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How to Overcome a Fear of Rejection

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Stavros Constantinou / Getty Images

How to Overcome Fear of Rejection

• Common Behaviors

Psychological Outcomes

Frequently asked questions.

The fear of rejection is a powerful feeling that often has a far-reaching impact on our lives. Most people experience some nerves when placing themselves in situations that could lead to rejection, but for some people, the fear becomes overwhelming.

This fear can have many underlying causes. An untreated fear of rejection may worsen over time, leading to greater and greater limitations in a person's life.

This article discusses how to overcome your fear of rejection, and also how rejection sensitivity can affect your life and behavior.

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If you are experiencing a fear of rejection, there are steps you can take to learn how to cope better and stop this fear from negatively impacting your life. You may find the following strategies helpful for learning how to overcome a fear of rejection.

Improve Your Self-Regulation Skills

Self-regulation refers to your ability to identify and control your emotions and behaviors. It also plays an important role in overcoming your fear of rejection. By identifying negative thoughts that contribute to feelings of fear, you can actively take steps to reframe your thinking in a way that is more optimistic and encouraging.

Face Your Fears

Avoidance coping involves managing unpleasant feelings by simply avoiding the things that trigger those emotions. The problem with this approach is that it ultimately contributes to increased feelings of fear. Instead of getting better at dealing with your fear of rejection, it makes you even more fearful and sensitive to it.

So instead of avoiding situations where you might experience rejection, focus on putting yourself out there and tackling your fear. Once you have more experience facing your fear , you'll begin to recognize that the consequences are less anxiety-provoking than you anticipated. You'll also gain greater confidence in your own abilities to succeed.

Cultivate Resilience

Being resilient means that you are able to pick yourself up after a setback and move forward with a renewed sense of strength and optimism. Strategies that can help foster a greater sense of resilience include building your confidence in your own abilities, having a strong social support system, and nurturing and caring for yourself. Having goals and taking steps to improve your skills can also give you faith in your ability to bounce back from rejection.

Taking steps to overcome your fear of rejection can help minimize its detrimental impact on your life. Learning how to manage your emotions, taking steps to face your fears, and cultivating a strong sense of resilience can all help you become better able to tolerate the fear of rejection. 

Where It Can Impact Your Life

Although not every person experiences the fear of rejection in the same way, it tends to affect the ability to succeed in a wide range of personal and professional situations.

Job Interviews

Fear of rejection can lead to physical symptoms that can sometimes be interpreted as a lack of confidence. Confidence and an air of authority are critical in many positions, and those experiencing this fear often come across as weak and insecure. If you have a fear of rejection, you may also have trouble negotiating work-related contracts, leaving valuable pay and benefits on the table.

Business Dealings

In many positions, the need to impress does not end once you have the job. Entertaining clients, negotiating deals, selling products, and attracting investors are key components of many jobs. Even something as simple as answering the telephone can be terrifying for people with a fear of rejection.

Meeting New People

Humans are social creatures, and we are expected to follow basic social niceties in public. If you have a fear of rejection, you may feel unable to chat with strangers or even friends of friends. The tendency to keep to yourself could potentially prevent you from making lasting connections with others.

First dates can be daunting, but those with a fear of rejection may experience significant anxiety. Rather than focusing on getting to know the other person and deciding whether you would like a second date, you might spend all of your time worrying about whether that person likes you. Trouble speaking, obsessive worrying about your appearance, an inability to eat, and a visibly nervous demeanor are common.

Peer Relationships

The need to belong is a basic human condition, so people often behave in ways that help them fit in with the group. While dressing, speaking, and behaving as a group member is not necessarily unhealthy, peer pressure sometimes goes too far. It could lead you to do things you're not comfortable with just to remain part of the group.

The fear of rejection can affect many different areas of life, including your success in the workplace and your relationships with friends and romantic partners.

How It Affects Your Behavior

When you have a fear of rejection, you may engage in behaviors focused on either covering up or compensating for this fear.

Lack of Authenticity

Many people who are afraid of rejection develop a carefully monitored and scripted way of life. Fearing that you will be rejected if you show your true self to the world, you may live life behind a mask. This can make you seem phony and inauthentic to others and may cause a rigid unwillingness to embrace life’s challenges.

People-Pleasing

Although it is natural to want to take care of those we love, those who fear rejection often go too far. You might find it impossible to say no, even when saying yes causes major inconveniences or hardships in your own life.

If you are a people-pleaser , you may take on too much, increasing your risk for burnout . At the extreme, people-pleasing sometimes turns into enabling the bad behaviors of others.

People with a fear of rejection often go out of their way to avoid confrontations. You might refuse to ask for what you want or speak up for what you need. A common tendency is to try to simply shut down your own needs or pretend that they don’t matter.

The fear of rejection may stop you from reaching your full potential. Putting yourself out there is frightening for anyone, but if you have a fear of rejection, you may feel paralyzed. Hanging onto the status quo feels safe, even if you are not happy with your current situation.

Passive-Aggressiveness

Uncomfortable showing off their true selves but unable to entirely shut out their own needs, many people who fear rejection end up behaving in passive-aggressive ways . You might procrastinate, "forget" to keep promises, complain, and work inefficiently on the projects that you take on.

The fear of rejection might drive you to engage in behaviors like passive-aggressiveness, passivity, and people-pleasing. It can also undermine your authenticity and make it difficult to be yourself when you are around others.

