Overcoming Your Fear of Rejection - 001
Welcome to the launch of my podcast ‘‘Okay. Now What?!’’
I've created this show to tackle the real issues our generation are facing as we transition into 'adult world'. I'm talking all the nitty gritty stuff that we're often too 'ashamed' to post on social media, including:
- Anxiety over what other people think of us
- Frustration towards our parents still treating us like kids
- Lack of self confidence to pursue opportunities
- Constantly comparing ourselves to others on social media
- Feeling stuck in indecision over which path to pursue next
- Frustration at our boyfriend or girlfriend for not “meeting our needs”
- When your world is turned upside down by the unexpected
- Shame about our bodies and struggle with self worth
And that's just to name a few! I want to create a safe place where we can have real, authentic conversations about our struggles and how we're really feeling - rather than just posting the 'highlights' reel on our news feed.
Combining my personal experience with powerful coaching tools, my weekly show will help you stop spinning in overwhelm and better navigate your way through the unexpected turbulence in this stage of our lives. You’ll not only find tonnes of inspiration, but eye-opening advice and useful strategies to reduce your anxiety and improve your confidence to go after what you want most. As someone who lost my sister at 20 years old, I know life is too short not to.
“A life without rejection,
is a life without risking.
And a life without risking,
is a life without reward..”
In this episode you’ll find out about:
Some of the common myths about rejection…
What I’ve learned from the many times I’ve been told ‘‘no’’
Surprising examples of famous people who have been rejected
5 powerful mindset shifts you can make to feel more confident in the face of rejection:
Separate your worth from the outcome. Your value as a human doesn’t increase or decreased based on what you do or don’t achieve.
Think of rejection as a skill you can get better at with practice. See every rejection as an opportunity to improve your response to it.
Set realistic expectations. Is it really reasonable to think EVERYONE on the planet is going to like you? I mean, do you like everyone on the planet?
Rejection itself isn’t hurtful; it’s what you make it mean in your own mind. Believe every experience is teaching you the lesson you need to achieve what you want most.
Be willing to be uncomfortable on purpose. Discomfort is the currency for our dreams.
Show notes & resource links:
Join the conversation by submitting a question for me to answer below!
Full episode transcript:
This is "Okay. Now what?!" with Kate Fitzsimons, episode one. This show for is the young and the anxious who want the inspiration, motivation and useful strategies to find courage and clarity when life isn't going according to plan in ways that school never prepared us for. So, if you're sick of sitting there thinking, "Okay. Now what?" This show my friends is for you.
What? I have a podcast people! What is going on? This is unbelievable. I cannot tell you how long I've been wanting to get this thing off the road. So I'm very excited to be recording my first episode My name is Kate Fitzsimons and I am a teen resilience coach, motivational speaker and the proud director of the Nicole Fitzsimons Foundation, which is a charity that I established in honor of my beautiful big sister Nicole who was tragically killed in a motorbike accident during 2012. So it's pretty easy to see why building resilience and learning how to cope with the tough and unwanted things in life is pretty much my jam as life threw me into a ... in a deep way [inaudible 00:01:23]. I've learned a truck ton along the way.
Now I've spoken to over 70,000 students educating them about travel safety and also building the skills that we need essentially not just survive as humans in this world, but really thrive in it despite all the kind of, as I said unwanted crap that comes between us and our goals and the kind of life that we want to life and the kind of human that we do want to be and show up in the world. Most especially, something that not many of us think about, but the legacy that we do want to leave behind.
I learnt that's not just something that you [inaudible 00:02:04] sit around when you're 80 and like, "Hm, what do I wanna write down and just kind of say." Like we are living it every single day and the thing is, we don't know when the last day is up, right? We don't know how many chapters we're here to right, and so my mission through this podcast is essentially to, of course, adversity, challenges, unwanted things are all a part of life. We do not get a choice about that, but through this podcast I wanna teach you why you do get a choice about you respond to it, why that changes everything.
