We all look forward to ringing in the New Year. Its arrival offers us exciting opportunities for a new start. We learn from past successes and failures, grab the present opportunities, and venture into the future with confidence and hope. This new beginning opens for us a new direction for oneself and for one’s world.

Socrates said, “The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” And so, how can we make the most of the New Year? You are never too young or too old to set a new goal and a new dream. Every New Year, like every new day, brings with it new challenges, new opportunities, new problems and new hopes. As R. W. Emerson said, “Write it on your hearts that every day is the best day of the year.”

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“A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success.”
— Bo Bennett, motivational speaker

Different people experience rejection coming from different sources. These sources may seem ridiculous to some, but for others they may be extremely serious. Someone may reject a person out of jealously, lack of understanding or outright hostility. The most common reason for rejection, it is said, is a feeling of inadequacy and a fear of failure on the part of the other.

You could be left out for other reasons, as well, like lack of communication, lack of right knowledge, lack of mental support, lack of common interest, lack of mutual appreciation, or lack of trust.

You are in august company!

When you face rejection, it is good to know that you are in august company. Here are some examples that will empower you to spring back to self-confidence and effectiveness.

• A German teenager was convinced by her low popularity that she was not attractive. But she became a top model, hailed by many as one of the most beautiful women of her time. Those who ignored her stared boasting that they were her schoolmates. She is none other than Claudia Schiffer.

• Rejected as too awkward and clumsy to be a ball boy in a Davis Cup match, Stan Smith went on to become the officially-ranked No. 1 tennis player in the world (1972-73).

• John Creasey, as a would-be crime novelist, received an unbroken flow of 743 rejection slips. Yet, over sixty million copies of his books have been sold.

• The gym instructor of a puny school boy called Edmund Hillary complained, “What will they send me next?” He went on to become the first man to conquer Mount Everest.

• In the dead of the dark night, Charles Dickens would sneak down the street to mail his manuscripts, lest his friends see and ridicule him. Many of his early manuscripts were rejected, before he won the hearts of millions with classics like Oliver Twist.

• Many were invited to witness one of humanity’s most historic moments: the Wright Brothers’ first flight in their “heavier than air” machine. Only five people turned up for the event!

• No publisher was willing to accept John Kennedy Toole’s manuscripts. He could not cope with the rejection and apparent failure, and committed suicide. However, his novel A Confederacy Of Dunces was published posthumously and it won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

These are but a few of the countless instances that show that your experience of rejection is neither unique nor the worst. In all these cases of rejection, the end result was far more positive and wonderful than expected. So, never get put off by rejection. When slandered and rejected, remember, you stand in the company of the great! Many have stifled their lives by listening to some misguided critic who passed sentence that they were not good enough.

Earl G. Graves, the founder and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine and an authority on black business development, says: “We keep going back, stronger, not weaker; because we will not allow rejection to beat us down. It will only strengthen our resolve. To be successful, there is no other way!”

Your frame of reference

The frame of reference you choose will determine whether you see yourself as gifted or inept, indispensable or inadequate. But no one is as perfectly endowed as you are to fulfil the life’s work the Creator has entrusted to you. Dwell on this thought, it has the power to become a treasured source of strength and inspiration.

Just take any person, and you can write volumes about what he or she is unable to do or does badly. But that is of no more concern than the fact that a washing machine cannot do tailoring, record music, paint the walls or mow the lawn. Just as every instrument has its specific function and purpose, so also each person has his or her function and purpose. Anything skillfully designed is ideally equipped, and often exclusively equipped, for the specific purpose for which it is made, and may not at all serve, or serve poorly, another purpose.

If you are not good in sports, never mind! You could be a very good singer, an excellent painter, a great architect, a powerful writer, a sought-after speaker, a much appreciated teacher, or a wonderful organizer. You are superbly endowed for your precise role. As Bo Bennet says, an objection is not a rejection; it is simply a request for more information. Therefore, don’t let any person or any experience of rejection keep you away from a worthy goal that you want to reach.