The fear of rejection leads to behaviors that make us appear insecure, ineffectual and overwhelmed. You might sweat, shake, fidget, avoid eye contact, and even lose the ability to effectively communicate. While individuals react to these behaviors in very different ways, these are some of the reactions you might see.

Ironically, the fear of rejection often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is well-known in pop psychology that confidence enhances attractiveness. As a general rule, the lack of self-confidence that is inherent in a fear of rejection makes us more likely to be rejected.

Research shows that confidence is nearly as important as intelligence in determining our income level.

Manipulation

Some people prey on the insecurities of others. Those who suffer from a fear of rejection may be at greater risk of being manipulated for someone else’s personal gain.

Expert manipulators generally come across as charming, suave, and caring—they know what buttons to push to make others trust them. They also know how to keep someone with a fear of rejection feeling slightly on edge, as if the manipulator might leave at any time. Almost invariably, the manipulator does end up leaving once they have gotten what they want out of the other person.

Frustration

Most people are decent, honest, and forthright. Rather than manipulating someone with a fear of rejection, they will try to help. Look for signs that your friends and family are trying to encourage your assertiveness, asking you to be more open with them, or probing your true feelings.

Many times, however, people who fear rejection experience these efforts as emotionally threatening. This often leads friends and family to walk on eggshells , fearful of making your fears worse. Over time, they may become frustrated and angry, either confronting you about your behavior or beginning to distance themselves from you.

A Word From Verywell

If you find that fear of rejection is negatively affecting your life and causing distress, it may be time to seek out psychotherapy . This can help you explore and better understand some of the underlying contributions to your fear and find more effective ways to cope with this vulnerability.

Past experiences with rejection can play a role in this fear. People who experience greater levels of anxiety or who struggle with feelings of loneliness , depression, self-criticism, and poor self-esteem may also be more susceptible. 

Talking to people can be challenging if you have a fear of rejection. The best way to deal with it is to practice talking to others regularly. Remind yourself that everyone struggles with these fears sometimes and every conversation is a learning opportunity that improves your skills and confidence.

Some signs that you fear rejection include constantly worrying about what other people think, reading too much into what others are saying, going out of your way to please others, and avoiding situations where you might be rejected. You might also avoid sharing your thoughts and opinions because you fear that others might disagree with you.

Fear of rejection might be related to mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. If your fear is affecting your ability to function normally and is creating distress, you should talk to your healthcare provider or a mental health professional.

Ding X, Ooi LL, Coplan RJ, Zhang W, Yao W. Longitudinal relations between rejection sensitivity and adjustment in Chinese children: moderating effect of emotion regulation . J Genet Psychol . 2021;182(6):422-434. doi:10.1080/00221325.2021.1945998

Ury W. Getting to Yes With Yourself and Other Worthy Opponents . HarperOne.

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Houghton K. And Then I’ll Be Happy! Stop Sabotaging Your Happiness and Put Your Own Life First . Globe Pequot Press.

Potts C, Potts S. Assertiveness: How to Be Strong in Every Situation . Capstone.

Brandt A. 8 Keys to Eliminating Passive-Aggressiveness: Strategies for Transforming Your Relationships for Greater Authenticity and Joy . W.W. Norton & Company.

Leary MR. Emotional responses to interpersonal rejection . Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2015;17(4):435-41.

Judge TA, Hurst C, Simon LS. Does it pay to be smart, attractive, or confident (or all three)? Relationships among general mental ability, physical attractiveness, core self-evaluations, and income . J Appl Psychol . 2009;94(3):742-55. doi:10.1037/a0015497

Hopper E. Can helping others help you find meaning in life? . Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders  (5th Ed.). American Psychiatric Association.

By Lisa Fritscher Lisa Fritscher is a freelance writer and editor with a deep interest in phobias and other mental health topics.

Fear Of Rejection: Its Origin, Effects, And How To Overcome It

Home | Blog | Self-esteem | Fear Of Rejection: Its Origin, Effects, And How To Overcome It

• Published: August 7, 2020

Many of us have a fear of rejection and tend to avoid rejection by all means. Being rejected, and feeling rejected, is one of the most painful experiences most of us go through at some point in our lives. It makes us feel like a failure, judged, and not accepted by the people we care about.

Avoiding rejection, however, does come at a great cost. It can limit you from reaching your goals in many areas of life. Think about it – you could have written a book, but you didn’t because you fear people will not buy your book. You could have landed a business deal, but it failed because you are too nervous and thought, “What if they do not like me or my ideas?”

In her 30 years of experience working with clients all over the world, time and again, Marisa has been observing how avoiding rejection is only making the fear stronger. According to Marisa, the most effective and fastest way to overcome the fear of rejection is by working with the root cause that is hidden in your mind . 

In this article, you will learn:

• What fear of rejection is
• How it can affect your life
• Why are we afraid of rejection
• How to use the power of the mind to overcome the fear of rejection

Let’s get started by discussing exactly what a fear of rejection is.

What Is Fear Of Rejection?

The fear of rejection name is Anthropophobia. It is being afraid of unacceptance by the people around you. It could be you are scared of people not accepting your appearance, behaviors, the way you speak, or even your presence. 

In real-life, being scared of rejection could look like this:

‘ I am going to talk to my manager today and see if she is willing to raise my salary. Oh, but James has better results than me. What if my manager does not think I deserve the raise? What if I cannot convince her? I should just keep this to myself… ’

There are many other ways this fear can show up in your life. 