I wanna help you up level your relationship with yourself, your relationship with those who matter most to you, and most especially your relationship to your life and your goals and the legacy that you do want to leave behind. So you can give yourself that gift that my sister gave herself of no regrets. No matter when you leave, you leave with no regrets. So that's my little intro and I guess I've totally just done it off the cuff because I'm so excited and I also want to share with you this story that happened this morning which was brilliant, leading in to recording my first episode. It already makes me giggle just thinking about it.
I was very excited and also a little bit anxious to get up on here and record my first episode. I was at the gym this morning doing my cardio and then I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna medicate. I'm gonna get all zen. I'm gonna calm my mind." I don't do that very often. Don't worry, I'm not one of those hippy people. I still have a lot to learn myself through mindfulness, but I said, "I wanna do this." And I tried to go in the yoga studio where it's all peaceful but I got kicked out by a yoga class, so I'm like, "I'll just do it in the middle of the gym floor." Well, in the yoga stretching.
Anyway, so I'm lying down and it's like a 10 minute meditation on my Calm application and I'm like, "I've got this," and I'm really focusing on my breath and all the thoughts are flying around but I'm like, "No. Peace, calm, I've got this." And I could kind of hear someone chatting me [inaudible 00:04:07] but I'm like, "Nope. Zen. Zen breath. Breathe. All calm." Lying there, eyes closed, minding my own business and then bang, a massive lot of water just comes flying off me. The lady next to me had dropped her entire water bottle all over me and I got drenched. So immediately my brain went into like fight or flight mechanism 'cause it was like, "Holy moly, what just happened here?" And I just thought like ... I just cracked up laughing. The woman felt mortified.
I just was like, "You know what? This is life." Like you think you've got everything going to plan. You're like, "I can see where this is going and what's going to happen. I've got this." And then bang, out of nowhere someone's just suddenly ... Yeah, something's flying at you that you never saw coming. For me it was a whole bottle of water all over my head this morning, but for all of us that can be anything from loss of opportunities, a job that doesn't work out or the uni course you might've missed out on or loss of love. Your boyfriend walks out in a way that you never saw coming or a parent's divorcing. There's even loss of health. Injuries and illnesses which can change everything. And of course just loss of expectation about how you wanted your day to go, but then you miss your train to work and then you get really bad feedback from your boss. Then you hear someone talking about you behind your back and then you get home to find out on Instagram that that boy you were kind of into is now dating someone else and you're just like, "Oh my goodness. What else can go wrong?"
I've been there. I got you. Everything I'm gonna share on these podcasts, as a certified Life Coach are actual tools and strategies and things that you can actually put into place to make real change. It's great. I love stories. They're really fun to learn from and to understand that [inaudible 00:05:59] learning to connect with others, but I'm actually gonna give you useful things that you can do to actually experience change.
I was like "Holy goodness gracious, what do I do my first podcast on?" And so I just opened up my Instagram messages and sitting there was a message from a girl saying that she would love to one day do what I do, become a speaker, share her message, kind of leave an impact in this world and it's something I actually get a lot. I know that every single one of us has the ability to do this and I love that through my journey I'm inspiring others to do it 'cause we need a whole lot more people standing up and reaching for their potential. She asked me, what's my advice? I just said, "Get really good at rejection." She's like, "Yeah, but how do you actually get good at rejection?" And so I was like, "Boom. Why not start there?" I think that is something that no matter how old you are, what walk of life, what career you wanna pursue, rejection is something that we're all inevitably going to face.
In this episode I'm going to share with you five simple but powerful strategies you can use to better manage your mind and emotional life around rejection and really learn how to begin to handle it like a boss because lord knows you're gonna need it and it's actually something that's really relevant for me to kind of be chatting about today because guess what I was facing this morning as well? My fear of rejection, right, to get on and record my very first podcast. I had all the same fear come up, 'cause let's face it some of you might hate this and reject and not listen to it and totally might not feel my vibe.
I had to coach myself around this very topic so I think it's really timely to I guess be diving in and launching my first episode discussing this, so before I do dive into this, though, I really wanna make clear do not judge yourself if you are somehow who really struggles to put yourself out there to write that first blog post or try out for the school play or the soccer team or to ask someone out or hand in a job resume.