The bright side of rejection

Rejection hurts, and hurts like hell! But paradoxically, it is also a moment of great potential. When we are experiencing the pain of being rejected we are simply unable to accept the notion that the new situation in our life has opened up the entrance to many better opportunities.

Soul Bellow, Canadian-born American Jewish author, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, says, “I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgement.” Ever thought that rejection can help you grow your inner garden? Surely this is hard to believe, especially when acceptance means so much to you. You are at times left not only disappointed but also heartbroken!

That, of course, is not fun, especially the first few times it happens. It takes quite a few instances to quieten the agitating emotions that accompany the experience of rejection that one can get one’s thinking clear to see the wisdom and the why of it. A day will come when it all becomes crystal clear to you, and you will see from what you were protected. You realize that the sting of rejection you felt was certainly preferable to the dreadful consequences that would follow if things took the opposite course, if you had your will.

And so asks Destiny Booze, notable American novelist and suspense author, “Have you had a failure or rejection? You could get bitter, or you could get better. What do you think?” All who were denied tickets for a particular flight are happy and thankful they didn’t get that flight: it crashed and all passengers perished!

If rejection comes, take it in your stride. Train yourself to be a tough-minded optimist. When the going gets tough, let the tough in you get going, and don’t abandon your pet projects and dreams. Maybe, a rejection is for your greater good! “Life’s blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm,” says Norman Vincent Peale.

All of us have the ability to turn the despair of rejection into a powerful experience, though it won’t be easy. We need to train our thoughts to see that there is always a lesson in rejection. We need to work hard to reinvent our views and to see the good in it, in order to move forward in life.

“Rejection is a decision,” says Dr Jeremy Nicholson, head of the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College in London. He points out that though the one who is rejecting seems to be more in control, we unintentionally participate in our rejection by nursing our emotional wounds. We need therefore to choose our reaction. When we stop seeing rejection as someone’s power over us, rejection will hurt less.

It is we who ultimately choose to feel humiliated by rejection or not. If we cultivate the serenity of choice in the face of the deep pains of rejection, the pain will be mitigated. It is difficult at times to distinguish between bad luck and a new opportunity. But we can train ourselves to see in the darkness of forsakenness that tiny glow that rejection often carries, and so emerge as stronger and more confident.

It all depends on you!

A young salesman became discouraged because he had been rejected by so many customers he approached. He asked a more experienced salesman for some advice, “Why is it that every time I make a call on someone I get rejected?” “I just don’t understand that,” answered the older salesman. “I’ve been hit on the head, called names, and thrown out of the door, but I’ve never been rejected!”

Kent Crockett observes that rejection is not what happens to us but how we interpret what happens to us.

There are people who feel rejected everywhere and by everybody. They seem to believe they are victims of universal rejection! Are all those who feel rejected actually being rejected, or are they simply inclined to feel that way? If I believe no one likes me, if I am not acceptable to anyone, and if everyone rejects me, then in all probability I am rejecting all those people and even myself.

There are also others who misinterpret any simple thing that has been said or done, and take it as an act of rejection. There are still others who have an inbuilt sense of rejection from childhood issues making them unduly sensitive. For example, one may feel rejected and hurt because the lift operator doesn’t say good morning. We have to ascertain whether we are in fact being rejected or whether we are simply too sensitive to whatever feels like rejection, on account of our past experiences. One can easily misinterpret what happens, and consequently have hurt feelings.

Have you earned your rejection? Why do people reject you? They may do so because of their character, their attitude and their fault, their need or lack of it. Yet, not every rejection is the fault of others. Your attitude and behaviour can repulse them. It is good, therefore, to do some introspection. Are you really rejected, or are you rejecting others? Discover the truth about yourself, own it up, and better yourself.

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There are many winds blowing about us; there are many forces and many attractions. If our purposes and resolutions are feather­weight, like scraps of paper they will fly away. We must put the weight of our wills on them if they must remain in place.

