Sometimes you can almost smell its sulfuric aroma before you get out of bed. Other times, you don’t know what’s happening until you’re hiding under your desk with a pint of Rocky Road ice cream.
It’s …*boom boom BOOOOOOM*…
Rejection Day.
Rejection Day starts creeps in slowly. Someone unsubscribes from your blog. Someone else stops following you on Twitter.
Then rejection’s creatures start coming out. Small at first. You lose another follower. And another. And another. And it’s you’ve been checking your stats for only two minutes.
With the drop in stats undermining your confidence, you hop off social media and head for the meaty, productive part of your day. Your inbox. Where larger, more bloodthirsty rejection creatures lurk.
A client sends feedback. And like all great feedback, it’s prefaced with “This is not a reflection on you, but…”
You haven’t seen so much red since your high school paper on Great Expectations in which you kept referring to Pip as Pipe.
As you dig in to the feedback, you get an email from a prospect saying that they’ve gone in another direction. Rejected before you even start. And there’s another email with the same subject line. Its preview doesn’t bode well.
Rejection has you thrashing in its tentacles before you even finish your coffee.
Good news: Everyone has the occasional Rejection Day.
Bad news: The good news has no impact on your day right now.
Unless you find someone to commiserate with.
If I was a character in The Mist, I would’ve died early trying to get to my car. And taken the last of the Rocky Road with me. But I can share some ways to deal with Rejection Day.
Tell a loved one “I love you.”
Since the universe isn’t filling your day with sunshine, it’s up to you. And telling loved ones how you feel brightens your day and theirs. I do this to my fiancé regardless, but it always makes me feel better when my day isn’t so great. You never know, maybe they need the pick-me-up too.
Finish a long-overdue chore.
A victory is a victory. And dealing with something that’s been sitting there mocking you is an accomplishment that can’t be debated. You hung the picture. It’s up. That’s a fact. For me, most of these victories come in the form of organizing my kitchen or moving furniture so I’ll stop running into it.
Write the universe a rejection letter.
Why suffer in silence? Tell the universe how you feel about this shabby, shabby treatment of your self-esteem. All too often, when I read my own rant, I realize just how small my problems actually are.
Note your accomplishments.
You may have lost five followers, but did you gain one? Did you post to your blog anyway? Did you handle that client feedback professionally even though it made you cry a little inside? You’re not as bad off as you may think.
Give yourself some tough love.
Remind yourself that this is what you signed up for when you chose this career path. And that if you get too frustrated with small stuff, you may as well find another line of work. Besides, you didn’t get this far by being a whiner.
Rejection Day isn’t marked on any calendar. You don’t always get warning. And some are worse than others. But it’s still only one day. Make it to the end and bounce back tomorrow.
How do you deal with Rejection Days? Share in the comments.
Rubber Ducky Copywriter 
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