Some of the common signs and symptoms of being scared of rejection are:

• Difficulty saying ‘no’ 
• Taking on too many tasks
• Refusing to ask for what you want and need
• Procrastinating or working inefficiently on projects
• Being overly sensitive to criticism
• Difficulty making new friends unless you are sure they will like you
• Being reluctant to commit to and make a relationship work
• Working too hard to please others
• Blaming yourself when things don’t work out
• Staying in an unhealthy relationship
• Hiding your true self from others

How Can Fear Of Rejection Affect Your Life?

This fear could negatively affect various facets of our lives, including our careers , relationships, and self-confidence. 

• In business dealings. Instead of negotiating with a big client who is willing to pay more for your services, you lowered the fee and earned less than you deserve.
• In performance reviews. Instead of supporting your request for salary increments with performance data and asking to speak to the management, you decided to leave it up to their judgment. Therefore, you did not receive the appropriate bonuses and increments.

Relationships:

• In love and relationships, you do not speak up when your spouse tells you to do things against your will. As a consequence, your emotional needs do not get fulfilled and with time both of you may become distant.
• In friendship, you choose to adapt your communication style and behavior to blend within a group of friends and be accepted. Over time, you may feel like you are betraying yourself as you are not living by your true values. 

Self-confidence:

• When people criticize the way you look or talk, you feel inadequate or like a failure. As a result, you can have low self-esteem.
• You procrastinate taking action towards your dreams because you are afraid that people might reject your ideas. You think it is better to stay where you are because it is ‘safer.’

Why do Humans Fear Rejection?

Have you ever wondered where fear of rejection comes from, and why is it so strong? 

It turns out that this fear is deeply ingrained in our minds because, evolutionarily speaking, it used to help us survive. 

An evolutionary survival mechanism

Our need to belong and be accepted is rooted in human evolution. Thousands of years ago, it took an entire village to work together in order to survive in harsh conditions. Humans needed to be a part of a tribe to survive. If a person was socially rejected or kicked out of the village, they would die alone in the wild.

Although we do not live in dangerous environments anymore, our minds still associate rejection with death.

The reality is, rejection will not cause us death in this time and age. However, it still can bring forward feelings associated with the fear of dying. 

According to the way the mind works , what we say and imagine in our minds influences how we feel. Whenever rejection happens , the mind instantly thinks, ‘ I am going to die of shame if they reject me ’ or create images of you dying in shame. This is one of the main reasons why the possibility of being rejected can stir various negative emotions and prevent you from acting on your goals.

We are built to avoid pain

If you have touched a boiling kettle by accident before, you will most likely never repeat the same mistake again. From a young age, we learn to avoid pain to survive. For every painful experience, our mind remembers the pain and fires alarms whenever we face a similar situation. It will tell you ‘Do not touch that boiling kettle’ when you see one again. 

Similar to avoiding physical pain, humans would take any necessary measures to avoid the emotional pain associated with being rejected. In fact, a study by Naomi Eisenberger, a social psychologist, showed that rejection triggers the same brain regions that physical pain does . This means we avoid rejection just as we would avoid touching a boiling kettle.

Even though rejection causes us pain and discomfort, it does not harm us physically. It is a temporary emotion that comes and goes. If you choose to take action in spite of the fear, it will shrink in size, and you will become less afraid of rejection over time. 

We tend to be risk-averse

Imagine this scenario: a friend offers to flip a coin and give you $20 if it lands on tails. If it lands on heads, you give them $20. Would you take that risk?

You would probably consider taking the risk if you were sure you would win. This tendency reflects risk aversion — reluctance to take risks unless the payoff is certain. 

In the context of potentially experiencing fear of rejection, we are reluctant to risk our ‘lives’ being rejected by others because we are unsure of what people think of us . If we are sure we will not get rejected, most likely we would be brave enough to take action. 

You see, life is unpredictable and risks are bound to appear in every decision. It may feel scary to risk yourself being rejected, but taking risks is part of the journey towards success. If you are not willing to take risks, you cannot get anywhere. 

How To Overcome Fear Of Rejection Forever

Many people struggle with overcoming rejection because their subconscious minds and conscious minds are playing a constant tug of war. The conscious mind is fully aware that we want to conquer this fear and take action towards our dreams. The subconscious mind, however, does not know what we want. Its primary job is to keep us away from danger, including rejection.

Unfortunately, the subconscious mind wins the tug of war most of the time because it controls 95% of our thoughts and actions. When the time we need to act comes, the subconscious mind takes over with thoughts such as, ‘ Hey, you might get rejected. If you do, it is going to hurt you and kill you. Let’s go back to our comfort zone. ’ 

During the three decades as a therapist, Marisa Peer has helped thousands of people overcome their fear of rejection and get free from other limitations that were holding them back. According to Marisa, you are able to train your own mind to overcome the fear of rejection and you also can choose to use a therapeutic technique known for helping people with similar issues. 

3 ways to deal with the fear of rejection on your own

It is possible to learn how to handle rejection by taking the time to reflect on your experiences, think about how you approach them, and work out what you can take away from each experience to help you when facing future problematic situations. So read on to find out the 3 ways you can learn how to get over rejection.

1. Reframe rejection as opportunities

For every rejection you experience, there is a redirection to a different opportunity yet unknown to you. Whether you are rejected by an interviewer or a love interest, a new door is opened for you at the same time, leading you towards other opportunities.

Whenever you face rejection, remind yourself, ‘ I am not rejected, I am redirected to something greater. ’

2. Talk to yourself like a dear friend

Do not beat yourself up when things do not work out as you have planned. Treat yourself kinder and shower yourself with praises as if you are cheering a dear friend. 

