102. Fear of Rejection (& How to Overcome It)
Are you holding back in your interior design business due to a fear of rejection? You're not alone. As a designer, putting yourself and your creative ideas out there can feel incredibly vulnerable, and the possibility of hearing no can be paralyzing. But the truth is that learning to work with and move beyond this fear will be transformative for your business and your goals.
From proposals and contracts to design schemes and hiring, the fear of rejection can rear its head in many different areas, often leading to procrastination, avoidance, and even people-pleasing. But by the end of this episode, you'll have the mindset tools and emotional strength to navigate the ups and downs of putting yourself out there and creating the opportunities you desire in your design business.
Tune in this week as I share a powerful three-step process for supporting yourself through situations where rejection is possible, so that you can take bold action towards your goals with confidence and resilience. You’ll learn how to notice and address initial self-rejection, proactively decide what you know to be true about yourself, and put no on the table as a possibility in order to open yourself up to the potential for getting a yes.
If you're interested in working together one-on-one in the fall or winter, now is the time to put your name on the waitlist for private coaching. Click here to secure your spot!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
How the fear of rejection can show up in various areas of your interior design business.
Why rejection often feels like a personal threat and stops you taking action.
The importance of noticing and addressing your initial self-rejection through journaling and thought downloads.
Why putting no on the table as a possibility can actually open you up to the potential for better outcomes in your business.
The power of learning to be your own inner coach instead of inner critic.
How aligning your mindset, body, and strategy can help you thrive as a CEO.
3 steps for working with and moving beyond the fear of rejection.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you're listening to episode 102. In this one we’re going to be talking about the fear of rejection. This is something I see hold up interior designers from reaching their goals at every stage of their business. It can be really sneaky the way that it shows up, and it can also be blatantly obvious. Either way, it’s something you must work through to build the interior design business that you truly desire.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place. I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello, designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you all are having an incredible week. I’m actually recording this on a Friday, which is a little unusual for me. Today both of our kids have friends coming home with them after school. So that’ll be a little bit wild, but I am looking forward to it. And it’s kind of fun, some of my son’s friends are starting to enjoy what I make. So that always just delights me.
One of them gets very excited for my guacamole. The one that is coming over tonight is looking forward to the pizza that I’m going to make. So I don’t know why, I think it’s because my son is kind of like, “Whatever, mom, you’re going to make me eat something. All right, fine.” So when I find some other child that appreciates what I make, I get kind of excited. So that’s what’s happening here in my world.
I do want you all to know that if you aren’t aware of the waitlist for private coaching, make sure that if you want to be working with me this fall or in the winter that you are on that waitlist, because that’s who I’m going to be reaching out to first when spots become available. So if you are someone who’s new to me and you’re wanting to work together, or you’re a past client and you’re interested in partnering again with setting some new goals, overcoming some new challenges, definitely get on the waitlist. It’s desiid.com/privatecoachingwaitlist.
Today, what we’re going to talk about is rejection. I know that sounds like kind of a downer topic, but it is really important and we’re going to be covering it from both the angle of rejection from other people and also rejection from ourselves.
Now, when I was thinking about this episode, I was thinking, well, maybe we’ll call it like overcoming fear of rejection or getting over the fear of rejection. And I mean, that kind of sounds good in terms of SEO and what you might Google. Also, I don’t think that we ever totally get over it, but we do learn to work with it and really support ourselves through what is really a natural human fear.
So that’s what we’re going to be exploring today in this episode, why we’re afraid of rejection, the negative consequences of not working with this fear, moving through it and forward from it that has on your business. And then how to prepare yourself for situations where you might experience rejection and also how to move forward if and when it does happen. This episode was actually inspired by some coaching that we were doing in the designer CEO mastermind.
What I’ve seen from working with interior designers at varying stages in their business, the fear of rejection really shows up in different ways as you progress through your journey as a designer CEO. So we’re going to talk about that as well and give you some examples to see how sometimes this is a very subtle fear that is sort of running in the background and dictating what you’re doing and not doing. And sometimes it really feels like that loud internal voice that feels like, oh my gosh, rejection is the scariest thing ever.
So we’re going to talk about how that fear of rejection can show up in a lot of different ways, big and small. I want to give you some examples of what I mean by those big and small ways, subtle and not so subtle ways to get you thinking about what are the ways that fear of rejection is showing up for me right now, or maybe in the past or how you might anticipate it even in the future.
I’ve seen it come up around acceptance of proposals and contracts. I think that’s probably the most obvious one where we start to second guess, is this too much? Are they going to be okay with those terms? Are they going to say, yes? Is this my next project?
Fear of rejection can also really come up in your design schemes, what you present to the client. Maybe you feel like you’re pushing them. Maybe you’re concerned that they’re not going to like it and not like you or your design. It might come up around asking for testimonials or feedback from your clients, right? The fear of, oh my gosh, what are they going to say?