Don't judge yourself if you do feel a lot of fear around doing that in case you get rejected, in case someone says no. Because it actually, that fear of rejection is a very primitive innate fear that we all have as human beings because back in caveman days when we were ancestor time, being rejected by someone in our tribe, and someone not, like not feeling like we below with the group pretty much meant death, right? 'Cause if we weren't going to stick around with the tribe, then we were left out in the field on our own to die, essentially. That is why connection and feeling like we belong is so important because being ostracized from a group to our brain literally triggers that same fear as death.
On top of that very primitive fear is in that societal ingrained fear that from a very young age we are taught to seek approval from others. "Oh, good job, you did that well." All that praise we kinda get hooked on the hit that we get when we have people patting us on the back and "approving" of what we're doing and what we're achieving. This is a serious issue for anyone who wants to grow and evolve and create anything in your life because any time you create something new you put your kind of skills and gift out there to create something you are risking rejection. You are risking haters. You are risking judgment and losing approval.
But now is when you to imagine a life where you aren't afraid of being rejected. What would you being doing right now that you aren't doing if you didn't fear rejection? Think about it. What is something you're holding off doing because you're scared about what someone else will say about it? Is it a blog post or maybe it's starting your own podcast or maybe it's asking someone out or signing up for a uni course. What would you do whether it's the rejection from your parents or your friends, families and players, what would you be doing right now if you didn't fear rejection? It's crazy, right?
The thing is we often value approval of others over doing our own work that matters to us in the world and so that is the cost of not overcoming your fear of rejection by other people and the world is that you reject yourself. When you try to prevent rejection you prevent yourself from putting yourself out there in the world because your so terrified, but in the end you're rejected anyway because either someone else is rejecting you or you're rejecting you and your dreams and what matters to you. That's something that I like to begin with, it's like either way you're rejecting something. Someone else is doing it for you or you're doing it to yourself. You're gonna feel uncomfortable anyway. There's the discomfort that comes with someone rejecting you and then there's the discomfort that comes from not following your dream, for not following your calling, for not doing what you wanna do and what feels true to you.
The rejection I feel like of someone else rejecting you is like a slap in the face and then the rejection of nothing following that internal voice is like that slow gnawing kind of feeling that day by day, little by little, eats away at you and literally it kind of is just like soul sucking feeling. For me I'm like, I'd rather feel the slap in the face and get it out [inaudible 00:11:29] then keep moving forward than that slow gnawing feeling, right?
Now I've hopefully removed that layer of judgment and made clear that your fear of rejection is something to be ashamed of. It's a very normal feature of being a human. I do also wanna teach you that there are so many practical things that you can do to help better handle and overcome that fear of rejection so it kinda of like has like a backseat in your journey rather than the driving seat in determining where you're actually going. Because you know what like, when you look around, there really are so many inspiring stories, right? Of people overcoming rejection after rejection after failure to get to the huge successes that they are today.
I mean, I love those stories. Like some I know off the top of my head are like Lady Gaga was dropped from her first record deal after three months when she was just 16 years old. J. K. Rowling was rejected from 12 publishers before someone would print Harry Potter for her. Michael Jordan, apparently dropped from his basketball team when he was in high school. You know, best basketball player ever now. One of my actual favorites, I've gotta tell you about this guy, Jack Ma. He's one of the richest people in the world now. I think he's worth like $36 billion and founder of the online giant, Alibaba. It's so easy to look at someone so successful and just think they're like a unicorn and they're special and they must be born into some privileged life. But listen to this.
