Accepting Rejection – The Cornerstone of Perseverance

2019-01-242019-01-24 ~ adminlife

We learn at an early age that we don’t get everything we want. In other words, we have had to deal with rejection since then. This makes you think that people accept rejection easily. The exact opposite is usually true.

People start to develop an invisible shield against rejection. They may show anger or resentment to the people who are serving up the rejection. But, in many cases, it can show who is resilient and who is likely to continue until they get what they want.

No one likes to hear negative comments about themselves. People take it personally. However, knowing the reason for rejection can help change your direction. You can correct the aspects that made people reject you in the first place.

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This won’t work with everything. For instance, if a person you are attracted to does not return the favor, it may be difficult or impossible to turn this around. Then again, there are numerous stories of people who persevered even when they were rejected time and again, and won the love of their lives.

Another instance where you may face rejection is during a job interview. Many candidates will pass this off as incompetence on the part of the interviewer, and there are certainly cases where this is true. But, you should always try to evaluate the reasons why the interviewer did not choose you. You’d be surprised at how few people even ask for the reasons. Interviewers won’t typically volunteer this information. Many will feel you don’t care if you don’t ask.

In many cases, rejection is not personal. You may not have the necessary skills when seeking a job, or you may not have enough experience, etc. In other cases, it may be somewhat personal, but it may be in your best interest to get rejected. For instance, if you don’t have an aggressive personality, do you want to pursue a career that requires one? If you are in sales, you need to have this driving personality to succeed.

Use rejection to your benefit. People who accept rejection and don’t give up are usually the ones who eventually get that acceptance. Sometimes, the very fact that you are persevering is what turns the tables from rejection to acceptance. Whose to say that next opportunity is not the one that will accept you? You won’t know unless you continue on your quest.

To your success

Michael W

P.S. If you are looking for a confidence program that can help you with your self development. Send me an email at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to request a copy of my “Maximum Confidence Transformation Package”. Afterwards we can arrange a discovery telephone call to discuss the package and how you can benefit further from developing your confidence level.

Feature photo used under CCO and available at https://pixabay.com/en/stamp-approve-rubber-pass-reject-2114884/

How to Use Failure to Strengthen Belief in Yourself

2018-12-292018-12-29 ~ adminlife

Do you try to avoid failure? Most people do. It makes sense, too. Failing is no fun. It would be great if we could leap right to success. However, it doesn’t work that way. But, you can use tools to help you believe in yourself, and find that success. One of the best tools to help you is failure itself.

When you fail, you can use the experience to figure out what went wrong. You can evaluate the steps you took and try to find the point of failure. You can then choose alternative steps based on this information.

You do need to be honest in your assessment of why the failure happened. If you go around blaming everyone else for your failures, this will mask the true reasons, and you will never move on. It’s easier to blame others rather than admit mistakes. However, you aren’t doing yourself any favors when you do this.

Recognizing your failure is important, but don’t be overly critical. If you get to the point where you are putting yourself down because you failed, this won’t help your cause. You need to recognize that you failed, but know that it is going to happen and embrace it. Then, you can take a step back and figure out how to continue.

You can get inspiration from the failure of others. People write about their trials and tribulations in books or record videos about their experiences. Their experiences can help you by giving you tips on how to avoid the mistakes they made. Understanding this can help succeed at a much faster rate than if you make the same mistakes. Using other peoples’ experiences to your advantage is crucial. If you don’t do this already, it’s time to start.

Drawing from the experiences of others also shows you that you aren’t alone. If you read about how a successful person overcame obstacles, you can feel better about making mistakes. In other words, if they did it, so can you. That too is a powerful benefit of using failure to your advantage.

Is there ever a time when you should try to avoid failure? If you are repeating the same mistakes over and over, it’s time to take a hard look at what you are doing. If you can’t break that cycle, you may want to find a coach that can help you. Sometimes, that extra push can be all that is needed to get you to move on from that cycle.

To your success

Michael W

Feature photo used under CCO and available at https://pixabay.com/en/success-planning-strategy-draw-pen-620300/

The Psychology of Persistence

2018-01-14 ~ adminlife

Being highly persistent is something that can help you make all kinds of amazing things happen. Like the little ant that moved the rubber tree plant, truly remarkable things can happen when you just don’t give up.

But while it would be nice to simply ‘switch on’ being persistent, the truth of the matter is that some people may simply be born more persistent than others – or they may have learned it as a behavior when they were very young. Is it too late to ‘decide’ to be persistent right now?

What is Persistence?

From a psychological perspective, persistence is essentially just a personality trait. In measures of personality designed to try and tell people about themselves, persistence is a common factor that gets measured alongside other things like conscientiousness and extroversion/introversion. It is one of the personality traits measured in the ‘Temperament and Character Inventory’ for instance where it is considered one of four ‘temperament’ traits. Here it is defined as ‘perseverance in spite of fatigue or frustration’.

Whether or not personality can be ‘changed’ over time is a matter that is contentious among psychologists. Some studies suggest that people aren’t likely to change their personality much as time goes by, whereas others show that we change in some predictable ways as we get older. Other theories though describe personality as being entirely fluid and potentially even non-existent and instead entirely reliant on context. Some psychologists believe that you are literally a different person depending on who you’re with at the time. Others describe personality as being an emergent property of the ‘connectome’ which is the neuronal web of beliefs, ideas and memories that grows and changes over time.

There are certainly things you can do to make being persistent easier for yourself. CBT or ‘cognitive behavioral therapy’ can help for instance, as too can simply giving yourself more energy.

Who is Likely to be Persistent?

While it’s uncertain how easily you can ‘train’ yourself to be persistent though, what you certainly can do is to identify the people who are most likely to be persistent and why.

Interestingly for instance, there appears to be a highly heritable element of persistence. That is to say that if your parents are very persistent then you are likely to be as well. This would seem to stand in favor of the idea that persistence can’t be learned.

Persistence has also been shown to correlate with the trait of conscientiousness and to an extent ‘self-transcendence’. If you know someone who’s very conscientious and self-aware, they may well be persistent too…

To your success

Michael W

P.S. Are you frustrated that you are not reaching your ultimate level of success? Do you desire to be more confident and successful? Fantastic. Let me help you.

As a Life Coach, I want to make sure that you achieve all of your goals and desires to become the powerful person you know you are inside. Bring that confident person outside to take charge of your life. Let me buy you a 30 minute session so that we can talk together to determine how to move you forward.

Simply email me at michael@youaresuccesslifecoach.com to get started now.

Are you ready to reach the level of success that you know you desire?

Nigel Tadyanehondo