Fear of rejection is one of the most human things in the world. We all experience it. But how can we learn to manage it, live with it, and even occasionally, overcome it?

Watch today’s new video to find out…

Matthew Hussey:

I’ll take rejection over being 90 years old, looking back on my life and saying, “Well, I never got rejected, but I didn’t do much either.” So I’m not going to sit here and tell you you’re not going to get rejected. Of course you’re going to get rejected. I’m going to send you out to be rejected.

Sometimes we make it very personal, we make it about ourselves, and that’s when we start saying, “Well, if someone that great didn’t want me, then there must be something wrong with me. I must not be as great as that person.” We take this person and we make them a global representation of what the world must think. Instead of seeing them as a person, an individual, or seeing this as a moment.

If we want somebody and then that person didn’t want us back, now that’s going to turn us off, because “everyone should have wanted me and the next person might not want me either.” Well, the truth is there are many, many, many, many, many people we aren’t going to want us. But what are you more fearful of, getting rejected again, or living your life in a cave?

 

Caller:

I guess being in a cave.

 

Matthew:

The biggest waste of life is life wasted on these kinds of negative ideas that stop you doing things.

You like someone. It’s nice to have that feeling, so enjoy it. But secondly, keep things in perspective. I’m going to show the real sides of me, and this is either going to drive this person wild or I’m not going to be for them.

We create these big generalizations about how attractive we are based on this tiny moment in our lives, and we’re taking things too far.

Set the bar lower. Make it so pathetically small that you can’t not do it. That’s all it is: small risks every day, and always remind yourself that you can sleep at night knowing you tried, but the thing that will keep you up at night is knowing that you didn’t even put yourself out there.

Those moments where you feel yourself getting really nervous, I want you to remind yourself of something. This is: There isn’t something so great to lose right now. So I don’t want you to get too in your head about it. Sometimes we’re so like, “Why didn’t this person like me?,” or, “What did I do wrong?,” or whatever, when the over-analyzing thing is what’s creating more of that. Instead of overthinking everything, I just want you to be like, “Hey, we should hang out sometime. We should catch up sometime.”

You can be confident enough to take a risk, but then what you have to do is be confident enough to sit back and let him do something. So you could take a step forward, but then see if he comes to meet you. “Oh, there’s another cute person over there, I’ll go talk to them.” And half the time it’s when we go talk to that cute person over there, that the person we really like looks at us and goes, “Oh, hang on.”

I’m just as afraid of rejection as you are, but I fear regret more. But if you decide rejection is the scariest thing to you, you’ll always avoid guys. If you decide that regret is the scariest thing to you, then you’ll go out there and you’ll talk to everybody and you’ll have an amazing time doing it because you’ll know no rejection could be as painful as the regret you will feel later on.

The important thing is that we continue to work on ourselves. We continue to make ourselves the most incredible version of ourselves. And we keep searching for that person who not only has great qualities but also wants to shine their light on us and say, “Yes, you’re the person for me.”