“The great difference existing between individuals in regard to will-power,” says J. F. Donceel, “seems to derive mainly from the availability, the degrees of consciousness, of their motives.”

Most people want to succeed, to forge ahead in their careers, to accumulate wealth, power or knowledge, to have a happy family life, to improve their personalities, and so on. But only those who want these things badly enough are going to get anywhere, because they will make the necessary efforts to achieve them.

Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, was headstrong and quarrelsome in his boyhood. He grew up to be a man of determined and strong will. Many years after his death in 1845, a visitor to Jackson’s home met an old man who knew the President quite intimately. When the visitor asked if Jackson had gone to heaven, the old man answered, “If he set his mind that way, he did”.

The same is the case with all of us. We go the way we set our minds. To want things badly enough, to want them intensely seems to be the essential condition of success.

This is precisely the point where great differences exist between individuals.

Some people are haunted by the desire to succeed, to make money, to help others and so on. They are, in the good sense of the word, ambitious. Whenever they are inclined to slacken their efforts, a powerful motivation, the idea of whatever they want to achieve, rises before their mind and gives them no rest until they are again hard at work. These are the strong-willed individuals. They get what they want.

Paderewski was above eighty when he decided to become a pianist. Till then he never thought of playing piano: he was only a composer.
Once his editor told him his compositions were not up to the mark as no one could play them on the piano. “Only an excellent pianist can play your music,” he remarked.

“Why can’t I be that pianist?” said the composer.

So he went to Vienna to meet Leschetizky who was the best piano instructor of the time. The maestro’s reaction was, “To begin at your age! It is a waste of time.” But the student insisted, and the teacher gave him a few lessons.

The studious old man kept practising. Before long he gave a public concert. People liked it and cheered him enthusiastically. This impressed the maestro and he gave him some more lessons. In his old age, by sheer will-power, Paderewski became one of the best pianists.

There are many people who want the same things which the strong-willed people want, but in a theoretical detached way, which allows them to forget their purpose for long stretches of time during which no endeavour is made to reach it. Some people are unable to want anything badly enough. They may be very intelligent, but they are really wanting in the domain of the will. They delay an unpleasant task over much, weakening their will and forming the habit of laziness.

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Accept and love yourself; only then can you radiate positive energy around you. It takes more than just doing things for others to be a good person. Being good is said to mean more than just being kind. Being good has much to do with discovering yourself and your function in society.

In order to be truly good, you have to take into account what goodness means to you. It can mean being kind, understanding, generous, honest, reliable, helpful, unselfish, polite, patient, forgiving, humble and so on.

Here are a few tips to help you on your way towards being a better person:

1. Determine what it means to you personally to be a good person.

Often people think being good simply means doing no harm to others. However, the question is more about what you do than what you don’t. If you are a good person you surely help others, but at the same time, you don’t neglect yourself either.

What is your ideal of a person? List qualities that, according to you, make an ideal person. Then begin living up to these qualities.

Do you look forward to your goodness being returned?

Do you expect your generosity and services to bring something in return?

Are you giving or doing things to win public acclaim or because you truly want to give and help?

You will be a better person if you stop putting on airs and adopt an attitude of generous giving without expecting anything in return.

Goodness is not just external; real goodness comes from the heart. Lay out your own code of conduct and follow it up with what you believe makes you good. This might at times be opposed to what others consider good and they might find fault with you. If you can learn something from them and upgrade yourself, do so; if not, take their opinion for what it is worth.

Mark Twain warns, “Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great.”

2. Choose a role model

With a role model, you have an example of whom to correspond to. What are the qualities you admire in that person? Think of how to apply these qualities in daily life — at home, at work, in creative pursuits, in social relationships, in lifestyle, etc.

Whom do you look up to and why? How are they making the world a better place, and how can you follow suit? Don’t lose sight of them; see how they handle hard questions, painful situations and difficult circumstances, and learn from them.

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