your full energy to it. Push the other (or the others) to the background, silencing its pressing requests. Once you have completed a meaningful part of what you have selected first, only then move your full attention to what is next. Repeat.
Sometimes you are so busy that things keep taking turns in your field of attention. You complete a task, move on to a second item, go back to the first to continue to the next milestone, begin with a third to take it to completion, switch to the second to progress it some more, and so on. If feels like you are dancing.
That’s the incredible feeling of working in sequence.
You've got this 