So when Ma applied for jobs when he was growing up in China he applied for 30 and he was rejected from every single one of them. He actually went for one at KFC. 24 people applied for the job. 23 were hired except for him. Same thing happened when he tried to be a policeman. 4 out of the 5 applicants were hired except for him. And even once when he went to go for a job at a hotel, he went with his cousin. After waiting for two hours the cousin got the job even though his cousin had a lower score than him, Ma missed out. And he was actually this businessman who's now one of the best in the world was once rejected from Harvard 10 times, so Harvard Business School, right? Like God damn! That is a lot of rejection. If rejection in within itself was a bad thing and meant you were doomed to fail, like Jack Ma would not be one of the most successful people in the world, right? But in fact it's actually like the opposite and he agrees with me.
It is through learning how to grow ... I just realized he said he agrees with me, like I've sat down and had a conversation with him. I wish. He's amazing. But no, I'm just saying I've read that he says this as well. It is through learning how to grow the resilience to overcome so much rejection is really makes him the leader that he is today because it taught him the skills to continue to take his business to the next level and how to take those risks that really help him be so successful because he's had to learn how to overcome that fear and prove to himself that he can.
I'm sharing all this to really, first of all, make clear that rejection in within itself is not painful. It's not humiliating. It's not a bad thing. It is what it is and it's what we actually make it mean in our own mind that actually causes us to feel any sort of humiliation or shame or frustration about it. I wanna break this down for a little bit. Let's just say if you make an offer and someone says, "No." It is not the no itself that would hurt your feelings but what you make that no mean. You can make it mean ... often those thoughts might be, "I'm an idiot. I should've done that. There's something wrong with me. No one likes me." But what I wanna begin to show you is that you can have a choice and you can choose to change the meaning that you're attaching to it, which is really what you will find behind every successful story.
Behind every single person that's overcome fear and failure and rejection along the way is that they've changed the meaning and the way that they think about and the perspective that they take on that rejection and that is what gives them the resilience to get back up and keep trying. So it doesn't mean that the rejection that you've might feel in that moment doesn't sting or even for a few days afterwards, but what I'm gonna teach you is you are completely in control of whether you stay stuck spinning the story that you completely embarrassed yourself or whether you begin to redirect your focus and your perspective to something that is far more realistic and empowering for you.
I am now gonna share with you the top five mindset shifts and beliefs that I discovered through studying so many of these inspiring people and also what I've learnt throughout my own journey of rejection. Yes, not of resilience, of rejection because for those who don't know, I began a whole campaign around travel safety after my sister was killed in an accident overseas. I began this whole thing in my bedroom. It's now reached over 70,000 students, but to do this I had to leave behind my corporate job which I just studied my backside off for for three years and before I lost Nicole I was very, very cautious. I never had to rock the boat to be in a position that risk people judging or kind of thinking that I wasn't good enough, so I ... to take on this foundation was a pretty big risk and I had no clue how to do anything to do with with really running a charity or how I was supposed to approach networking or anything, so there was a pretty good probability that this was gonna fall on its ass.
It was just me and my laptop and now I've grown it to be this nationwide kind of charity and I know that people kind of look up to me now for what I've achieved, but I just at no point was it ever smooth sailing. It took over five years to kind of really get it to where it is today and even in my first year I sent out, I kid you not, like over six months, like I don't know, 300 emails to schools to which I got eight school bookings. I now have the honor of working along side the government and getting that recognition but when I first emailed them I pretty much just got a pat on the back email like "Good stuff champ. Yeah you keep doing that." But they weren't really interested in working together so I do also have my own kind of story and I'm facing it all again now with my resilience stuff and building out my coaching business and doing things like podcasts so you know, I certainly know a thing or two about overcoming it.
What first of all, I wanna say number one I've found in all the stories and through my own experience, the biggest thing you have to do to get better at handling rejection is to make that step to clearly separate out your worth from the outcome and the result that you achieve or don't achieve. Right? So what you do in this world, whether you go and solve cancer or whether you pick up rubbish on the street for a living, whatever it is your worth just is. It doesn't' make you more or less valuable. I think any time we come into trouble with insecurities or about our competence, it's when we suddenly get confused and start attaching our worth as a human being to something outside of us.
