Mark McGuinness - Resilience: Facing Down Rejection (5 page)

Mindfulness practice has been applied in many different contexts, including spiritual and personal development, psychotherapy, sport, and learning. It is also the single most powerful thing you can do to develop resilience.

How mindfulness builds resilience

Mindfulness helps you develop the psychological strength and flexibility that combine to produce resilience. This has a paradoxical effect that is hard to describe but pleasantly surprising to experience.

On the one hand you feel much more vividly aware of your thoughts and feelings, but on the other, they don’t affect you as much as before. It’s as though you are holding them at arm’s length, yet without becoming detached from them. And this changes the way you experience both rejection and criticism:

• Rejection and criticism still hurt, but not so much as before.
  
• They don’t feel so overwhelming or so final.
  
• You don’t take them so seriously or so personally.
  
• You start to see them in perspective—you are more aware of alternative viewpoints and don’t take critics’ words as the last word.
  

The benefits of mindfulness practice are enormous, but they don’t happen overnight. It’s a steady, drip, drip, process. Because of this, it’s easy to overlook your progress, or to feel discouraged and give up, or just to skip it, because it feels like it won’t make much difference.

But if you stick with mindfulness, you will notice a real change. I’ll keep referring to mindfulness throughout the book, assuming that you are practicing it on a daily basis. (I’ll also assume you’ll give up and re-start several times before you’re convinced of its value. I know I did.) And rest assured I will teach you plenty of thinking techniques and action-based assignments to help you tackle specific aspects of rejection and criticism. Mindfulness is like a catalyst—if you practice it, every other technique in this book will become more powerful.

Your next steps:

I can’t take the credit for this technique. It is thousands of years old, and has been taught in different variations by many teachers. I learned it as part of my training as a psychotherapist, and also from the monks at Amaravati Buddhist monastery (www.amaravati.org).

1. Decide on a time of your day when it will be impossible to ‘forget’ to practice, and when there are fewest interruptions and distractions. Most people choose first thing in the morning or last thing at night.

2. Decide where to sit. If you’re flexible enough to sit cross-legged on a cushion, that’s great. It will help to keep your spine erect and make it hard to doze off. But it’s fine to sit in a chair—not a comfy reclining armchair, but one that allows you to sit up straight, with the soles of your feet on the floor.

3. Decide how long you’re going to sit. If in doubt, aim low, and start with five minutes a day. No matter how busy you are, you can spare five minutes, so that’s one excuse blitzed. And if you have a low boredom threshold and start fidgeting sooner rather than later, it’s easier to start with five minutes than twenty. As you get used to it and feel the benefits, you can gradually extend your practice to twenty or thirty minutes a day.

4. When it’s time to sit, switch off all your phones and put them out of reach. Make sure people around you know you are not to be disturbed.

5. As you sit, pay attention to your experience in the present:

• Physical sensations.
  
• What you can see (yes, you can keep your eyes open, or close them if you prefer).
  
• Sounds you can hear.
  
• Thoughts that enter your mind.
  
• Your feelings.
  

6. It may help to focus your attention on your breath as it enters and leaves your nostrils. Don’t try any special breathing techniques or deep breaths! Just pay attention to your natural breath as it comes and goes.

7. Inevitably, your mind will wander. You will ‘come round’ from time to time and realize you have been caught up in all kinds of daydreams, memories, worries, and fantasies. Don’t beat yourself up over this! It’s normal. The important thing is to notice when it happens, and bring your attention back to the present.

8. Don’t let boredom put you off. If you start to feel bored, don’t resist it—notice what it’s like. What kind of thoughts and feelings is it composed of? Keep your attention in the present, and the boredom will pass. Trust me.

Notes:

For an excellent introduction to mindfulness meditation, see Steve Hagen’s
Meditation: Now or Never
(Penguin, 2012).

For an overview of the types and benefits of Attentional Training (AT) as well as how to use it to deal with fear and uncertainty in the pursuit of big dreams, see Chapter 7 of Jonathan Fields’ book
Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into the Fuel for Brilliance
(Portfolio/Penguin 2011).

For another mindfulness technique, and more mindfulness and meditation resources, visit the resource page for this book:
http://lateralaction.com/resilience-resources

Rejection

7. Rejection comes first

Rejection is when someone says ‘no’ to you or your work. You don’t get the part, or the job, or the book deal, or the recording or consulting contract, or whatever it was you’d set your heart on.

Traditionally, rejection comes first. You need to persuade a gatekeeper, such as a job interviewer, editor, producer, casting director, or commissioner, that
you
are the one who should be given this opportunity. Only then do you get to do your thing (and expose yourself to public criticism).

These days, the internet gives you options for putting yourself and your work out there in all kinds of ways, without the need to charm a gatekeeper first. So in some contexts, you can bypass rejection (and go straight to criticism!). But there are still plenty of opportunities that require a thumbs-up or thumbs-down from gatekeepers. You don’t get to compete in the Olympics or star in a West End show or run for president by starting your own blog.

Sometimes rejection comes hand-in-hand with criticism. But often rejection is made even harder because you
don’t
get any feedback. The answer is ‘no’ but you don’t know why.

For our purposes I’m going to separate out rejection and criticism, highlight the different types of challenges they present, and show you what to do about them.

On with the rejection…

8. It’s normal

You know that feeling like a horse just kicked you in the stomach?

The one that hits you when you open the envelope or the email and the first words you see are
“I’m afraid…”

Or when the voice at the other end of the phone says,
“I’m sorry but…”

Or when the other person looks you in the eye and clears their throat, and you realize they are not smiling.