Rather than allowing negative self-talk to happen, talk to yourself using more compassionate, affirming messages such as, ‘ I have what I need to get through this, ’ or ‘ I am stronger than I think. ’

3. Refuse to let rejection define you

Being rejected does not mean you are a failure. If one company turns you down, do not think that you are incompetent. If one person rejects you, do not think that you are unlovable.  

Other people’s opinions and incidents do not define you. The only person who can define you is you alone. An effective way to do this is to praise yourself daily and boost your self-esteem. The higher self-esteem you have, the more resilience you will develop against rejection.

The most effective way to overcome fear of rejection forever

The most effective way to overcoming rejection once and for all is to reprogram the subconscious mind to work with you and not against you using Rapid Transformational Therapy® (RTT®) , a complete solution-based approach created by celebrity therapist Marisa Peer over 30 years of working with people all over the world.

Rapid Transformational Therapy® (RTT®) combines the most powerful aspects of hypnosis, psychotherapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and more to help release your fears. It helps you go deep into your subconscious mind, access the root causes of issues you have been struggling with, and change the stories, words, and pictures in your mind.

RTT® can help you to overcome a fear of rejection in 3 simple steps:

• Hypnosis is used to help you get into a trance-like state and guide you to explore where the fear of rejection comes from.
• Rewriting pictures and words your mind associates with rejection with empowering ones.
• Making the new pictures and words familiar to your mind by repeating them to yourself every day and taking action. As a result, you will perceive things differently in your everyday life. 

With the guidance of a certified RTT® therapist , you can replace negative pictures and words associated with rejection with the ones that bring positive emotions such as happiness and fulfillment related to achieving your goals. 

This way, your subconscious mind will start associating rejection with safety and pleasure, and eventually, you will not be scared of rejection. 

What is RTT®?

RTT® is a revolutionary therapy method from world-renowned therapist Marisa Peer, who combines over 30 years of experience with the very best elements of today’s modern approaches to therapy, such as NLP, CBT and Hypnotherapy, to produce a focused method that can produce results a faster than you would expect.

How to get in Contact with an RTT® Therapist

Are you interested in receiving RTT® therapy? Do you think therapy is the best choice for you in helping you to overcome your blocks when it comes to self-esteem? Getting in touch with an RTT® therapist is easy. Simply click here to start your journey.

A Take-Home Message

According to Marisa, “ The mind has the most powerful healing potential on the planet .” It can help you live a fulfilled and successful life, and it can also hold you back in many ways. It all depends on the words you say and the pictures you imagine in your mind. 

Once you know how the mind works, it is easy for you to tap into its power and make it work with you and not against you. 

You can learn how to overcome feeling rejected by changing the words and pictures in your mind and relating the fear to pleasure. 

Rejection-proof yourself and unlock your inner confidence with a pre-recorded hypnotic audio bundle . These audio tracks will help you reprogram your mind, regain your natural confidence, and rebuild your self-esteem. 

If your fear of rejection stems from low-self esteem, you will benefit from Marisa Peer’s I Am Enough Masterclass , which can help you get to the root of that experience, let go of the negative emotions, and rewrite them with empowering ones.

You can improve your psychological and emotional well-being by developing better self-acceptance. All you need to make some mental shifts that open up your mind to accept yourself more. Sign up for the FREE I Am Enough Masterclass by clicking the banner below .

We hope this article has helped you learn how to handle rejection, and provided you with methods you can use to face tricky situations with a renewed confidence in the future. If you would like more from Marisa Peer, remember to subscribe to her regular newsletter by entering your email in the box at the bottom of this page.

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Scott Cochrane

Overcome the Fear of Rejection by Leveraging Courage

TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE

Leaders make progress by stepping forward with new ideas, new initiatives and new directions.

So, why is it that leaders will sometimes shrink back? What is it that causes leaders to stall, even though they might possess a breakthrough idea?

Often this hesitation is labeled a “fear of failure.” But more often, it is a “fear of rejection.”

In his groundbreaking book, Rejection Proof , and in his inspiring talk at the 2019 Global Leadership Summit, Jia Jiang pointed out that the fear of rejection is a sometimes debilitating malady that can inhibit even the most accomplished leader.

The fear of rejection comes in all shapes and sizes:

• You have developed an idea that has the potential to add great value to your team’s goals. But it’s a new way of thinking; would they accept an idea so different from what they have tried?
• You want to launch a new project that would require new resources, but which could solve important problems. But would the necessary resources be approved?
• The team seems to be committed to a plan that you believe could be improved. You can see a better way forward. But would anyone want to deviate from the current plan?

In each scenario, the option not to step forward is driven by a fear of rejection. And it will stall your leadership every time.

The option not to step forward is driven by a fear of rejection. And it will stall your leadership every time.

Early in my career, while working for a media company, an important division in our company unexpectedly found itself leaderless. With almost no notice, the leader of the division left the company leaving a sudden void.

As I sat at my desk that day, I found my mind racing with ideas as to how I would rebuild that division if I were ever to have the chance to lead.

But other voices in my head were telling me not to put my name forward. “You’re too young and inexperienced,” I told myself. “They will laugh you out of the office. Why put yourself in the position where you could be embarrassed?”

But another voice also came to mind. It was a voice from Scripture that reminded me: For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline . (2 Timothy 1:7)

Fueled by that reminder, I humbly, but confidently walked into my boss’s office and asked to be considered for that vacant role. An hour later, I emerged as the director of that division.

