Why I'm Thankful For Rejection
Why I’m Thankful For Rejection
By: Honey B.
Baker
Last year a
friend of mine gave me this book called “Mindset: The New Psychology of
Success” by Dr. Carol S. Dweck. I have been super busy with life and I didn’t
get a chance to read it until very recently. Basically the book breaks down our
mindset into two types, fixed versus growth. People with fixed mindsets are
doomed for failure after failure. Because when someone has a fixed mindset they
have a static way of thinking and do not have the ability to be fluid and adapt
to changing stimuli. People with this kind of mindset equate failing with them
being an actual failure. They don’t cope well with not doing well and they take
any rejection or any kind of failure personally as if it’s a reflection on them
personally as if it’s a reflection on their abilities, on their character.
However,
people with a growth mindset are able to separate their failure from themselves
or even their abilities. They are okay with failure and they know how to move
forward and maintain a positive mindset.
Sadly, until recently in many areas
of my life including my love life I exhibited a fixed mindset. If I did poorly
on an assignment that meant I was stupid. I mean never mind the fact that I had
succeeded before. If a relationship didn’t work out it must’ve meant I wasn’t
something enough or I was too much of something. I wasn’t thick enough, I
wasn’t slim enough, my butt wasn’t big enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t
smart enough. I always took rejection personally and as if it said something
about me. I mean obviously something was wrong with me if this man didn’t want
me. I mean obviously...
However, after reading Mindset I
realized this mindset is dangerous, counterproductive, and detrimental to my
growth as a person. Truth is at some point or another we will all feel
rejection from someone whom we hoped to build something with. And, in reality
before it’s all said and done we’ll feel rejection more than once.
After reading this book I took stock
of every dude whose rejections or actions made me feel worthless or less than.
I realized none of them were really worth my time in the first place, to be
honest. Many of them were not worth my time in my first place. I mean yeah,
some of them looked good, some of them were smart, some of them were talented,
and some of them were something “nice” but truly they were nothing phenomenally
but more importantly they weren’t someone I could see myself building a life
with. They were not a blessing to me I was a blessing to them. I hate to sound
cliché but man’s rejection is oftentimes God’s protection.
If someone rejects you understand it
doesn’t say anything about you and everything about him. Understand this, being
rejected by someone does not mean you are not attractive, it does not mean you
are not smart enough, it does not mean anything except you and this man were
not a good fit for each other. And why would you want someone in your life who
is not a good fit for you? There are too many people out here in relationships
with people who they merely tolerate. I also guarantee at some point it may not
be tomorrow, it may not be next year, you will look back and will be thankful
for what you thought was rejection, it was your protection.
The man who is for you will see your
value. I mean at the end of the day, why would you spin your wheels and
continue to seek the approval of someone who rejected you? I want to take
myself out of this piece as much as possible but I want to show you all how
this book has shifted my mindset in just a couple of weeks. This book seriously
made me take inventory of my “self talk” and how I treated myself in relation
to how other treated me. You’d be surprised at how much your inner thoughts or
your “self talk” truly reflect on the outside and how people treat you as a
result of that. What you think is what you attract.
The last guy I dealt with on a
serious in-depth emotional level rejected me but not in the sense of just
telling me “Hey Honey, I don’t want you.” No, it was more of a gentle stringing
me along and then finally hurling me to the ground at full force just to see
how hard he could break me which resulted in me almost catching a case (But
God!). It broke my heart but I vowed vengeance. My saying is don’t get bitter
get better. (But seriously by vowing vengeance was I was really getting
better?) I was going to make him regret ever rejecting and hurting me. I was
going to make him wish he would’ve loved me. I knew I would see him again on a
particular day this upcoming August. My goal was to lose 20 pounds before then,
I would be slanging 24 inches of body wave Brazilian from my scalp, my face
would be beat, and I would have on one of my sexy outfits that showed off my
tattoos that rarely see the light of day.
Looking back at this thought that I
had only a few weeks ago I realized my “mission” was comical and downright
chuckle inducing. After reading this book I realized his rejection had nothing
to do with my personality, my outward appearance, my intellectual abilities or
anything to do with me, period. It has everything to do with him and his
feelings. If he didn’t want me, so what? Someone else did but I was too busy
planning this big payback to even pay attention to the men who were actively
seeking my attention whom appreciated my intellect, my personality, and my
appearance.
It was okay that he rejected me, he just
wasn’t for me, and at the end of the day I probably wasn’t for him either. At
the end of the day, who and what is for me will be in my life. The man who is
for me will love and accept me if I’m 180 or if I’m 130. If my face is beat or
if I looked like I’ve never seen Sephora or the MAC counter a day in my life.
There I was starving myself,
engaging in unhealthy eating habits all for the attention of a man who was not
worth my attention in the first place. I was exerting all of this precious time
and energy into a man who could not see my value and even if he did see my
value he did not have the maturity or the ability to be able to properly
appreciate it.
I’ve said all of that to say this.
You are the woman that someone is praying for. A failed relationship isn’t a
reflection back onto your character, your ability, your personality, or your
looks. Think about it like this what if we let every failure or setback stop us
none of us would’ve ever walked or talked. Because I have never seen a baby
walk without first stumbling and falling a couple of times. I’ve never seen a
baby start off speaking in full sentences. We can treat failures like a
stumbling block or a stepping stone, that attitude is solely up to us.
We’ve got to
free ourselves of this mindset that failures are anything more than just that,
a failure (failure is not final nor is it fatal). We can and we will fail but
we are not our failures. We are not our failures, we are not our rejections,
and we are not our mistakes. Learn from your failures but do not become them,
move on from your rejections do not let them consume you, take your mistakes in
stride do not let them take over your life do not let them act as anchor
holding you in one place.
And about that guy who you probably
thought about as you were reading this: Remember this you could’ve been the
blessing he missed out on, his loss not yours.
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