Dealing With Rejection: 5 Bulletproof Strategies for Writers

Rejection is inevitable when you’re a freelancer. You send out queries and LOIs, you’ll be dealing with rejection.

You get some bites and quote on projects…but then you meet up with characters like No, Not Now, Maybe Later, and Not Interested. When you find yourself reading yet another writing rejection, how do you respond?

Do you bounce back like a rubber band? Or does your confidence get flattened like a pancake?

Too many freelancers let writing rejection get in the way of success. And that’s a big problem. If you let rejection beat you down, you’re not going to make a living writing.

Believe me. I know what it’s like. I started out as a columnist and magazine writer. I experienced some early success and then I stalled. Editors started nailing No’s to my forehead. It was hard not to take it personally. Every writing rejection felt like proof I wasn’t any good, that nobody wanted my work.

I knew I had to do something about it. Fortunately, after a lot of research, trial and error, and thrashing around, I developed five bulletproof strategies.

Coping strategies for dealing with rejection

I took a deep dive into the latest research on self-help, psychology, and building grit. Right away, one thing became clear. If you focus on rejection and failure, guess what you’re going to get? More of the same. Thinking this way can permeate your queries, LOIs, and conversations with prospects and perpetuate rejection.

Sounds pretty dismal, right? It wasn’t easy to change my way of thinking. But I had to do something. My research also helped me recognize that having coping strategies for constant rejection often makes the difference between success and failure. So I started putting strategies into practice to revive my writing career. And it worked.

Do you have any coping strategies in place to deal with writing rejection? I didn’t have any for a long time, and there’s no question it affected my success—especially my income. Things are a lot better now. My struggle to deal with rejection helped me develop five coping strategies to create a “bulletproof consciousness” that pole-vaulted me past my contemporaries in terms of income and success.

Want to bulletproof yourself against rejection? Here’s how:

1. Focus on purpose

The single most effective aspect of my coping strategy to deal with writing rejection is to focus on purpose over outcome. The more you focus on your income, your status, your EGO, the more upset you’ll get over a rejection. But the more you focus on your purpose, your reason for writing, the calmer you’ll react to another encounter with No, Not Now, Maybe Later, and Not Interested.

Ask yourself a couple of questions. Why do you write? Is it for the money? To see your name published? To get your calls answered by important editors? To see your work publicly displayed? To be respected and admired by your peers?

There’s nothing wrong with any of these answers, but they’re all external to you. They’re desirable consequences of good work, but not the purpose that drives you.

Here’s what drives me as a freelancer specializing in nonfiction. I want my writing to improve people’s lives, make people laugh, help people solve problems, and enlighten others with new information.

How can you find your purpose as a writer?

Do this: Take a closer look at the real reasons you write. Define your purpose, and write it down. Then when another writing rejection shows up, review this. You’ll be better equipped to remain calm, avoid negative thoughts, and simply move on without self-doubt dragging you down.

2. Apply emotional first aid to painful rejections

You’ve done your homework to find the perfect prospect. You labor over every word in your query or LOI. It seems like your niche writing skills and the prospects needs are an ideal match. And then those guys, No, Not Now, Maybe Later, and Not Interested, deliver the news.

Don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. What you resist will persist, so make sure to process your feelings. The trick is to avoid emotional quicksand where you get incapacitated by negative emotions that pull you under.

Do this: Follow the 48-hour rule. Give yourself two days to rail against the injustice, shake your fist at the sky, curse like a sailor, or hit a punching bag. Then speak no more of it. You’ll feel better and avoid dwelling on a rejection for so long that your creativity and writing business suffers.

3. Cultivate inner strength

If you want to get better at coping with rejection, you have to work at it. At first, you might not be very good at resisting the urge to doubt yourself. But start, and you’ll get better at it.

For example, Elizabeth Gilbert sees rejection as a cosmic tennis match. Whenever she got a rejection she hit it back over the net by sending out yet another pitch. She literally saw rejection as a prompt to try harder.

Do this: Keep track of the queries and LOIs you send out and the responses you get. Tally the wins and the rejections from month to month. Then look at the results to measure your success. Instead of thinking nobody wants to hire you, you’ll have a formula for how many pitches you need to send to land your next assignment.

4. Manage your inner critic

Too many freelance writers spend days, months, or even years, brooding about a writing rejection. But it’s a poison that can literally taint every query and LOI you send and every conversation you have with a prospect.

Do this: Whenever your self-talk drips with condescension and anger, stop what you’re doing and ask: “Is there a better way I can frame this?”

Let’s say you lost out on a freelance job because you didn’t follow the client’s explicit guidelines. You might think: “I’m such an idiot, why can’t I follow simple directions!” Reframe it to: “I can learn from this and be more detailed next time.”

You can’t build yourself up if you’re too busy tearing yourself down.

5. Push through adversity

Successful people don’t fail less than others; they just explain their failures differently than unsuccessful people. If your explanation for a writing rejection is that the game is rigged and there’s nothing you can do about it, you’re sunk. You need to change your mindset to push through adversity to get to where you want to be.

Do this: The next time you get a rejection take a minute to look for any failures on your part. Was your query or LOI well-written? Could it be better? Did you quote too high, or maybe too low? Did you contact the right person? If you’ve done your part, move on. If there’s something you can learn, put it into practice.

When you approach rejection this way, you’re in control of how you respond. It’s called “empowering self-explanatory style.” Cultivate it, and you’ll be amazed at what kind of adversity you can push through.

Successful writers learn from rejection

As a freelance writer, rejection is just part of the business. Those guys, No, Not Now, Maybe Later, and Not Interested, are always going to be there. But they don’t have to get in your way. Ask any successful freelance writer how they handled their most painful rejections, and you’ll find their answers are often a major reason for their success.

How do you handle rejection as a freelance writer? Leave a comment below.

Michael Alvear is the author of The Bulletproof Writer: How To Overcome Constant Rejection To Become An Unstoppable Author. He’s a frequent contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered and has appeared in Newsweek, The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times.

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