Article: How to handle rejection and cultivate resilience in your creative practice
Rejection comes for us all eventually, and how we respond to it can make or break our creative ambitions. Here are a few tips for facing the harsher realities of creativity from a place of resilience.
Last year a very good friend of mine received some devastating news: his literary agent had decided to leave the industry. He completely understood and supported his agent’s decision (they’re still really great friends), but losing representation was insult to injury given that his book had just spent a full year languishing in submission purgatory. Unsurprisingly, my friend was gutted, and having to effectively start the entire publishing process over hit him hard.
Then, a couple months ago, the same friend found himself being courted by a new agent. While the group chat ecstatically lost our collective shit, my friend confessed to feeling a lot of fear about moving forward with this new opportunity: fear of opening himself up to more rejection, fear of the mental stamina required to play in the publishing industry’s sandbox, and fear of undoing all of the work he’d put into healing from such a crushing series of disappointments.
Ultimately, my friend chose to try again. He signed with this new agent and, after working together to revise the book, they’ll be jumping back into submissions shortly.
This story has been on my mind a lot since I received my first revise and resubmit request last month. Every time someone asks me if I’m excited, the only response I can muster is nervous laughter. Like my friend, I’m too wary from 17 months on submission to get my hopes up quite yet. I am, at best, cautiously optimistic. Rejection will do that to you.
Every creative person — be they a writer, artist, illustrator, photographer, filmmaker, whatever — who has ventured into the professional side of their industry knows that rejection comes in many forms. And, like death and taxes, rejection isn’t just a possibility, it’s a certainty.
Rejection sucks, it hurts, and it’s killed more dreams than we could ever quantify. But the cold hard truth is that, at some point in your creative career, you will end up getting your ass handed to you by rejection. So, what can you do about it?
The key, dear reader, is to build resilience. If you want to have a sustainable relationship with your art as you navigate the minefield of your industry, you need to figure out how to make a frenemy of rejection. It won’t always be easy, and it will take work, but it’ll definitely be worth it in the long run. Here’s how you do it:
1) Get over yourself
It would be kinder for me to say “manage your expectations”, but let’s be real: a lot of us need a bit of tough love in this department. You’ve probably heard stories like the ones above: stories about how hard it is to make a name for yourself, about how exceedingly rare it is that things go according to plan, and about how you’re absolutely going to hear “no” more than you hear “yes”.
But even if you never say it out loud, I’ll bet you’re hoping to be the exception, aren’t you? There’s no shame in admitting it! After all, we all want to be the ✨chosen one✨. Still, while there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, refusing to acknowledge and accept that rejection will be part of your journey is only going to make it hurt more when something inevitably doesn’t go according to plan.
I’m not saying you have to be a pessimist; by all means, manifest to your heart’s content! Just don’t be delusional about the the path ahead of you. Preparing for the worst while hoping for the best will help you avoid burnout and sustain your passion a lot better than blind optimism and unearned confidence.
2) Don’t take it personally
Okay, I know this one is easier said than done. Not taking rejection personally takes a lot of practice and intentional thought. But even though it hurts like hell when something you’ve poured your heart and soul into gets turned down or passed over, it can help to remember that rejection in creative industries often has nothing to do with you.
Let’s talk specifically about publishing for a moment. As the great and irreverent M.M. Carrigan, editor in chief of Taco Bell Quarterly, once wrote of the literary world: “Everyone knows this isn’t a meritocracy where the most literary truth wins out.”
Depressing? Yes. True? Also, yes.
As a society, we want to believe that the publishing industry rewards literary genius above all else, and that if an author has been traditionally published then they must have something that other hopeful writers lack. (Sometimes that’s true, although often that “something” is just good luck and even better connections. Womp womp.) But don’t forget: “industry” is just a synonym for “business”, and whether you like it or not, the most important thing in any business is making money. Sure, most editors probably do want to give great books the platform they deserve, but that desire can’t come at the expense the book selling (otherwise they’d be out of a job). Btw, if you’re feeling jaded right about now I have the perfect T-shirt for you (And no, this isn’t an ad: I just really love You’re Wrong About).
Further complicating matters is that publishing is an extremely subjective game. From agents to editors, people — complicated, fallible human beings — are the ones deciding what books make it through the gauntlet. There are so many factors that go into these decisions, like story trends, market saturation, and general timing. The problem with subjectivity is that it leaves a lot of room for error, and that means sometimes these people make the wrong call. Ultimately, there is so much that is out of a creator’s control, and while that can be frustrating and anxiety-inducing in its own right, it also means you can’t take every rejection as a personal indictment. Sometimes the old cliché is right: it’s not you, it’s them.
3) Remember why you started
I listened to an excellent interview with Dr. Maya Shankar about learning to adapt when things don’t go according to plan. Before becoming a cognitive scientist, Maya’s life revolved around playing the violin. She poured everything she had into her craft, getting so good that she even attended the prestigious Juilliard School of Music at just nine years old.
Then one day Maya suffered an injury that ended her violin career permanently. In a split-second, everything she had worked for for so long — her very identity as a person — was gone. What followed was a serious period of grief and re-evaluation that forced Maya to dig into what it was about violin that had brought her the most joy. The answered turned out to be human connection, and she used this through-line to find new interests, passions, and careers that bring her the same kind of fulfillment that violin had. The entire conversation is really great, and I highly recommend you give it a listen:
Now, a catastrophic career-ending injury obviously isn’t the same thing as having your creative work rejected, but what the two scenarios have in common (aside from the heartbreak) is a lack of control. You can dedicate years of time, effort, and resources to a creative project only to have its success dictated by something or someone you have no control over. You can write an absolutely fantastic book, but once you send it out into the world you can’t make an agent read it, an editor buy it, or a reader love it. The success of your creative work simply isn’t up to you, and that can be hard to take.
It’s not uncommon for rejection to lead to resentment, both toward the system and the work itself. Chances are you know someone who hates, or maybe even walked away from, something they once loved because rejection ruined it for them. Hell, maybe that person is you.
To stop resentment from poisoning your passion, you need to focus on why you create in the first place. When we attach all of our hopes and value on external factors (especially ones we can’t control!) we run the risk of conflating achievement of a goal with the joy making art in the first place.
If you’re worried about falling out of love with your creative passion, I recommend taking some time to explore your intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for writing, drawing, singing, etc.
Intrinsic motivations are internal, such as personal enjoyment and growth. Extrinsic motivations are external, like rewards or validation.
Let’s look at the difference, using writing and publishing as an example:
Intrinsic: I write because I love telling stories, and because I find developing characters and building new worlds creatively satisfying. I’m pursuing traditional publishing to challenge myself, and because succeeding would be a personal accomplishment.
Extrinsic: I write because I want other people to read my work and enjoy my stories. I’m pursuing traditional publishing because I want to be a bestselling author, and because I desire the external validation that comes with it.
There’s nothing wrong with having extrinsic motivations! But knowing what intrinsically motivates you helps keep you grounded and reminds you of why you love your craft even when things are hard.
Don’t let rejection stop you from doing what you love
Whether you’re trying to get published, sell a script, or land a job in the creative field of your dreams, you’re going to face rejection at some point. In fact, you’re probably going to get knocked down a lot. Pursuing your creative ambitions can make you vulnerable, but it doesn’t have to break you. Cultivating resiliency allows you to bounce back from rejection faster, and gives you the stamina to do what you love for a long, long time.
Don’t quit your daydream — I believe in you, and you should too.
Do you have any tips for dealing with rejection? Share them in the comments!