How To Deal With Rejection

During prehistoric times, our ancestors formed tribes in order to increase their chances of survival against mother nature and the wild beasts that roamed the earth. Within these groups existed a social system, led by an alpha male and female, followed by a ranking system that the others who were subservient to them lived by.

If you upset the alpha male or female or caused the tribe problems, you would be either killed or banished. If you were rejected from this group, for whatever reason, you would have to face the world alone, and chances are, you would not survive long. This fear of rejection is ingrained deep in our subconscious mind and still operates in all of us to this very day.

Not only did being rejected from the group mean lower chances of survival, it also meant lower chances of mating. If you were unsuccessful in producing offspring in your lifetime, your entire would-be genetic lineage would be wiped off the face of the earth, without a trace and right along with you. Rejection, to the ego, was equivalent to the ultimate type of death -- complete erasure from human history.

In today's world, if you don't get that job, lose a group of friends, or get rejected by someone you're interested in, you're not going to die nor will all chances of you having children be ruined. We can easily go elsewhere to find work, make new friends and go meet other people. But even though we know these truths, this fear still operates in our subconscious mind and it takes effort to overcome it.

There's still a positive purpose for this fear of rejection. If you had no fear of rejection, then you may not try your best to get a job, you wouldn't even care to improve yourself, and you wouldn't be able to learn from your failures whenever you didn't achieve your goals. A healthy fear of rejection is necessary in order to keep us in line and also push us beyond our comfort zones so we can continue to grow in life, otherwise we wouldn't care to do anything.

The worst type of rejection that we all are afraid of is the fear of being rejected by someone we are interested in. This applies to men and women despite what many believe. In fact, I personally believe women fear rejection way more than men ever will, ESPECIALLY if they are rejected by what they consider to be an alpha male.

I know many of you may not believe what I just said but ask yourself who spends three hours in the bathroom dolling up, stuffing bras, putting on high-heels, enhancing this or that, and worrying about looking pretty at all times? Women of course. If you know men who spend that long getting ready, then you need to smack them upside the head.

In nature, the male usually is the one that initiates the approach, thus men get rejected MORE than women ever will and that is just the way it is. Therefore, men suffer MORE rejections in the world of courtship. Now going back to prehistoric times, if you were a man who approached a woman who was taken, you would literally put your life in danger and risk being killed by another male.

If you tried to steal the Alpha male's woman, you would be killed for sure. If you approached a woman and she rejected you, the other women would learn of this rejection and you could lose value in ALL their eyes, depending on the reasons why and then no one will want to mate with you.

A modern example of this is when a girl labels a man a "creep." What's funny about word "creep" is that no girl I know can actually define exactly what a creep is, but once you are labeled one, every girl finds out and your game is finished.

A woman who gets rejected by men will not always suffer this unfortunate fate, unless she is hideously deformed or sickly. If anything, she would simply have a lower status in her group and no access to the higher echelon of the superior genetics of the alpha-type males. But chances are she will still be able to produce offspring of an inferior breed, and carry on her genetic lineage nonetheless.

Luckily for us all, we live in a world of close to 7 BILLION people and don't have to worry about rejection leading us to our doom. Rejection also is NEVER personal, especially if you are rejected based on face value. Most rejections are about what you DID or DIDN'T do that caused people to reject you , rather than rejecting you as a person.

How many famous people can you think of who attained greatness only to do something horrendous that destroyed their reputation and undid everything they have ever accomplished? These people are perfect examples of this. No one hates THEM, in fact, at one point they were praised or loved by their people, but it's what they DID that got them rejected and scorned.

The same thing applies when you are rejected by a potential suitor, job or fail to reach a goal; it's not you, it's what you DID or DIDN'T do that caused the rejection. They rejected your "sales pitch." Also, you have to accept the fact that you can't always win every time and not everyone is going to like you, want to hire you or even find you attractive; it is simply impossible.

If you go approach someone of the opposite sex it's not like you will go up and ask them out and suddenly the music stops, they slap you, everyone starts laughing and pointing fingers while you run outside and cry. This is just an example of the typical silly rejection scenario that men conjure up in their heads.

The only way to overcome rejection is to realize it's going to happen and when it does, you will get over it. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Take charge of your life by not caring about being rejected. You know your value, if you get rejected, it's because you failed to express your true value to others. They rejected the SALE, not you. It's THEIR loss, not yours. Don't let an ancient fear mess with your head and ruin your future.

So the next time you have anxiety about rejection, remember that it is the ego firing hard-wired emotions causing you to be afraid and protect you from "death." But once you realize you're not in caveman times, and what you are about to do cannot possibly kill you (I hope), you can put your fear of rejection aside and go for what you want in life. Worst case scenario, you get rejected or you fail and you move on.

Angelo Gage | Elite.