How often do you deal with rejection?
Last week I received a no.
Well, it was not directly a no to me, but to a project that a colleague applied for and that I was supposed to collaborate on. It is never nice. With every rejection comes the time and energy you spent pursuing the opportunity, but there is also another part that I think we talk about less: you also lose the version of the future that you had already started imagining. In this case, that meant a project that, at least for now, will not take place. You start thinking about the work you could do, the people you might collaborate with, how the project could develop, and suddenly that possible future disappears.
Most of the time, the stories that get the spotlight are the successful ones: the grant that was awarded, the job that was accepted, the collaboration that went ahead. But for most of us, the process also includes many failures, rejections and disappointments. If we only share the successful part, we are not really showing what the process looks like. This is especially true in research, freelancing and other areas where so many opportunities depend on applications, funding, selection processes or other people making decisions. Rejection is not really an exception. It is often part of the normal process, even if we do not talk about it that much.
The more you can separate yourself from the rejection,
the better. A no does not necessarily mean that your project was bad, that your idea was not valuable, or that you were not capable of doing the work. Very often, there are external factors involved that have little to do with you. There might be limited funding, many strong applications, different priorities, timing, or simply a better fit somewhere else. Of course, that does not mean there is nothing to learn from it. Sometimes the proposal can be improved, sometimes the way the idea is communicated can be clearer, and sometimes you realise that the opportunity was probably not the right one in the first place. I think the useful part is learning what you can without turning every rejection into a judgement about yourself.
I have also heard about “rejection challenges”, where people deliberately try to collect as many noes as possible in a short period of time. The idea is that, after hearing no often enough, it starts to feel a little less personal. I have never done this intentionally, but in a way my career has already given me plenty of practice. Between applications, grants, jobs, projects and other opportunities, I have probably heard more noes than yeses over the years. And although rejection is still disappointing, I think I recover from it much faster now than I used to. You realise that a no usually means “not this time” or “not this opportunity” rather than something much bigger about you.
My colleague and I still believe in the project
and plan to continue applying to other funding sources. It is very possible that one day the project will actually happen. And maybe, if that happens, you will see it on my LinkedIn feed as one of those successful projects and never know that it started with a rejection. I guess that is also part of the process. Behind many of the things that eventually work, there are probably several versions that did not. What about you? Do you deal with rejection often, and has the way you react to it changed over time?