So what I like to offer you as an analogy that I use in my life, like you know, let's just say you went up to someone and you're like, "Do you want this $100 note?" And they're like, "No thank you." And you're like, "No, no, no. Sorry, excuse me. It's $100. Are you sure you don't want it?" They're like, "No. I don't want it." Does that note suddenly become less valuable just because that person said they don't want it? No. Of course not. Right?
So the note ... that person's just confused or maybe there's just a bit of miscommunication but the note within itself is just as valuable whether someone else can appreciate that value or not. Or it's also like, some boys and you see their cars and they spent all this money on it and it's like a piece of junk and I'm like, "Yeah, I would not pay that for it." But that doesn't change the value of the car, right? I've rejected the car but it's still sits at $50,000 even though I wouldn't pay $5 for it. But you know what I mean? It's just so important. I really always ... You have to make that step and that commitment to not attach your value as a human to anything that you do or don't achieve or any rejection you do or don't get.
My sister was amazing at teaching me this. She was an incredible dancer and a sports journalist and achieving such phenomenal things in her life. I would see her come home from so many dancing auditions or journalistic things where she didn't make it through to the next round and did we then love her any less or celebrate her life any less when she was gone? No, in fact we celebrated it harder because she had the courage to go after her dreams and her value didn't increase or decrease either way but what she was, the value she was able to bring to the world, actually, increased through the legacy she did leave behind.
First commitment you have to make to have your own back with rejection is no matter what this person says or thinks or how hard I fall, my value as a human being is just, it just is. I can't increase it, decrease it, it's just a given. It's a God given right to be valuable and worthy as a human being period. Whether someone thinks you're a fool, that's on them, which is what we'll get to later.
So now we got clear on that. Number two that I wanna recommend to better manage your mind around overcoming rejection is to think about it actually as a skill because right now your brain has this false belief that rejection is like death. So we need to train it, that it's not deadly and it is actually how we will continue to evolve our species, and especially evolve you as a human being is to actually get better at handling this rejection and to hear someone say no to you. The more you can actually go out in the world and prove this to yourself, that yes maybe in the moment rejection is uncomfortable but you're not gonna die, the more you'll actually begin to put up the courage to keep doing it and is through actually overcoming hard things that then that courage will then turn into that confidence.
Because courage can still feel a bit uncomfortable because there's some fear mixed in but it is through actually putting yourself out there and writing that blog post and having no one read it but recognize that you can still get up in the morning and breathe in oxygen. Like you haven't died, it is okay is where you can go, "Well, I'm gonna keep showing up for the next one and the next one." You actually begin to find that if you keep practicing this and looking
at as a skill as something you can get better at, I think you'll find that it begins to sting less and less. In fact there's a guy who has actually made this awesome TED Talk where he spoke about for 100 days he went out to find 100 rejections. So every day he did something and it was something like pretty ridiculous like random little things like asking people for money or to give him something for free and because he wanted to really train his mind to see that rejection wasn't a bad thing and it's actually how you do get more out of life learning how to show up in the face of rejection. I should put that in the show notes for this episode.
It's pretty awesome to see, but even Jack Ma who I was speaking about earlier said it is through how he learned to overcome all of these early rejections and values in his life that he did grow the skills to ... 'cause once you learn how to do it, like he's now taken that and applying it into this big, bigger riskier business situations where a normal entrepreneur might not have the guts or the ability or the skills to handle the possibility of that rejection. But he knows he does now because he can look back on his life and be like, "Well, look at everything I've already overcome, all that rejection." He's gotten better at it each time.
The same can go with you but you have to actually take massive action and put yourself out there on the field of rejection. Like if you wanted to get better at soccer, you can read about it for so long but then you actually have to get out on the soccer field and sometimes kind of step up and practice the moves before you can get better at it. The same goes with rejection like look at this period of your life, you know, we're still young, where nothing is final or fatal or anything like that. So kind of put yourself out there with that growth mindset mentality of "Every time I get rejected, I'm learning how to handle it better."
