Have you always wanted to go right up to the man or woman of your dreams and tell them how much you like them, but the fear of rejection is stopping you? Have you ever wanted to ask someone out for a drink, but your sweaty palms and shaky legs just don’t allow you to pluck up the courage to ask?
Well, you’re not alone, and lots of people struggle with this dilemma every day. But not all is lost, and overcoming your fear of rejection is not as difficult as it may seem. By following our guide and using our tips below, you’ll soon be breaking the fear barrier and getting yourself a date!
Just stop worrying!
The first step to conquering your fear of rejection is to focus on how much you actually worry about it. Once you acknowledge how much worry you’re putting yourself through, then you can actually start to repress this feeling and relax more, and feel confident about the situation.
The more you worry, the more you plant the seed of doubt into your mind before you’ve even contemplated going up and asking someone out. By reducing this worry as much as possible, you are going to find things much easier.
So the next time you find yourself worrying and thinking too much about a situation, then immediately shift your focus onto something else. Concentrate on positive thoughts like a holiday you have coming up, or your favourite joke. Once you put these positive thoughts through your mind you will instantly feel much better and stop focusing on the negatives.
Confidence is key
If you’ve always struggled with your confidence and find it difficult to talk to other people, then this may be your biggest issue to overcome. Now that you’ve managed to keep control of your worrying and are thinking positively, you may now have to overcome your lack of confidence.
However, there are lots of ways you can build up your confidence, which will not only help you overcome the fear of rejection, but will also help you in general with lots of other things in life. For example, job interviews, conversations with new people or friends, public speaking and so on.
There are some great exercises you can do to help build up your confidence. For example, choose a friend you can completely trust to confide in and let them know about your confidence issues. Then ask them to take part in a little role playing scenario and practice with them first. This may seem silly to begin with, but you’d be surprised how much more confident you become through practice.
There are also lots of other opportunities to practice your conversation skills, and that’s when you are out with your friends who are also with other people that you don’t know. It’s always easy talking with people you know like your friends, so how about talking to someone you don’t.
So the next time you are out and about with your friends, have a look for someone in the group that you don’t know very well, and engage them in conversation. Look for someone you are not attracted too so you’re not too nervous, and then practice your conversation skills. The more you talk to people, the easier it will become, and you’ll soon realise that your confidence is much higher than before.
Now that you’ve built up your confidence it’s time to assess the fear itself, and to accept it for what it is.
Accepting the fear of rejection
The fear of rejection is not something that is always there, and it’s only you that creates it. Once you realise that you are creating this fear all by yourself, you can then start to overcome it.
You’ve probably heard people say many times that facing your fears is the best way to overcome them, but before you do that it’s important to acknowledge the reasons behind it, and what has created the fear to begin with.
For most people it’s a combination of putting yourself in a potentially awkward situation, the fear of them saying no to your proposal, and the embarrassment of the rejection afterwards – the latter of the three probably being the most common. So once you take a step back and think about these fears and then accept them, you are now well on your way to overcoming them.
The mistake a lot of people make is when they try and dismiss the fear itself and push it to the back of their mind. If you don’t acknowledge and accept that you are afraid of something, you cannot begin to understand and resolve it.
Why are you afraid?
One of the most important considerations to make when trying to overcome your fear of rejection is why you are afraid in the first place? Let’s run through the list of popular reasons why people fear rejection –
Afraid of embarrassing yourself
Afraid they may tell their friends and make a fool of you
Afraid that if they say no it could mean you are going to be single forever
Do any of these sound familiar? Don’t worry, let’s now talk through each one of these and understand how easy they are to overcome.
Afraid of embarrassing yourself
Plan ahead and think about what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it. That way you won’t end up stumbling upon your words and cause yourself to feel embarrassed. Make sure you act confidently but not aggressively. You don’t want to force your proposal on another person, and you need to make sure you don’t make them feel under pressure. You must also not put any pressure on yourself, as this is a sure fire way of making yourself feel embarrassed.
You must also remember that the person on the receiving end of your proposal will instantly be flattered that you’ve asked them, no matter whether they actually like you or not. If you’ve ever been asked out yourself, then you’ll know how great you felt about yourself after, and how honoured and flattered you felt that someone actually took the time to ask you out.
Above all else, you must realise there is nothing to be embarrassed about. Letting someone know that you like them and asking them out on a date is perfectly natural, and a part of life. You’d also be amazed how often your friends will admire you for it as well, because they probably don’t have the courage to do it themselves.
Afraid they may tell their friends and make a fool of you
It is possible that they will tell their friends about what happened, but there shouldn’t be any reason for them to make fun of you. Asking someone out is a very brave and mature thing to do, and they will most likely look upon it as just that. Anyone who wants to make fun of you is only jealous that they didn’t pluck up the courage to do it.
If you are still worried about this, then why not take the time to find out a bit more about them and maybe even their friends. If you get the impression that they are immature enough to try and make a fool of you, then this isn’t someone you need in your life anyway.
Afraid that if they say no it could mean you’re going to be single forever
If you don’t pluck up the courage to ask someone out and let them know you like them, then you are going to be single for a lot longer! You need to take matters into your own hands and not sit and wait for things to happen.
If someone does say no then don’t be disheartened. Did you really think that everyone you ask would say yes anyway? Of course not! It’s impossible to get the whole world to like you, and you only need just the one anyway. Rejection itself is far easier to handle than the actual thought of it, so there is no need to worry about what might happen and if they say no.
You must also remember that if someone says no, it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you. It doesn’t mean you’re unattractive, and it doesn’t mean you don’t have a good personality. There could be lots of reasons why they decided to say no, and there is no point in worrying about the reasons why. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!
How to handle rejection
It’s extremely important to handle rejection in a mature, calm manner to avoid any awkwardness or embarrassment for both of you. The worst thing you can do is blame them for the rejection and get angry. This will only make them talk about you to their friends, and you don’t want to be a part of the latest gossip.
The best way to handle rejection is to apologise and tell them that you hope you didn’t make them feel uncomfortable. Act casually and don’t come across dejected as you don’t want them to feel bad about their decision. You must ultimately respect their decision and move on gracefully.
It’s also important to realise that you may have just put someone on the spot that doesn’t know you that well, and their instant reaction could have been to say no. If you bow out gracefully then you may just find that in time they may decide to take you up on the offer once they’ve had the chance to think about it. Some people instinctively say no when put under pressure, but if you’ve been nice and calm about the whole situation, you may just find that they accept your offer at a later date.
Is rejection difficult to deal with?
Absolutely not! If you were to ask anyone what it felt like to be rejected they would tell you it wasn’t that bad at all. Sure, you may feel a little sad at first, but we can assure you it will pass very quickly. The hardest part is actually plucking up the courage to ask someone out, and all that worrying and fear beforehand.
If someone does say no then you’ll soon realise that it wasn’t that big of a deal in the first place, and the next time will be far easier. Above all else you must be optimistic and confident that someone will say yes and you’ll get to take them out on a date. Remember, if you don’t ask, then you’ll never know…