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My New Year\u2019s resolution to get more rejections worked so well last year that I am making it again.\u00a0I didn\u2019t resolve to clean around the outside of the toilet or floss my teeth daily.\u00a0I didn\u2019t resolve to improve myself in any way.\u00a0In fact, my resolution makes no sense at all.<\/p>\n
I need to write that again in case you\u2019re reading quickly.\u00a0I resolved last year to get more rejections and I\u2019m resolving to do the same this year.<\/strong><\/p>\n Why would anyone want to get more rejections?<\/p>\n I hate to be rejected.<\/p>\n It hurts when someone says no to something, for whatever reason.<\/p>\n In Psych 101 at Cornell University, where I went to college, we learned about two kinds of personalities: the people who believe bad things are just “situational,” temporary glitches in an otherwise sound world; and the people who take bad things as “dispositional” and attribute their failures to a lack on their own part\u2014to their own unworthiness or incompetence.<\/p>\n The personality test assigned me to the latter category, an even better reason to eschew failure no matter what.<\/p>\n No one can reject you if you don\u2019t apply, but no one can accept you either.\u00a0I remember hearing about the manager of a wildly successful computer company who came storming into the office one day saying, \u201cthis is just not acceptable!\u201d\u00a0His employees were utterly perplexed.<\/p>\n Their ideas had been working well, the company was at maximum profits, and here was their boss angry with them.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are not failing enough!\u201d the boss insisted. \u201cIf you don\u2019t fail, you\u2019re not pushing the envelope. I want real innovation here. And real innovation means failed attempts. Now start making some mistakes!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s what I set out to do last January\u2014start making mistakes and get more rejections.\u00a0I realized I was too complacent in my writing life and I wasn\u2019t trying hard enough.\u00a0I also realized that the only way to learn that rejection is not about me or who I am was to get more rejections.<\/p>\n The more I got rejected, I figured, the more I would be comfortable getting rejected.<\/p>\n Instead of wallowing in self pity, wondering why an editor vetoed my idea, I could send it out again and get more rejections, thus fulfilling my New Year\u2019s resolution and learning to be a situational instead of a dispositional thinker.<\/p>\n And it worked!<\/p>\n I broke into two writing markets I\u2019ve been wanting to crack:<\/p>\n I also applied for an overseas fellowship, contacted editors at travel magazines, and wrote articles for the likes of Parents<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and Sunset<\/em><\/a> magazines.<\/p>\n And the dozens of rejections I got\u2014I can wallpaper our entire house with them\u2014started to sting less.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not easy to keep a constant flow of rejections coming in and for awhile there was a lull.<\/p>\n The inevitable let down happened and I walked into my husband\u2019s office (he also works from home) with a long face.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n \u201cSo and so rejected my idea,\u201d I sighed. \u201cI thought this one would work. I can\u2019t do this. I feel so bad.\u201d<\/p>\n My husband gave me a hug. \u201cThere\u2019s another way to look at it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re fulfilling your New Year\u2019s resolution! You got rejected again! Good job!\u201d<\/p>\n We both laughed and I went back to work.<\/p>\n In my in-box was a message from an editor wanting to assign me an article she needed written. This same editor had previously rejected no fewer than ten<\/em> of my other ideas (but in an encouraging way, inviting me to send more). Persistence pays off.<\/strong><\/p>\n I did a little happy dance.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the thing about looking for rejection … along the way you may find what we all really want: acceptance.<\/strong><\/p>\n Author’s note: This post was originally published as a column in the Ashland Daily Tidings. I also wrote about rejection<\/a>\u00a0when I was Literary Mama’s Creative Nonfiction Editor.<\/em><\/p>\n Published: Jan 28, 2009 Related articles<\/strong>: My New Year\u2019s resolution to get more rejections worked so well last year that I am making it again.\u00a0I didn\u2019t resolve to clean around the outside of the toilet or floss my teeth daily.\u00a0I didn\u2019t resolve to improve myself in any way.\u00a0In fact, my resolution makes no sense at all. I resolved to get more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[8352,8162,8],"tags":[45,46,47,48],"yoast_head":"\nBut if you’re scared of failure and rejection, guess what? You can\u2019t succeed.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
I got scores of rejections.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
But I also got something else: acceptances.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
Since I needed to get more rejections I couldn\u2019t stay comfortable where I was, I had to look for new opportunities.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nUpdated: March 7, 2022<\/p>\n
\nDon’t Read This Sitting Down<\/a>
\nWhen You’re a Writer Who Feels Like a Fake<\/a>
\nOn Professional Editing and Why I Charge my Friends for Advice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"