I often like to play in my mind, like if you knew that it was just gonna take 100 nos before you got the first yes, you wouldn't make that rejection mean anything other than, "Ooh look, there's another rejection," which is kind of what leads me into my next point of really setting also realistic expectations for yourself rather than approaching the world as how you wish it was or should be. It's about approaching the world in the way that it is. That is how you kind of have the resilience to kind of deal with the unexpected because that is the world that we live in and when we think it shouldn't be, or things should be easier or more straight forward, or more fair, that is when we set ourselves up to kind of spiral into those complete, kind of distressed states 'cause we think something's gone terribly wrong.
But if you can approach it with a mindset of "Oh no, of course this is gonna happen because I'm just like every other human being. I'm just like Jack Ma and J.K Rowling." We all face "No," and "That's a bad idea," and "You're a failure," and "You're a fool," and all of that, everyone who's putting something out there in the world has faced that in one time or another and I think the more we can speak about that the better because that is when we can more ingrain that mindset into us that nothing's gone terribly wrong. This is just simply the human experience.
Okay, my point number three when it comes to better handling rejection is really recognizing that the person is rejecting you for their reasons and it's not about you. You're gonna hear me explore this concept a whole lot more right throughout this podcast. I know it's something we hear people say over and over but I don't think we really get it until you really stop and slow it down and pull it apart. This actually ties in with setting realistic expectations because is it really realistic to expect that everyone on the planet is gonna love you and who you are and what you have to offer? Like do you like everyone and who they are and what they offer? Think about it. Why don't you like them? Because of your own preferences, right? And you're own values and beliefs and how you're being brought up, so you saying no to someone actually tells me more about you than about them. Right?
And the same goes in reverse. You know when I'm not booked at a school it tells me that the school is fully booked for the year or has a smaller budget or doesn't really like to engage in outside speakers, or whatever it is. It's often telling me more about that school and not necessarily immediately meaning that my program's a terrible idea and no one cares about it and I should just give up.
Now we're at an age where we can manage our own thoughts and kind of redirect our mind around things and think more deeply about things like rather than just listening to that primitive instinct like, "Oh no, you're being rejected and you're gonna die." You gotta look at it like, "Hang on, maybe why is this person saying no? Like, have I not communicated something clearly to them? Sometimes it's just a communication of the value that needs to be better explained, but really kind of seeing like you can be the juiciest ripest peach ever and there will always be someone who doesn't like peaches. Right?
That's the case for absolutely everything, so we need to allow space in our life for rejection, for people not to like us and be mature enough not to immediately make it about us, but kind of understand where they're coming from and why we might not be that cup of tea and not making it mean anything bad about them and most especially not anything bad about us or our value. We're not entitled for everyone to understand us. Let people be wrong about you. Let them reject you and that's okay. We don't have to immediately add in the drama, but that is one thing I wanna make very clear is that people are rejecting you for their reasons and that is something beyond your control and you will drive yourself crazy if you try to control that. So allow space for a no in your life. It's okay.
Okay, so this next point comes from remembering that rejection itself does not hurt your feelings. It's your thoughts and beliefs about rejection that does. So remember I used to have the same beliefs that rejection meant I wasn't good enough or it was time to quit, and of course it makes sense if that's what you make rejection mean that no wonder you feel so distressed or ashamed or anxious and afraid of it, right? It really makes sense. We have such a negative attachment to what rejection means but through studying and learning from so many inspiring people out there, I found that all we really need to do is make a fundamental shift of the meaning that we attach to the rejection or why that thing's happening not in the way that we thought it should.
This again is a choice, but what I've chosen to believe about my rejection and what I kind of kept redirecting my mind to every time it wanted to tell me that this was a terrible thing, is to simply choose to believe that the only reason that I'm not getting what I want now is because I'm getting the lessons or the experience I need in order to get what I want most, and that is a belief that you can choose to make true in your own life. Maybe your not going through to that job because you need to get to the next place to meet this certain person who's gonna open up this certain door.