As you learn to pay attention to the voice of courage, you will find that it can soon drown out all other voices.

The fear of rejection has never left me, and in leadership the fear of rejection will likely never leave you either. But if you are a person of faith, the reminder of the spirit of courage you have been given can drown out those fears.

So, the next time you find yourself developing a new idea, a new initiative or a new direction, don’t be surprised if the fear of rejection emerges. And when it does, choose instead to listen to the voice that calls out your spirit of courage.

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A Three Step Process to Overcome the Fear of Writing Rejection

This post continues our series  The Smart Scholar  by Ramon Goings .

“I just don’t want to submit my work because I’m scared of rejection.”

When conducting doctoral and faculty writing support sessions, I consistently get some form of the above quote. Often, for dissertation writers, it stems from being afraid that their chair will give them harsh feedback. Those writing for peer-review publication often discuss a fear of critique from the infamous “reviewer number two” who often provides challenging and conflicting reviews of their work when compared to the other reviewers.

Based on my CV, folks may assume that I have figured out academic writing as I have been successful writing for publication. However, I too struggle and have certainly had my fair share of harsh critiques from “reviewer number two.” Additionally, when I started my career, I was scared of rejection.

Recently in a webinar I had a participant ask, “Well, how did you overcome fear of rejection?” This blog post is in response to this question as I share a three-step process I use to work through the fear of rejection.

Step 1: Address the Root of the Fear

From my work supporting academic writers I have found that a fear about rejection is never about the process of writing and submitting the work itself. In many instances the fear of rejection is a symptom of a deeper issue. Thus, in order to overcome the fear of rejection I have found that it is important to first address the root of the fear.

Early in my career there were three main reasons I had a fear of rejection:

• I did not believe in myself as a writer and that I had something unique to contribute to the scholarly conversation.
• I was intimidated that my work could be published and in conversation with the great authors that I was referencing in my paper.
• I internalized the rejection as it holding some value about who I was and the quality of my work.

As you can see from my experience the root causes of my fear of writing rejection had nothing to do with the process of writing, but had everything to do with my mindset. Once I got clearer about what was causing my fear it became easier to plan for and address the fear (see Step 2 below).

Step 2: Plan for the Rejection

The psychology of academic writers is rather interesting as we are motivated and plan for the success of our academic writing. However, why do we not plan for rejection as well? I have found it beneficial  to put a plan in place so that if a piece is rejected, I know what my next steps are with the paper.

In a doctoral seminar course I am teaching this semester titled “Seminar in Research Writing, Publication, and Communication in Education,” one of my assignments asks for students to write an Op-Ed. During our conversation, we discussed rejection, and I gave this advice on how to plan for it:

• Before you write your piece, have three venues in mind that you want to submit to.
• Submit to venue #1. If rejected, immediately submit to venue #2. If rejected from venue #2, submit immediately to venue #3.
• If your piece does not get accepted at the first three venues, find three more outlets and repeat the process.

As I teach my students: there is always a venue for your work. Sometimes it is just exploring all of your options to find the right fit. As a result, by planning for rejection you are actually planning for the success of your writing project. Again, this is not about writing, but just shifting your thinking.

Step 3: Build Your Writing Community

Do you have a scholarly community who you can vent to and strategize with?

Having this scholarly cohort has been critical to my ability to overcome the fear of rejection of my academic writing. Whenever I have thoughts or fears about submitting my work, I go to my community and do the following:

• Talk: I dialogue and vent about my apprehension on submitting my work.
• Write: After my conversations with my community, I turn that fear into energy to write–even if only a little. This helps me to not let my fears of rejection paralyze me from writing.
• Submit: I have adopted the mantra “You can’t score a basket if you don’t shoot.” In other words, I can never get a paper accepted if I never submit, so if I want an acceptance I must submit.

Based on your experiences, how have you overcome a fear of rejection of your academic writing? Connect with me on Twitter to discuss!

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of Interfolio.

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Fear of Rejection

Adele wilde, counsellor and psychotherapist perth, western australia.

How To Overcome Your Fear Of Rejection Once And For All

Posted: 6 June 2024 | Last updated: 6 June 2024

Let’s be real: rejection sucks.

1. Reframe rejection as redirection.

2. Embrace your authentic self.

3. Practice self-compassion.

4. Take rejection as a learning opportunity.

5. Build resilience through small challenges.

6. Surround yourself with supportive people.

7. Focus on what you can control.

8. Practice gratitude.

9. Don’t take it personally.

10. Embrace the power of “no.”

11. Cultivate a growth mindset.

12. Practice self-care.

13. Look for new opportunities.

14. Celebrate your success.

15. Remember that rejection isn’t the end.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Society — What I Learned from 100 Rejections

What I Learned from 100 Rejections

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How to Conquer the Fear of Rejection

Rejection hurts but trying to prevent it comes at a higher cost..

Posted December 3, 2018 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

• What Is Fear?
• Find a therapist to combat fear and anxiety

Rejection is a bitter pill to swallow. And most of us have had a good dose of it. Whether we didn’t get a job we applied for, weren’t admitted to our top choice college, didn’t make it to the team we tried out for, or didn’t score a second date with the person we were sure was going to become our soulmate, many of us have experienced rejection first hand. Hearing “no, not interested” doesn’t feel good. Regardless of how hard you want to look at the bright side of it, rejection doesn’t build character. It breaks hearts, it brings tears, and it raises fears. And that fear can stick and become a hard-to-remove stain.

