Overcoming Fear of Rejection

1. Repeated Exposure

**Repeated exposure** can help you get rid of your fear by facing it head-on. Many people spend years hiding from the things that scare them. When you're afraid of rejection, you avoid any situation where you might be turned down. You stop putting yourself out there, you play it safe, stay in your comfort zone, and never make any progress. But you can move past your fear of rejection by having the exact experiences that you're afraid of.

In other words, you need to get rejected. In fact, you need to get rejected so many times that every failure doesn't feel like the end of the world because it isn't. Yeah, I know it's hard to wrap your head around right now, but with a bit of experience, you'll understand just how strong you really are.

So how do you put this technique into practice? Well, let's say you're trying to meet someone new. The next time you're in a public place, I want you to do something really unusual. I want you to go talk to at least ten people that you'd like to go out with. Just introduce yourself and ask them something simple like, "Do you want to get coffee sometime?" Chances are most of them will say no, and that's the point.

Your goal is to get shot down. Just for today, you should walk into every conversation assuming that a big fat no is coming your way. The truth is most people who are scared of rejection have rarely ever experienced it. They're terrified of something that they don't really understand. But this exercise familiarizes you with rejection. You'll learn what it sounds like, what it feels like, and how much less dramatic it really is.

2. Turn Fear into Fuel

Rejection doesn't have to set you back. People who have overcome their fear of rejection use each failure as fuel. It's evidence that you're pushing yourself in the right direction, challenging yourself in new ways, and that can be really motivating.

Destroying your fear is no different than finding success in life. You have to fail before you make any kind of real progress because those failures give you a better idea of what you really want. They give you the confidence to make your success worthwhile.

Just imagine you've been procrastinating an application for a job that you really, really want. You've always pictured yourself taking a position just like this, but you can't find the courage to apply. You're too scared of being rejected. You're worried that losing this job is going to completely ruin your future, or maybe you're afraid to find out that you're not ready yet. Either way, by changing your mindset, every rejection will feel like a meaningful experience. Because before you get shot down, you have to try. You have to put yourself out there. You might have gotten rejected this time, but at least you know with absolute confidence that you're moving forward.

3. Solidify Your Definitions

**Don't let your rejections define you**. That's how your fear comes out on top. It fills your head with all these unrealistic definitions of who you are. Let's say you're thinking about asking out someone that you've liked for quite a while. You put a lot of effort into getting to know them, and they seem to like spending time with you, but you're too scared to make a move because you're convinced you're not up to the challenge.

Fear uses the threat of rejection to attack your character. It tells you that you're not smart enough, you're not charismatic enough, that they'd never be attracted to someone like you. And if you do end up getting rejected, that negativity will grow tenfold. It'll feel like you just confirmed all those horrible things about yourself. But you know what? You didn't. You're just making a bunch of baseless assumptions.

This negativity traps you inside your fear unless you can remember the kind of person that you really are. That's why it's so important to solidify your identity. Get a good grasp on the traits that define you. Because whether you succeed or fail, you're still you. You don't lose your talents, your passions, and your personality just because some random person isn't interested.

4. Physical Achievement

Social and physical pain are very closely linked in your brain. In fact, they're so close that working through one helps you deal with the other. That's why facing physical challenges is a great way to overcome your mental roadblocks. Start by setting some kind of physical goal for yourself. You might decide you want to run a marathon. As you train, build strength, and boost your fitness, you aren't just improving your health. Without realizing it, you're developing more self-confidence and courage.

You're training your body and mind to face more challenging obstacles. When you finally do accomplish your goal, you'll have physical proof that you're capable of doing something that you never thought you could. You'll know that you can conquer your fears just like you conquered that marathon. Because compared to running 26 miles, interviewing for a job will feel like a piece of cake.

If you're struggling with this kind of insecurity, direct your energy toward a new physical challenge. Do something scary or intimidating. That incredible sense of achievement will help you get the better of your fears.

5. Dislocated Blame

Most rejections have nothing to do with you. When you're scared of getting shot down, you assume that every failure is your fault. You see each rejection as a comment on your self-worth. You take it personally, even if it's not related to you in the slightest.

You have no idea what motivates other people to do the things they do. If you ask someone on a date and they say no, there are a million different reasons why they might have turned you down. Maybe they just got out of a long-term relationship, so they want to be single for a while. Or they're only in town for a few days visiting some friends.

You assume it's because you're unattractive and awkward, but you never know what circumstances in someone's life led up to that moment. Now let's go ahead and flip this around. If rejection has almost nothing to do with you, what do you have to be scared of? More often than not, getting turned down just means it wasn't the right time or the right place.

Despite what you see in movies and TV shows, people rarely do things just to attack or degrade you. If you get rejected, it's probably because they had something else going on in their life, and that's not something you have any control over.

6. Social Stability

After getting rejected, you probably crave some kind of social connection. But most people look for it in the wrong places. They might, for example, search for attention on social media. They'll look for someone to validate them, someone to say they didn't deserve to get rejected, but it never really helps. They'll end up more down and unsatisfied than when they started.

But the right kind of social interaction can cure your fear of rejection by showing you how little it changes about your life. One rejection won't shatter your world into a million pieces. Sometimes it feels like it, but it never does.

Your friends and family are still there to support you. Your dreams and aspirations are still there to guide you. So when something doesn't go your way, fall back into the life you've created for yourself. Engage with the people that you know and love. Let them prove to you that you're still the same person that you were yesterday. And if you can do that, rejection won't seem so bad.

7. Teardown Idealizations

Your fear of rejection affects the way you look at everyone but yourself. The most common example revolves around the people you're romantically interested in. If you see a girl sitting in a coffee shop, you probably imagine how perfect she is. You assume she's the whole package, she's everything you could ever want and more, and there isn't a single thing wrong with her.

Obviously, that isn't true. No one is perfect. She's got just as many shortcomings as anyone else in the world, but you're pretending they don't exist. You're putting her so high up on a pedestal that you could never possibly reach her.

Now, of course, idealization doesn't just affect your romantic partners. You might idealize certain careers in your head. One job seems like it'll make you happy for the rest of your life, but that's not really how it works. You might end up in a completely different place a year from now, loving a career that you never thought you'd have.

You might also idealize the people you admire, but you spend so much time wishing you had their talents that you never develop any of your own. So tear down those ideals. They're keeping you from seeing the world the way it really is, full of flaws, mistakes, and insecurities.

If you stop idealizing people and opportunities, each rejection won't seem like a complete failure. You'll stop feeling like you missed out on the only thing that'll ever make you happy because you didn't. You missed one chance, and believe me, there will be plenty more.

Table of Strategies

Strategy	Key Benefit	Action Step
Repeated Exposure	Desensitizes fear of rejection	Talk to ten new people
Turn Fear into Fuel	Motivation from failure	Apply for a challenging job
Solidify Definitions	Maintains self-identity	Remember personal strengths
Physical Achievement	Builds confidence	Set a physical goal like a marathon
Dislocated Blame	Separates rejection from self-worth	Acknowledge external factors
Social Stability	Emphasizes supportive relationships	Engage with family and friends
Teardown Idealizations	Reduces unrealistic expectations	Recognize flaws in others

Further Reading

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