Overcome Fear in 2011. Get Rejected On Purpose

In my experience, it has been pretty easy to ask why they don't want you. Some larger companies have policies about not telling you, but any small company probably won't mind answering a polite email with a reasonably straightforward answer. And in larger companies, you should be asking each individual interviewer for a business card to follow up with a thank you email, so you could reach out to them directly; they aren't as sensitive to the HR policies.

You get an email saying "We're sorry..." and you just reply "Thank you for the opportunity. If you don't mind, I'd appreciate any information you are willing to share about your decision. I'm always looking to improve myself and rely on your honesty to identify my grow areas. Thanks!"

What's the worse that happens? They reject you again by not giving you a straight answer? The whole point of learning to handle rejection is to take advantage of the fact that much of the time you can win just by showing up to the game.

The social contract among my peers seem to be to only ask for things that could be the start of a win-win negotiation.

Conquering fear is done by facing your fears not by intentionally going out with the expectation that things will go bad. Pessimism is just another defence mechanism from the true vulnerability of ambiguity.

This meme is just psychologically wrong in so many ways.

- Seeking rejection creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where you will be more likely to be rejected.

- When you are rejected in this way, instead of processing it maturely, you're going to say "Oh it was part of my rejection therapy. I didn't really even want or expect to be accepted. Add one point to the scoreboard!." This is an attempt to dodge the reality of what happened - rejection is a negative thing. It's not the end of the world, but it also is probably not cause for celebration. You aren't fooling anyone (including yourself) by telling yourself it is positive. Anytime you are rejected from something you care about you are going to have sad feelings at the least. The way to handle these is to face them, own them, feel them, realize they will go away, and try again another day. But inflicting this on yourself on purpose is masochism and unhealthy.

- For most people, experiencing a lot of rejection will not make them less fearful of rejection, it will make them more fearful. They will come to expect rejection more and then avoid behaviours that they believe will lead to it.

- The effective, scientifically proven way to face your fears is to do it piece by piece, in small bites, and to recognize that if you are not allowing yourself to be truly emotionally vulnerable, you are not really facing your fear of rejection. The fear of rejection is about asking for something you want and then feeling the uncomfortable vulnerable feelings of ambiguity. It's about making yourself emotionally vulnerable - you genuinely want something and will be happy to receive it and sad to be denied it. This is true vulnerability. You cannot avoid the pain of rejection, you can only learn to process it when it happens, and to have the courage to risk that pain because you know it's all for a greater good. But inflicting this pain on yourself needlessly is masochistic and will likely lead to more phobias and anxiety, not less.

Those who are having trouble with fear - look up systematic desensitization and in vivo desensitization. Also, remember that true courage means allowing yourself to be vulnerable. And vulnerability means allowing for the instance where you feel bad. A coward is someone who finds ways to avoid any chance of feeling bad. A courageous person is one who is willing to risk losing something he desires because he knows that it is a smart risk.

Happy 2011, I just woke up and laughed at the thought of a VC with a rocket-propelled grenade.

In vivo desensitization is what you're describing - slowly facing your fears piece by piece.

Rejection therapy is something else, where you actually attempt to be rejected X number of times per day. If you aren't rejected, you now have to do something that will get your rejected. It is essentially a defence mechanism to avoid true vulnerability.