Fear of rejection, or rejection sensitivity , as it is often referred to in the psychology literature, can become an obstacle to success and happiness . Research shows that fear of rejection can have a negative impact on emotional well-being, interpersonal relationships, and psychological functioning. It affects the way we feel about ourselves, the decisions that we make, and the goals we choose to pursue. Fear of rejection can make us think small and act even smaller.

All fears are evoked when after we appraise a stimulus, we find it dangerous and potentially harmful. Fear is the internal alarm system that we are equipped with and which exists to warn us against threats to our survival. In the past, survival meant staying alive. It meant not getting killed by a predator, a disease, a rival, or a natural disaster. And threats included anything that could literally cause death or serious harm.

But in a relatively safe, socially complex, and intellectually demanding world, the meaning of both survival and threat has changed significantly. For most people in the developed world, it is no longer our biological survival that we are preoccupied with on a daily basis. Our worries extend to beyond just staying alive. We still care about our physical health, but we also care about our mental, emotional, financial, relationship, or spiritual health and we want to protect them from any threats. And when any of these are threatened, fear arises.

So what is it that fear of rejection protects us from?

There are many answers to this question, the specifics of which only you can provide, based on what’s important to you and what your life looks like. Is there something, however, that is common in all rejection and that motivates us to want to keep it out of our realm of experience?

The commonality may be pain. We are generally hardwired to avoid pain, whether it is physical or emotional. Pain is associated with harm, invasion, and potential damage. Pain is a signal that we should avoid, correct, or withdraw from a situation. It is easy to imagine how this plays out with physical pain. If your coffee is so hot that it burns your tongue, you wait until it cools down. And the beautiful thing about our brains is that they register those painful events, so we can avoid them in the future, and prevent harm. We learn what’s causing us pain and we take steps to protect ourselves from it. The same is true about emotional pain. We, consciously or unconsciously, avoid entering situations or creating circumstances that could get our feelings hurt. In fact, the brain centers that register the magnitude of pain and the subjective experience of pain are closely connected.

What does that have to do with rejection? Rejection hurts. There is evidence that rejection is, in fact, a painful experience. In a study conducted in 2010, DeWall and colleagues tested the effect of a painkiller on the emotional pain caused by social rejection. Their participants were randomly assigned to take either a painkiller or a placebo pill each day for three weeks. Those who took the active pill, reported a reduction in hurt feelings over time, in contrast to those who took the placebo, whose intensity of hurt feelings remained unchanged. They took their study a step further and used neuroimaging to see what happens in the brain during a situation that they set up to create feelings of social exclusion. They found that the participants who took the painkiller showed less activity in the brain regions associated with the subjective experience of pain than those who took the placebo.

This doesn’t mean that the cure for fear of rejection is taking painkillers. It means that emotional pain is a natural response to rejection. This may also explain why we tend to avoid situations in which we expect to be rejected. Consciously or unconsciously, we stay away from people, places, and events that we have associated with rejection either through experience or based on expectation. And that fear and the subsequent avoidant behavior can have a serious impact on the goals we seek to accomplish and the life we aim to build.

So, what can we do to handle fear of rejection?

First, identify the fearful stimulus. That is, become aware of the situations or circumstances that we are actively avoiding because we worry that they will lead to rejection. What ideas are we not sharing because we worry that others won’t embrace them? What requests are we not making because we worry they will be denied? What steps are we not taking toward a goal because we worry that we will be exposed and vulnerable? What “no’s” are we afraid to hear?

Second, turn avoidance into action. If a goal still seems important and meaningful, take steps toward achieving it, even if that increases the risk of rejection. Avoiding is safer and less painful. Without an “ask,” there is no rejection. But without it, there is no acceptance either.

Third, remind ourselves that the pain caused by rejection is a normal feeling and that it will pass, just like any other painful sensation or feeling. We can’t fully control whether our ideas, our proposals, our applications, or our pitches will be rejected because rejection is in the hands of others. But we can control the intensity of our emotions and we can train ourselves to become emotionally stronger. Being a good emotion regulator is one of the cornerstones of emotional intelligence .

And finally, reframe rejection as an opportunity to improve our approaches and tactics. There are many reasons why we did not get a “yes” this time. The timing might not have been right, we may not be a good fit, we may not have been thorough enough in our preparation, we may not have presented the best sample of our work, the people who rejected us may have their own needs, biases or limitations. The list of situational factors is endless. It is easy to personalize rejection and think of it as a reflection of who we are and what we are capable of, as opposed to what we did and how can we do it better next time. Changing what we do is easier than changing who we are. And people will evaluate us by what we do.

All in all, rejection doesn’t feel good. But letting the fear of rejection dictate what we accomplish in our lives can make us feel even worse in the future. After all, no pain, no gain.

Theo Tsaousides, Ph.D. is a neuropsychologist, assistant professor, and author of the book Brainblocks: Overcoming the Seven Hidden Barriers to Success .

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Fear of Rejection? Tiered Certification and Transparency

The sub-prime crisis has shown a harsh spotlight on the practices of securities underwriters, which provided too many complex securities that proved to ultimately have little value. This uproar calls attention to the fact that the literature on intermediaries has carefully analyzed their incentives, but that we know little about the broader strategic dimensions of this market. The paper explores three related strategic dimensions of the certification market: the publicity given to applications, the coarseness of rating patterns and the sellers' dynamic certification strategies. In the model, certifiers respond to the sellers' desire to get a chance to be highly rated and to limit the stigma from rejection. We find conditions under which sellers opt for an ambitious certification strategy, in which they apply to a demanding, but non-transparent certifier and lower their ambitions when rejected. We derive the comparative statics with respect to the sellers' initial reputation, the probability of fortuitous disclosure, the sellers' self-knowledge and impatience, and the concentration of the certification industry. We also analyze the possibility that certifiers opt for a quick turnaround time at the expense of a lower accuracy. Finally, we investigate the opportunity of regulating transparency.

