Believe it or not, getting rejected is one of the best things that can happen to us when we first start out. As men, we face two main obstacles when it comes to socialising: Our fear of approach and our fear of rejection. Very often, our approach anxiety stem from our fear of rejection. We don’t approach because we are afraid of getting rejected.
So basically it all comes down to fear of rejection. This is a major hindrance to our social skills. It stops us from charging forward and bridging that gap between people.
It may seem ridiculous, but some people have an actual phobia of being rejected. Not as getting blown out by somebody, but by full on social rejection. You fear being made and ladled an outcast. So being rejected can seriously affect people in a really bad way. And this is where the problem begins.
The reason why some people take rejection so badly is because they arnt exposed enough to it, or because they don’t understand what it is.
So what is rejection? Simply, rejection is to decline an offer or not to accept something. It is neither negative nor positive. It is simply a decline to an offer.
There are 3 types of rejection:
Macro Rejection – being rejected on a big scale. Being rejected by a community (school or work) and being known as a ‘reject’. Falling into this category would most likely mean you assume the stereotype of nerd, loser, geek, loner ect. Fixing macro R will happen naturally as your social skills improve. People in your community we start to see the change in your behaviour and will slowly learn to appreciate your new social skills.
Micro Rejection - micro R is rejection on a small scale. We are all familiar with this tye of rejection. This is basically getting blown out. Asking for a girls number and she says no. Or approaching a group of people and getting told to go away. More than often we become devastated after this happens and here’s why.
When we get told to go away on the approach, we think “Oh no! They thinks I’m such a loser. I am a loser. That’s why they rejected me. They thought I was a loser.” And so we believe us as the person has been rejected. She rejected me because I have a bad personality. And if you believe that, me question to you is how can they? How can they reject your personality when they has never met you before. They don’t even know who you are. They isn’t rejecting you. What she is really rejecting is your approach.
Think of it like this:
So if I was to offer a girl a piece of gum, and she sais no thanks, she has declined my offer for gum and therefore rejected me. Do I feel destroyed? Not in the least. Now let’s say I offer the girl a drink, and she says no thanks, she has declined my offer for a drink and therefor rejected me. So why do I feel so bad? Why do I feel rejected? Well, the reason for this is because we all know that buying a girl a drink is psychologically associated with sexual intension. The girl does not reject you, she only rejects your advance.
Fixing micro-R is just a case of fixing your approach.
This is the type of rejection you need to focus on. Simply realising how irrelevant micro rejection realy is, is not enough to break your fear of it. All your life you have associated micro-R with being a huge deal and a major blow to your ego. Fixing that will take correctional work. And this is where we realise why we actually need to be rejected.
The fact of the matter is, you are going to get blown out whether you like it or not, and when you do get rejected, you want to be emotionally prepared for it.
Think of rejection as the flu. You havnt been sick in 2 years when all of a sudden you get the flu and it hits you really badly. Had you been vaccinated your body would have been exposed to the virus and built up immunities so when the big one did come, your body could’ve handled it.
The same is with rejection. If you go out build up a strong immunity to rejection, you no longer become gripped with fear and when you do get rejected it doesn’t even effect you. This allows you to put all your focus on improving your social skills and you can now confidently try new techniques without being distracted by your fear of rejection.
Self Rejection - Micro rejection the easiest type of rejection to dominate however it is not the only one you need to focus on. The last type of rejection we all experience at some stage of our lives is self-rejection. More than often we reject ourselves before we even approach the group. This is also known as self-doubt. When you doubt yourself and don’t believe you are worthy of peoples company. This is very negative thinking and can really damage your social performance. We often reject ourselves for our defects, such as our looks, our weight, our conversational skills and our social status. We often make up excuses to assure ourselves we arnt good enough.
We say things like: “I’m too fat.” “I’m not popular enough” “I’m to tall/short.”
Whatever your disadvantage may be, we often use it as an excuse to avoid approaching. To fix this you need to prove yourself wrong. Make a list of your disadvantages. Let’s say you are fat and you think because your fat you can’t get girls. So every time you go out and see a fat guy with an attractive woman, make a note of that and prove yourself wrong. Fat guys CAN get attractive women because you’ve seen it. The same applies with any other so called ‘disadvantage’ you may believe you have.
Self-R can be a terrible. But by writing down our flaws and proving ourselves wrong, we can turn self-rejection into self-acceptance.
No comments:
Post a Comment