This past fall, I set out to get rejected as often as I could.

A healthy fear of rejection lives inside most people, and has some of us in a chokehold. Being rejected is seen as, at worst, an embarrassing personal failure, and, at best, an obstacle standing in the way of our hearts’ desires: a dream job, a thriving social circle, a first date with a gorgeous future partner. Last year, it dawned on me that I was actively avoiding rejection in my writing career in order to keep myself safe — and small. So I set my sights on denial.

I dreamed up a project called November of NO and gathered an online group of 15 people to join me in my quest. “We’ll build resilience by inviting no’s into our lives, all in the pursuit of getting to yes,” my pitch went. The point was to make rejection itself the goalpost to reduce the fear and stickiness around it, and simultaneously get closer to our objectives. We set goals to eagerly get rejected from job applications, film grants, pitches (my personal goal as a freelance journalist), and other targets of our yearnings. Each week, we logged our attempts, rejections, and finally, any yeses we received.

I aimed to get three pitch rejections a week, or 12 in total. When I shifted my attention to rejection rather than success, it felt so much easier to do the work — my perfectionism-forward world was topsy-turvy, and getting a no was suddenly worth celebrating. By the end of the month, I had racked up seven rejections and landed three new editorial assignments.

Sera Bonds, a November of No group member who has long worked in nonprofit development, says she sent out around 80 total asks that month. It was also her first time tracking the number of rejections she received, even though rampant rejection has been a part of her work for 30 years.

“I don’t take it personally when friends can’t hang out, or my teenagers say no,” she says. “A no is actually a yes to something else.”

“I feel like about five years in, I really learned that there’s a critical mass of nos you have to get to get to the number of yeses you need, and it really has nothing to do with me,” Bonds says. “When I ask somebody for money, or I’m looking for a contract or a collaboration, most of the time the reason they say no is something on their end. So now I just trust it, and I don’t take it personally.”

Bond says that attitude has seeped into other parts of her life, too. “I don’t take it personally when friends can’t hang out, or my teenagers say no,” she says. “A no is actually a yes to something else.”

Learning to see rejection as opportunity........

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