The fear of rejection has ruined the dating lives of a lot of men. But when a guy learns how to overcome rejection, then he no longer has to fear it. Instead he can take rejection in stride and simply move on to the next girl that sparks his interest. If you’d like to learn how to overcome rejection so you no longer are afraid it, here are a few pointers that will help you do just that.
Don’t take rejection from a girl personal
One of the reasons rejection by a girl hurts so much is because guys take it personally. When a guy gets rejected by a girl, he’ll start thinking it’s because “I’m a loser”, “I suck”, etc.
But the thing is – rejection isn’t personal. See, when a guy approaches a girl and the girl shoots him down, she’s not rejecting him as a person – she’s just rejecting his approach.
Think about it, all she knows about the guy is the little bit she’s seen of him through that brief interaction. She doesn’t actually know the guy, so how can she reject him? She’s merely rejecting the first impression that was made in those few seconds. So this fear of rejection and the belief that it’s personal is totally baseless.
Furthermore, there are a million reasons why a girl will reject a guy that have nothing to do with him or his approach. A girl may reject a guy simply because of her own mood/beliefs/past experiences. For example, here are a few instances of why a girl might reject a guy that have nothing to do with him personally:
-
She had a rough day, feels like crap and simply doesn’t want guys approaching her.
-
She’s been hit on by so many shady guys in the past (who probably used lame pickup lines) that she expects him to be just like the others. He may be a great guy but if he can’t prove that early on in his approach to the girl, she has no choice but to assume he’s just like the rest of them.
-
She’s a bitter person who rejects every guy – and he’s better off without her anyway.
When it comes to how to overcome rejection, it can help to look at past rejections from women in this new perspective. Come up with reasons why her reaction may have had more to do with what was going on in her head (and why it wasn’t personal). When you see your past rejections by women in this light, it can ease that pain of rejection and make it so you no longer fear rejection by a woman.
(FYI a similar idea of how changing perspectives can lead you to become a more confident, charismatic person who has an easy time connecting with women was touched on in the episode of Pickup Podcast with Oliva Fox Cabane)
When approaching women, focus on the positives
After getting rejected a guy will often focus on the rejection in a negative way. That is, he focuses on all the stuff he thinks he did wrong when approaching the woman. He’ll beat himself up for not being funny enough, cool enough, attractive enough – whatever. And that emotional beat-down will only add to his approach anxiety and make approaching women that much harder.
And that’s why, when looking to overcome your fear of rejection, it’s absolutely critical that you focus on the positives. By keeping your focus on the positives, you’ll keep your spirits up. Instead of wanting to quit you’ll be motivated to talk to women and approach more girls.
To help you stay focused on the positives when approaching women, here are three questions you can ask yourself after every attempted conversation with a woman.
-
What are three things I did well?
-
What did I learn from approaching the girl?
-
What is one thing I can improve on for next time?
Now, don’t just answer these questions in your mind. To really deal with your fears of talking to women, take the time to write these answers down. Writing thoughts down separates them out from the millions of other thoughts you’ve had throughout the day. It makes them more concrete and meaningful. Writing also gets more areas of your brain involved in processing those thoughts – which will help them become more ingrained in your psyche. As a result, seeing your interactions in a positive light will become a natural response that will override your fear of approaching women.
Overcoming the fear of rejection
If you rarely approach women and hardly ever talk to girls, then each approach is going to feel like a big deal. And this will make each rejection hurt that much more.
But if you have approached lots of women – and therefore experienced a lot of rejection from women – then getting rejected once more will no longer matter to you. By experiencing a lot of rejection you become numb to it and as a result will no longer fear approaching women. You will develop an intuitive, deep-rooted feeling that in the end, getting rejected by a girl means nothing.
So to build up that thick skin and overcome your fear of rejection, make a point to get rejected by women again and again. Don’t just go out and see if you get rejected by women, go out with the purpose of getting rejected. Make a game of it and see how many women you can approach and get rejected by in a night. Maybe even compete with a friend to make it more fun.
Moving on from rejection
After getting rejected by a girl, lots of guys go back and think about what just happened. They dwell on the rejection. If you’ve ever done this, you know dwelling on it will only increase your approach anxiety and make the next approach that much harder.
But if you want to know how to overcome rejection the moment it happens, the solution is simple. After getting rejected by a woman the best thing you can do is to go up to another woman, strike up a conversation, and look to have a great time.
Doing this will do two things for you. First, it’ll help you keep that momentum going and keep you from getting sucked into negative headspace (which causes your fear of approaching women to snowball). Secondly, doing this will actually make you more attractive to the girls at the bar (including the one who just rejected you).
When a girl sees you know how to handle rejection and take it in stride, it will make you look confident as hell. Plus, when she sees you having a great time with other people, she may start feeling regretful. She may start thinking “maybe I was wrong about him…” Next thing you know she’s chasing you, hoping you’ll give her another chance.