The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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Connecticut’s top public defender fired for misconduct alleged by oversight commission

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An oversight commission fired Connecticut’s top public defender on Tuesday after having accused her of a range of misconduct, including leveling unfounded racism allegations, mistreating employees and improperly accessing the emails of staff and the commission chairman.

The termination of TaShun Bowden-Lewis, the first Black person to serve as the state’s chief public defender, came by a unanimous vote of the Public Defender Services Commission in Hartford. The panel held two public meetings in April during which Bowden-Lewis denied 16 misconduct allegations and accused the panel of interfering with her lawful authority to run the office.

“Miss Bowden-Lewis, we recognize that this is a very difficult time for everyone, including you, the division and the commission,” the commission chair, Richard Palmer, said after the panel voted. “When this commission was appointed, we started with great hope for the future and never expected or wanted to be here today. It’s the commission’s sincere hope that there are better days ahead for you and for the division. Thank you.”

Bowden-Lewis, hired two years ago, attended the meeting with her lawyer, Thomas Bucci. She declined to comment after the vote.

Bucci, a former mayor of Bridgeport, later told The Associated Press that Bowden-Lewis planned to appeal what he called an “unlawful removal.”

“This was a skewed process, an unfair process, meant to remove a very capable and competent director who was protecting the integrity of the institution,” Bucci said in a phone interview.

Bowden-Lewis previously said the commission was scrutinizing her much more than her predecessors and was interfering with the authority given to her by state law. She also said an independent review by a law firm of her actions found that she did not discriminate, harass or create a hostile work environment, although Palmer had questioned her interpretation of the findings.

Dozens of supporters of Bowden-Lewis attended an April 16 hearing and said she should not be fired.

The commission reprimanded Bowden-Lewis in October for alleged “inappropriate and unacceptable” conduct and placed her on paid administrative leave in February, the same day the public defenders’ union voted 121-9 to express no confidence in her leadership. The reprimand included nine directives to Bowden-Lewis, some of which she failed to follow, the commission said.

The union said in a statement Tuesday that it supported the commission’s decision to fire Bowden-Lewis and that the past two years have been marred by “controversy and dysfunction.”

The commission alleged Bowden-Lewis created a work environment of fear and retaliation and leveled baseless racial discrimination allegations against those who disagreed with her, including employees and Palmer, who is a retired state Supreme Court justice.

Bowden-Lewis also was accused of a pattern of mistreating employees, refusing to acknowledge the commission’s authority, disregarding its directives and improperly ordering a subordinate to search the emails of employees and Palmer without their knowledge.

While the chief public defender can review employees’ emails without them knowing, it can only be done for a valid reason, and Bowden-Lewis did not have one, according to Palmer. Bowden-Lewis said in April that the policy of the public defenders’ office allowed her to search any employee’s email and no reason is required, an answer some commission members appeared to disagree with.

Palmer said Bowden-Lewis obtained emails between him and the commission’s legal counsel at the beginning of the year, when the commission was looking into alleged misconduct by Bowden-Lewis. He said those emails were potentially confidential and privileged for legal reasons.

Bowden-Lewis also was accused of reprimanding the legal counsel for no valid reason, in apparent retaliation for the counsel’s cooperation with the commission and disloyalty toward her, a notice of the allegations to Bowden-Lewis said. The commission later retracted her reprimand of the legal counsel.

In one of the first public signs of the acrimony between Bowden-Lewis and the commission, four of the panel’s five members resigned early last year after Bowden-Lewis made allegations of racism and threated a lawsuit over the commission’s rejection of her choice for human resources director, The Hartford Courant reported.

The public defenders’ office has more than 400 employees, including lawyers, investigators, social workers and other staff who serve lower-income people who cannot afford lawyers in criminal and other cases.

Bowden-Lewis recently won a local award from a statewide lawyers’ group for promoting the inclusion and the advancement of lawyers of color.

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New York Is the Toughest Place in the Country to Apply for Asylum

Tens of thousands of migrants have flocked to New York City in recent years, seeking one of the few legal pathways to permanent residency in the United States.

By Nina Agrawal

Many of the tens of thousands of migrants who have arrived in New York City over the last several years say they share the same hope: to be granted asylum so they can legally stay in the United States permanently.

But while New York is a beacon for many migrants, with a law guaranteeing shelter and pro-immigration political traditions, its asylum office is also the toughest place to win a claim in the country, records show.

Even before the recent influx of border crossers, New York’s federal asylum office granted the lowest share of asylum claims among the nearly dozen such offices around the country, according to a 2022 analysis by the nonprofit Human Rights First . In 2020, when 28 percent of asylum claims were granted nationally, 5 percent of decisions in New York were approvals.

The asylum process was never meant to be a catchall program to allow most people arriving in the United States to remain. To be granted asylum, applicants must prove they have suffered persecution or have a “well-founded fear” of it in their home country on account of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. The approval process is arduous by design.

But asylum offices in New York and elsewhere have been flooded with applications since 2022, as migration has surged and those who arrive here pursue one of the few pathways to staying in the United States legally. So far this year, the New York office has already received nearly 25,000 claims.

