Rejection: Why it's important and how to get past it

As an artist, rejection is kind of part of the job description. After all, artists thrive on people buying, promoting and critiquing their work. Our success literally can’t exist without people. This makes it particularly hard to be an artist who is a bit on the sensitive side (read: me).

When I first started out writing many years ago, I was terrified of other peoples’ opinions. So much so that I would avoid praise just to make sure I never heard anything negative. This is fine when you’re in junior high, but as you get older, this practice is impossible to sustain.

Why?

As any kind of artist, whether it be a writer, a visual artist, or a musician, input from others is what challenges us to improve our craft and makes us think about things that may not have occurred to us otherwise, even if this “input” is a simple Dear Ms. Faur, we regret to inform you…

Also, speaking from personal experience as a writer, if you want to get published, you have to submit your work to people who will potentially publish it, which means those people have a 50/50 chance of telling you no. And, as others can attest, artists hear “no” a lot more often than “yes.”

Every time I submit an article to an editor for the paper I freelance for, or pitch a piece to an editor I’ve never met, or even publish on Medium, I am putting myself in the position where I can be rejected or critiqued in order to make money and grow my craft. Unfortunately, I can’t have the acceptance without the possibility of rejection, and that’s something I’ve had to face.

How I got through it

When I first started pitching and submitting pieces to publications, I would start reading and as soon as I realized it was rejection or criticism, I would stop reading. I got the point, no need to put myself through any further torture.

But I soon realized that by doing this, I was closing myself off from potential growth. Don’t get me wrong, most rejections you get from publications are the standard, pre-drafted rejection with no personalized notes. But sometimes, that rare gem of an editor might see something special in your work and take the time to give you customized feedback, and on the day that happens, you don’t want to miss it.

To make myself actually read the rejections, I started reframing how I saw them. Instead of seeing them as, “My work sucks, this publication didn’t like my piece,” I reminded myself of a few important things.

Just because a publication rejects your piece doesn't mean it sucks. A lot of times, they may have other pieces like it already in line to publish, or it might not be the right time, or the person who read your piece on chocolate milk could be allergic to chocolate. I know, it sounds funny, but whether or not your work gets accepted can sometimes hinge on the most trivial things. It’s not always personal.

If people take the time to give you criticism, they are literally taking time out of their lives to help improve something you wrote. They almost never mean it in a harsh way.

Every rejection gets you closer to an acceptance. With every new piece you create after a rejection, your technique improves and your resolve gets stronger. Like how every heartbreak leads you to your true love, statistically, every no gets you closer to a yes.

I hope that going forward, we all learn to be more and more comfortable with rejection so we can create our best work.

What’d I miss? Tell me how you deal with rejection and criticism below!