Or, you know, there could be a million reasons why you need to just learn how to, if anything, better cope with this rejection because down the track you're gonna have to take a risk in this next job that you might get and you'll be able to draw upon this strength that you get through this experience that you can survive risk and rejection. There could be a million different reasons. Maybe there's just a friend that you need to make in a different place. Maybe that uni course that you thought was the dream one you wanted to get into ultimately wasn't or you weren't ready for that yet, there's something else you had to learn or meet or experience before ... I could go on all day, right?
We really don't know why things do or don't happen, so where does that leave us? With a choice. With that freedom to choose our beliefs about what any event in our life means. Given it's a choice, doesn't it seem to make sense that we might as well interpret things in a way that's gonna give us some strength and peace and inspiration when we need it most. And so I know a lot of people kind of reject this whole idea of having that optimistic attitude, but I'm like, "What's the alternative?" Totally disempowering ourselves and throwing our hands up and giving up? I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure that's probably not the way you wanna live your life, right? And so who cares if we're a bit delusional? We're delusional either way.
We don't know why thing do or don't happen or what could or couldn't happen next, like there really is no certainty either way, so I just decided in my life that we might as well choose to interpret things with this idea that, you know what, the universe does have your back, that there is a reason this is happening and not being immature in that I can't see the reason now, like we're entitled to understand it now, it's trusting that in the big picture, even if you can't see it now, it's all working out in your favor.
You know Steve Jobs has an amazing quote of "You've gotta trust that the dots will connect in the future." He's ultimately gone and completely changed the entire world with the technology he's created and of course, he was creating something that you know, the iPhone and the smart phone people probably wouldn't have thought "I don't get it. I don't understand why would need that." And now look at us.
So it is about really choosing what you make that rejection mean and if you are feeling like you are being turned away from a path that you really thought was for you and you can't understand why that could be happening, it's about reminding yourself that you don't need to understand it fully now, you just need to trust that in time the answer will unfold in the way that maybe you will be able to look back and connect those dots. If you're looking for proof of this to kind of reinforce this belief and show you that it really is possible, like I'm telling you go and research Jack Ma, J.K. Rowling, Michael Jordan, Lady Gaga, you know, Steve Jobs. There are so many people out there that literally prove that this is true and if you really dig into their belief systems you will see that they always had this belief that "No matter what this is preparing me for the path that's meant for me. For something bigger. For something that really is gonna fulfill me in the ultimate way."
You can choose and decide to commit to every day that your brain wants to have that freak out just like mine does to redirect and look for evidence as to why it is true that you are ultimately getting on your path, and to recommit every time you're rejected rather than using it as an excuse to give up. Use it as a reason to double down and recommit in your belief as to what is possible. Just become an example of what is possible. Like, you know what? I'm here where I am today sharing my kind of wisdom and advice and experiences because of all the shit. Sorry! I was not meant to swear.
Because of all the unfortunate things that have happened in my life and how I've overcome then and you know what, these moments where you're hearing [inaudible 00:33:16], you're literally on the verge of giving up, but you don't, those moments are your opportunities to begin to write your own inspiring story that can then give that of inspiration to someone else. I am telling you rather than making rejection mean something's gone wrong, just look at it as you're getting the exact experience that you need for the growth that you need to ultimately achieve what you do want most.
And last ... my last, last point for this episode is actually being willing to feel uncomfortable on purpose. So as I've explained a lot of the humiliation and shame and frustration really is coming from your own thoughts and beliefs about what's happening, but sometimes it's not always possible to manage our thoughts and beliefs and to get to that better feeling perspective right away. And not that you always want to.
If you've worked really hard for something, trained your backside off for a grand final or kind of of a presentation to give or something and it just doesn't go the way that you hoped, or you're rejected, sometimes in the short-term, you actually do wanna feel that sting or disappointment and frustration because it did matter so much to you, so let yourself feel that. As a human we're never meant to feel happy and bubbly about everything all the time, but what I wanna remind you is that understand that this discomfort is the currency for your dreams.