The stated mission of asylum officers — who work for the nonenforcement wing of the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services — is to identify people who qualify as refugees under U.S. and international law.

The New York office has long been known to be especially strict, according to interviews with nearly a dozen immigration lawyers and 10 current or former asylum officers familiar with the New York office, including seven who worked there at various times. Almost all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Fixing the overburdened and often dysfunctional asylum system has become an urgent national crisis. President Biden this week announced he would sign an executive order allowing him to seal the southern border to asylum seekers, his most aggressive move yet to restrict immigration.

The New York office has historically received about the same volume of claims as others where rejection rates are much lower, and the demographics of migrants have typically been similar to other offices around the country. But asylum officers who worked in the New York office said they often felt pressure to move quickly, to grill asylum seekers in search of fraud and to reject cases where asylum might be granted at another office.

The high rejection rate in the New York office means that many more cases end up in immigration courts, which are part of the Justice Department, in what can be a costly and lengthy process. And ultimately the vast majority of the requests for asylum referred to New York immigration courts — close to nine in 10 in some years — were granted by judges, according to data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Migrants are allowed to wait in the United States until their cases are resolved, so claims that are rerouted through the courts often mean people stay in limbo longer before the government decides if they can stay, or if they must go back home.

Applying for asylum involves assembling as much evidence as possible that migrants have faced persecution, which can include police reports, medical reports or witness testimony from a home country. They also must prove to an asylum officer that they are who they say they are and that they could face danger if returned to their home countries.

Across the country, even strong claims are often denied because they don’t meet the standard of evidence, said Larry Gollub, who began as an asylum officer in nearby Newark in 1992 and later trained officers until 2019. But, he added that since the office opened, “New York had this hard-core fraud-finding background.”

The office’s hard-nosed approach deepened after an investigation that uncovered a fraud operation involving thousands of mostly Chinese applicants, officers said. The case was over a decade ago, but workers in the office said it appeared to shape how the office viewed asylum seekers.

Migrants who live in Manhattan or the Bronx can apply through the New Jersey office, where a much larger share of claims have historically been approved. Migrants in most of downstate New York must apply in the New York office in Bethpage, on Long Island.

The New York office is a “hostile environment,” said Anwen Hughes, director of legal strategy for refugee programs at Human Rights First, which handles hundreds of asylum cases each year.

The immigration agency declined to make an official available for an interview. In an emailed statement, it said that it was committed to breaking down barriers in the immigration system and to creating a positive work environment. The agency also said that asylum officers were expected to adjudicate every application “fairly, humanely and efficiently on a case-by-case basis.”

The New York office is widely known for being fast, but particularly grueling, officers said, and many said it felt impossible to evaluate each case thoroughly. Officers who worked in New York said that a longtime director and some supervisors would remind them to hurry along during interviews, by pointing at a watch or sending them messages.

Officers who were temporarily brought in from the refugee division to help clear the backlogs fared no better.

“Every refugee officer that went to work there was stressed out, burned out, frustrated, felt bullied and badgered to produce more work in less time,” said Michael Knowles, who became an asylum officer in 1992 and serves as spokesman for A.F.G.E. Council 119, the union that represents asylum officers.

The challenges are well known to immigration lawyers, said Faiza Sayed, director of the Safe Harbor immigration clinic at Brooklyn Law School. A Safe Harbor report published last fall found that officers in New York faced extreme time pressures and the threat of losing their jobs if they did not keep up, and that this led them to refer legitimate cases to the courts.

Applicants with common claims or those from countries with high volumes of asylum seekers were often viewed more skeptically, some officers said. Supervisors who were suspicious of claims that had been approved sometimes returned them to officers for additional research, interviewing or rewriting, with no extra time given.

Bertha Rodriguez, a managing attorney with the Community Resource Center, a social services organization in Mamaroneck, N.Y., said asylum officers in New York would sometimes ask the same question over and over, which can confuse applicants and elicit different answers. She recalled an officer repeatedly asking one of her clients, who had a religion-based asylum claim, about why he loved Jesus and Christianity.

“It feels like they’re trying to find a reason to deny,” she said.

Sara Escobar applied for asylum in the New York office after arriving in the United States in 2014 as an unaccompanied minor. She received an appointment five years later. An asylum officer listened to her claim, based on the sexual violence and death threats she experienced in El Salvador, and then rejected her case.

She waited five more years for her day in the federal court system. By then she had a daughter and faced the possibility of being separated from her.

“But then I said to God, ‘It’s in your hands. You have the last word. You can touch the judge’s heart,’” she said. “And he did.”

In February, 10 years after first entering the country, Ms. Escobar was granted asylum.

The Migrant Crisis in New York City

The arrival of more than 100,000 migrants over the past year has become a crisis for the city’s shelter system, schools and budget..

The Crisis, Explained: Why are large numbers of migrants coming to New York City? And how is the city responding? Here is what to know .

A New Wave of Evictions: The city began a new push to evict migrants from its shelter system , entering a more aggressive phase in its effort to ease the strain on the budget and shelters.

Debit Cards For Migrants: New York City officials are moving ahead with a contentious plan to give migrant families debit cards for food and baby supplies, with the first cards being distributed  to a small handful of new arrivals.

Missing School to Work : Migrant children selling candy during school hours can frequently be seen in the subway. The situation breaks several laws and rules, but whose job is it to do something about it ?

A Growing Group: Amid the influx of people from Latin America, thousands of Chinese migrants  have also made their way to New York City, with many crossing into the United States through the southern border.