When life gives you lemons... Dealing with rejection the right way.

Have you ever faced rejection? What did it feel like? How did you react?

In one study, scientists placed people in MRI machines and asked them to relive a recent rejection and you won't believe what they found out. Our brains are wired in such a way that we experience rejection the same way we experience physical pain.
How should we deal with rejection?

So yes, we know rejection is painful.
In my personal experience, it can make you question if there's anything wrong with you. With time,you'll learn and grow, seeing how it forces you out of your comfort zone and push you to see potential in other opportunities. Here, I'll talk about two instances that taught me valuable lessons.
Read to the end to find out a tip on how to standout from the crowd during an interview.

You know that saying, "when life gives you lemons..." - hate it - but it's not wrong. When life gives you lemons, make lemonades.
It gets to a point you want to turn around at life begging, please, just once, hand me a glass of chilled lemonade with cherry on top and a straw for me to sip majestically.
But no, it'd rather throw a bunch of lemons in your face and leave you with a bruise. And you gotta do what you gotta do, make the damn lemonades!
Many times, you have to make what you want out of what life gives you.
In this case, when life hands you rejection, make life lessons.

Lesson one; Never shut your door on other opportunities.

Last year, I was on a Journalism apprenticeship application process that I was so sure I'd get. I mean I got to the third stage, one more to go and bam! They dropped me.
At first I didn't know what to do. I hadn't pursue other opportunities because that was only thing what I wanted to do.
You'd be surprised the opportunities you turn down might just be the right one for you.
Journalism had been the one and only career path I pursed since I was child and I've never looked any other way. This let down, however forced me to look.
There came digital marketing. It's all about content creation, writing, video editing, photoshop, social media - life became clearer. I won't bore you with the details but turns out digital marketing suits me better than Journalism.
What opportunity have you pushed away in the past? Maybe it's time you review them.

Lesson two; Take no opportunity for granted.

I attended an assessment session at a football club. I already worked for them as a kiosk assistant but I wanted to switch to waitressing because they get paid more. I've had training and experience in the area working with a hospitality agency so I'd fit in easily. Unfortunately, you need more than experience to get the position.
I went into the session being myself which, in my case, is not good. Being an introvert, that time was definitely not the time to be myself. I needed to be more.
I thought, they know me already so why bother? Switching roles should be easy. Well it wasn't.
I was one of the two people that got rejected that day.
At first, I didn't take it well but by the time I walked out of the stadium I came to terms with it. I'd learned my lesson.
To take interviews, assessment, tests, formalities, etc more seriously, no matter their significance.

Bonus tip: During an interview, let your personality shine. You don't have to be loud or put on a faux persona, in fact you shouldn't. But find something about you that would be useful on the job and let that shine throughout the process. Don't fade into the crowd of skills and experience. Burn your personality into their memory. They probably won't remember if it's the girl in black or the boy red that has blah blah years of experience in blah blah but they'll remember the confident one.

Next time you face rejection, feel it, grieve. Then ask yourself, what can I learn from this? How can I be better? Rebuild yourself and come out stronger.
Rejection hurts regardless but channeling that hurtful experience into something productive is more rewarding.