How to overcome the fear of rejection/defeat?

You’ve made a great decision, asking this question. Most people won’t, they will just let that fear rule every choice and moment in their lives.

Fear of rejection/defeat isn’t so harmful moment to moment, because we need a little bit of nerves to keep life interesting. When it shows up constantly, though, it creates a hindrance. One can’t really get rid of the fear of rejection or failure entirely, but they should get accustomed to facing it, as early as possible.

Because of the high competition world we live in, fear of rejection is extremely common. There is, and only ever has been, one solution: Learn to do the things that scare you the most. Learn to respond to that fear in the opposite way that you currently do.

First, please remember that even if you are frustrated with yourself right now, you do not always procrastinate or wimp out on something you wanted to do. At least a few times in your life, you have taken a major leap without consideration of what might go wrong. You acted before you even had time to really comprehend the potential social impact that failure would have. Most of us were this way when children, until things drove us to ‘grow up’ and become more cynical and fear-focused.

Straight to the point, here are 11 tips to stop thinking about rejection and return to a more innocent state of optimism:

1) Failure, if interpreted properly, is the REQUIRED next step to success. At the least, you will have at least something to learn.

2) It’s all about your mindset. Thinking of success will bring you closer to it, thinking otherwise will slow you down. Thinking of what others want all the time gives them power. Thinking of what you want all the time gives you power. The choice is yours.

3) Take risks, and you will be pleasantly surprised by how much you can handle.

4) Fear is a state that relies on anything it can use. For this reason, you can believe that fear is irrational and not worth listening to. For example, you can be afraid that your next job interview won’t go well and you’ll embarrass yourself. You tell yourself that won’t happen and practice to eliminate the possibility. But then you just start fearing that even if you do great at the interview, you won’t get the job anyway. So you weren’t really afraid of anyone specific thing, it was just a state clinging on to whatever reasoning it could. Once you view fear as a state of mind, and nothing more, it loses a lot of its power over you.

5) Have trust in yourself. You are not the only person ever who had to cowboy out on their own, without any guarantee of success. Not by a long shot. But, there are also many people who have succeeded in the exact same way that you want to, and these people all felt the same hesitation and mental blocks that you are dealing with now. Even if you are the first one to do something, and you don’t have any role models or past examples of success, then all the more reason to believe! It’s an opportunity for you to set an example for others. Ergo, you will have expanded the market and given more possibilities back to the world.

6) You should talk about your fear with someone else who is also pursuing difficult goals. Someone you can trust, who can motivate you, and have a meaningful discussion with.

7) Rejection never completely vanishes and you never become completely invincible to it, but you do get stronger and more used to not getting exactly what you want, the more experience you get. So, stay strong! Have confidence that you are getting better consistently.

8) Take apart the actual reason for your fear. Eventually, you’ll realize there isn’t one singular thing it settles on at the “heart” of the matter. Fear can be inspired by real-life events, but it tries to perpetuate itself afterward for no logical reason.

9) Don’t talk negatively with yourself. It’s one thing to not say negative things about yourself, but be positive about other people and other things in general. It trains you to be in a good state of mind when something goes wrong.

10) Hang around with people who talk and think positive. Similar reasoning to tip #9.

11) Exercise, go for a long walk, go places with friends, entertain yourself. Don’t let whatever you’re working on dominating your entire life. Prepare a schedule on how you want to spend your day and stick to the leisurely parts.

It would be a very quiet and unremarkable world if no entrepreneur ever faced their fears of rejection. No doubt, everyone has these fears, but the key is to find a way to personally overcome them, one that works for you.

To add more value to this answer, I have an interesting post to share with you: “How to Never Wimp Out Again.” If you are interested, that post is on my website. 

In conclusion, to overcome the fear of rejection/defeat, taking action is critical. For the most part, how we act is the biggest driver of our thought patterns and what we expect out of life. That’s why you have to actually IMPLEMENT some of the things I said here. If you do, I am sure you will see a change in yourself and overcome your fear.

Please feel free to reply if you need clarification.

Good Luck!

Be fearless!

Thanks,

Cleo