It’s normal.

And you know how you feel when the news really sinks in that this fabulous opportunity is not going to happen for you?

That feeling when you go home and it feels like your world has fallen in, that you’re a failure and you were stupid to even consider putting yourself forward. What were you thinking? How embarrassed they must have been to have to put you out of your misery and confirm that yes, you are a complete and total failure and you’ll never amount to anything so why don’t you just give up now. And how are you going to face the world and tell them about your latest, biggest, and most spectacular failure?

That’s normal too.

And you know how it feels like you’re the
only one
locked out on the outside with your failure, while all the gorgeous, talented, lucky, successful, confident people are celebrating on the inside (and laughing at you so hard champagne comes out of their noses).

That’s normal too, believe it or not.

I should know.

For one thing, I’ve experienced all those feelings myself.

But that’s not how I know it’s normal. If that were all the evidence I had, then it could just be you and me who have felt like that.

But it’s not just you and me.

You see, I’m in a privileged position. Over the past sixteen years, I’ve spent hundreds of hours as a coach and therapist, listening to people in the process of changing their lives and pursuing their dreams.

I’ve worked with rich people and poor people. People feeling lost and confused over their direction in life, and people on a mission to change the world. People who were just starting out and people with a long list of hits to their name. People struggling to break out of obscurity and people struggling to cope with fame.

The one thing they all had in common was that they were trying to achieve something remarkable with their lives. They were all pursuing a dream.

And you know what? At some point, most of them told me a version of the same thing:

Everyone else looks so confident and sure of themselves, unlike me, with all my doubts and insecurities.

If only I were a bit more like them, I wouldn’t keep getting rejected. I’d be a success.

After I’d heard variations on this theme several hundred times, I started to realize it wasn’t just me.
It was normal
.

You see, when you set yourself a big ambitious goal, chances are you’re chasing an opportunity a lot of other people would like to have:

• A lucrative book or recording deal.
  
• A well-paid job doing fulfilling work with inspiring people in the coolest part of town.
  
• The lead role in a play/movie/dance production.
  
• Funding and advice for your startup from wealthy, experienced, well-connected investors.
  
• A place in a top sports team.
  

If it were easy, everyone would be accepted and no-one would ever be disappointed. But it isn’t easy.

So most people are disappointed, most of the time.

In other words, it’s normal to be rejected and to feel the horse-kick in your stomach.

Everybody gets rejected. Even the best of the best. In fact, the best probably get rejected even more than the rest of us—because they put themselves out there more, take more chances, and pursue more opportunities. As Babe Ruth said: “Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”

Remember the list of 30 famous authors who suffered multiple rejections at the start of their career?

How come
they
were the ones who succeeded, when countless others fell by the wayside?

I think we both know it wasn’t just talent, or luck, or privilege. Those are the classic excuses we make when we want to belittle others’ achievements, or take pity on ourselves.

In the light of so much evidence of early rejection and later success, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that
they kept going in the face of rejection
. They didn’t get an easy ride. They weren’t led past the queue of rejects to a VIP entrance. They experienced the same pain and fear and anger and embarrassment as you and me. And they accepted it as
normal
. Par for the course. An occupational hazard. Something that goes with the territory. A price they were willing to pay. Even a badge of honor.

They weren’t too proud to trudge through the mud in pursuit of their dream. So why should we be?

My clients often have a ‘light bulb moment’ when I tell them I’ve heard the same anguish over rejection hundreds of times—even from very successful people. Even though nothing has actually changed about their particular situation, it’s clearly a weight off their minds. Once they get this, they stop beating themselves up so much, and telling themselves there must be something wrong with them. And start dealing with the reality of the particular rejection they’ve just received.

“Someday,” I tell them, “I’m going to get you all in a room together, so you can compare notes and see how many people feel the same way!” That might be logistically challenging, so the next best thing is to write this book and get it into the hands of as many readers as I can.

Rejection on its own is hard enough. But rejection plus telling yourself, “It’s just
me
who’s useless enough to be rejected,” is a real killer. So drop the second part. Next time you get rejected for a fabulous opportunity, don’t hide from the pain. But don’t add to it either. Look the rejection in the eye and see it as a normal stopping point on your journey. Then take your next step.

Your next steps:

1. Read through this list of famous writers whose works were rejected multiple times, and notice whether it changes the way you feel about them:
http://www.examiner.com/book-in-national/30-famous-authors-whose-works-were-rejected-repeatedly-and-sometimes-rudely-by-publishers

2. Now make a list of your top ten heroes—people who achieved amazing things in your own field, and/or people you admire for their achievements in other fields.

3. Read up on their careers—especially the early stages—and look out for stories of rejection and perseverance in the face of adversity. Chances are you’ll find plenty.

4. How did they cope with rejection? Look for little clues in the reports of things they said or did. What can you learn from their example?

5. Next time you experience rejection, notice how much of the pain and anxiety comes from the rejection itself—and how much you are adding to it by treating it—and yourself—as abnormal. Then stop adding to it.

9. Get used to it

I don’t mean that in a nasty way, how some people say it: “Life’s not fair, get used to it!” I just mean that since rejection is normal, it’s something you’ll have to get used to.

As we saw in
Chapter 3
, it’s a
good thing
that rejection hurts—it shows you are putting your heart and soul into your work. If it stopped hurting, it would mean you had stopped caring. But over time, the sting does get less sharp. Psychologists call this
desensitization
, and it’s the basis of behavioral therapy for phobias. By repeatedly exposing yourself to the source of your fear (spiders, lifts, public speaking, heights etc.), you learn to tolerate it a little better each time.