I mean, are you offended when you have to pay money for a car or a coffee or like something you wanna buy? No. Right? It's just the way the world works. Well, the same goes with your dream. The humiliation, the fear, the shame, the rejection you gotta feel. It's like just the price that we pay for the thrill of achieving our goal, for achieving something that matters to us, and in fact, the goal wouldn't even be such a thrill to achieve if we didn't have to pay such a high price for it in the first place. You know if you really haven't had to dig deep and push outside your comfort zone for it, like achieving the goal kind of feels good, but it's not as priceless as it could be had you had to really kind of pay the ... so much currency of discomfort, to really push through all that fear and like, it is a discomfort that makes the goal so fulfilling.
And so I'm just gonna wrap up today by reminding you that rejection really is only as painful as the story you choose to tell about it. The story I choose to tell in my life is a life without rejection is a life without risking and a life without risking is a life without reward. So, this week I encourage you all to go take that risk of rejection. Go ask that cute barista. Go ask your boss for the pay raise. Go ask that person for help with your assignment and you know what will blow your mind once you do? How many times you'll actually hear yes! But even if you don't, all you've gotta do is to redirect your mind and be proud of yourself for having your own back and knowing that you are someone who is willing to risk rejection on purpose because they are the people tat are out there leaving their mark on this world. That can be you! J remember rejection does not touch your worth and in fact it helps you bring more of your worth in to this world.
So that is yay, my first official episode wrapping up. I am so, so excited to begin this podcast journey with you all to be sitting down every week and you know kind of dissecting all of these issue that kind of do cause us, I guess, the greatest stress during this stage in our lives, but also giving you the tools you need to get a better handle over these situations rather than these situations always having you and staying in power over your emotional and mental life more than anything. It's certainly an ever work in progress but I will be showing up here for you every week. It will be my honor to do so.
I do hope you've gotten something out of today's episode that you can apply in your life to help you definitely better handle rejection. If you've got absolutely anything out of today, whether it made you smile, laugh, think deeply, kind of shift a little belief in you, then there's just two simple things I would love for you to do. So the first is please subscribe to this podcast so you can ensure firstly that you don't miss a single episode and always be the first to see when I release one, but also this podcast, it's just beginning, it's brand new, it's a little baby.
So I would appreciate your support in helping me grow it and reach more people online and subscribing is a massive way to help do this and ensure that more and more people are seeing it and if you wanna go that extra mile for me, which I would adore you for is to please leave me a rating and a review on iTunes so you know this can get more exposure, and please be honest, five stars would be amazing. But you know, whatever. You can't hurt my feelings. Only my thoughts can do that. So I'd love your honest feedback as I do wanna ensure I'm creating a show that you guys really are getting the most out of.
And second thing is if you enjoy this episode, please take a snapshot of it on your phone and put it up on your stories and tag me in it. My Instagram is @katemaree_fitz, double e in the maree. If you aren't following me on Instagram, what are you doing? We have a ton of fun on there. I'm always posting on there. I would love for you to join me. We do dive deeper into a lot of what I've discussed on this podcast, extra motivation, inspiration between episodes to keep you on track, but please put it up in your stories so your friends could see it.
And if you know someone who's a little bit shy, unconfident and needs a bit of help with dealing with this kind of stuff, then please do 'em a favor and share this episode with them so they can learn from it too. [inaudible 00:39:08] no point in keeping all this good stuff to ourselves. I think, as I said, rejection and fear of it is something we all deal with as human beings, so I don't think there is a person out there that won't kind of benefit from learning and hearing about this stuff. You know it's not all my original content. I'm learning from incredible people out there but it is my honor to be showing up and to be sharing these lessons with you and these tools. I know they've been life changing for me and all I can hope is that you're willing to put in the effort so they can be life changing for you as well. But until next week guys, go out there, face your fear of rejection and have your own back no matter what.
Hey you! Thanks so much for tuning into the show. If you enjoyed listening and you're thinking, "Okay. Now what?" Well, besides practicing what you've learned in your own life, please be sure to subscribe to the show and leave me a rating and review so this can reach more people and really help out generation become more resilient. And if you want some extra inspo in between episodes, be sure to follow me on Instagram @katemaree_fitz.
