Separating failure from rejection: When ‘no’ becomes ‘possible’

Caveat: This post is about 'no' in response to a piece of professional work, for example a piece of writing; it is not about consent in a personal context. 

When the response arrived, I was excited. When I opened it, I deflated. The message was one of rejection, of thanks for trying but no, we don’t want you. I had wanted it so much that I had not considered the possibility of not getting it, such was the confidence of my younger self.

“It” was the annual Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference to be hosted by then Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, whom I admired in that position for her championing of the arts and her work with indigenous communities. But my wants didn’t matter; my application to attend the conference in the year 2000 was not successful. It would have been a fantastic experience and I wasn’t going to have it and there was nothing I could do to change that. That “no” was “the end”.

That specific experience of not succeeding remains a visceral memory for me that serves as reminder of what it feels like to really, really, really want something; to not get it; and to not be able to do anything about it.

I am continuing to learn this lesson, but I am giving it a twist.

I am writing more consistently and submitting more frequently to magazines, journals and blogs in which I would like my writing to appear. Remarkably and happily, I have enjoyed good success since September 1, 2022, the day I wrote COMMIT TO SUBMIT in my daily log; however, as anyone with a modicum of knowledge about odds and math and statistics will know, anyone’s run of success will come to a screeching halt one day. It only stands to reason.

Which is why the rejection notes I received last week from two different publications should not have surprised me, though I’ll admit that they did.

While it’s never fun to be told ‘no, thanks’, it is an important experience to have, because it’s only by having it that we can learn how to respond productively to what, all too easily, can otherwise be experienced as dead-end failure.

Here’s the twist I am applying: In place of that dead end when NO is the answer, I am employing a four-step response that includes an opening — 

1. Fully feel the emotions that arise; don’t deny them, feel them.
2. Fully feel the sense of deflation when the time and creative energy you have invested in something does not pay off.
3. Fully feel the abrupt halt of a process that you had hoped would continue to unfold into a bright world of new readers (or viewers or whoever is the audience for your work).
4. Feel all that; then pick yourself up and get back to work.

When the two rejection notes arrived last week, I allowed myself to feel the full range of emotions that come with rejection of hard-sweated writing, then took myself on a long bike ride, shook off those multiple feelings, and am now getting back to work on revisions and rewritings. When I judge them ready, I'll submit the overhauled pieces to new places where I would like to see them appear. 

Ultimately, rejection by one person or one outlet is just that: a singular response, not a universal rebuke. To treat it as anything different is to give too much power to that one instance, to that one person (editor, reader, critic, etc.). In addition, we must, as a strategy for survival, learn to separate ourself from our work: We are not our work and our work is not us. We create it, and we remain ourselves.

We need time, practice and experience to become the person we want to be, both personally and professionally; failure is inevitably part of our journey. What matters is that, along the way, we learn to hear 'no' as a response that, with time and more work, we can shape into new possibilities — once we have worked through the emotions that tiny two-letter one-syllable word slams us with.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo credit: Tetiana Shyshkina on Unsplash