It might even come up in hiring. This is a little bit of a sneakier one where you are maybe promoting that you’re hiring for the first time or expanding an existing team. You might have a fear there of, will they want to work with me? Do I have enough to offer? Is this going to be what they expect? Would they rather work for someone else?
This fear can also come up in building your network and referral partner relationships. Again, will they like me? Are they going to like me better than some other designer down the street that they might refer to? Maybe if you’re trying to build a brand and want to approach a furniture line for a collaboration or be a guest on a podcast so you can start to position yourself as a thought leader in the interior design industry.
What I want you to see is that the fear of rejection is likely showing up in one or multiple areas for you. And that rejection just doesn’t hold us back when we think of one dramatic encounter that’s going to wreck us forever. It will pop up in lots of different ways throughout the week, throughout your goals, throughout your relationships. It’s pretty prevalent and I think in creative fields, such as design, it’s especially common.
The emotional sensitivity to the possibility of rejection, or maybe even an actual instance where someone does turn you or your idea down can be really heightened because of the intimate nature of the relationships that we have and the work that we do. We care so deeply about design, what we do, and how we do it, and so it can feel very vulnerable to say, here, I made this for you, or this is important and I hope you think it’s important too. Or I hope you value what I do enough to say yes to what I’m proposing.
That feels really vulnerable. And it feels like a lot is on the line when you put yourself out there like that. And it often feels like a threat to you personally. The reason it feels like a personal threat is that often when we have an interaction or some kind of outcome that we encounter or create, we make the rejection, or we could just call it an absence of acceptance, we make that mean something about us.
Meaning if you get a no, you make that mean something bad about yourself. Maybe it’s that you aren’t talented or that you aren’t as good as you thought. Maybe no one likes you or whatever it is you desire just isn’t going to happen. Those are just a few examples of what you might make a rejection mean. And when you’re making a no mean all of that, it is going to stop you in your tracks or really trip you up in taking action.
Often fear of rejection is going to lead to procrastination, avoidance, and an often overlooked outcome of this fear is people pleasing. You’re trying to bend and shape shift into acceptance. Of course, all of these things are going to deter you and take you off track from what you’re ultimately trying to do in your design business.
And that’s because when it’s personal, when we make it about ourselves, it’s hard to make objective strategic decisions. It’s hard to get started and to keep going. It’s hard to build a business that supports you and allows you to shine through with your own vision and process that makes you unique.
One of the examples I like to give when we’re talking about this fear of rejection or a fear of getting a no is thinking about if you were in a sales position selling widgets, some little parts, bits and bobs. And you present to your customer these widgets and say, would you like to buy this? And they don’t want to buy those widgets. You might think, hmm, darn, I might not hit my sales goal. You might think, oh, they’re looking for a different product.
It’s just not as emotionally charged. You rebound quickly from that type of interaction. Maybe you decide you’re going to try a different marketing or sales approach, or simply just try a different client. Maybe they don’t need widgets right now, and you’ll come back to them, and you know somebody else who might need that.
Now, I recognize that it can be hard to achieve this level of objectivity with your creative outputs and something that is often a personal brand, which would be your design business. However, the widgets example does help me illustrate that a no or a rejection doesn’t have to mean anything about you as a person. It’s the idea, the proposal, the set of conditions. That is what is rejected, not you as the human being.
I really want you to consider this because when you take your human worth and value out of the equation, rejection is no longer about you, and it can be much more of a neutral circumstance you can respond to versus react to. No amount of preparation, strategic planning, or editing is going to be able to protect you from the possibility or reality of rejection. That’s why the meaning-making that we assign to getting a no is the root cause of the fear that you have to solve for and building your emotional strength and resilience really is the solution.
If at this point you’re thinking, yeah, that sounds great. I get that intellectually, but I don’t know. No worries, I’ve got you. We’re going to discuss how you can support yourself when you are putting yourself out there, whatever that looks like for you. When you’re getting to make a leap, when you’re getting ready to propose something that you are feeling a little shaky under, when you are putting yourself in a position where you might receive a no, this is really the process that I want you to go through to support yourself.
The very first thing you have to do is notice the first rejection. The first rejection is often you rejecting yourself. Often this is going to come in the form of negative self-talk and essentially telling yourself no before anyone else gets the chance to. This is just a protective measure, but we want to be aware of it and address it. This is where you absolutely need to start and be brave enough to look at what you’re saying to yourself.
When you picture yourself presenting an idea, proposing a plan, pitching a collaboration, whatever it is, I want you to notice what comes up. What is the story you’re telling yourself and who do you think you are in that moment? What do you think that means about you that you would do such a bold thing and possibly get a no? Maybe it’s that you think you can’t do it. Maybe you’re telling yourself, oh, I’d be so pushy.
One other way you can look at this is to think about what are you worried other people or the other person is going to think of you? Really, this is just going to give you further insight into what you’re really thinking about yourself. Writing or doing a thought download, journaling, it is really one of the best ways to uncover what this initial rejection of self is and what that sounds like internally so that you can then process it either with yourself or with a coach like myself.
Sometimes when we put these thoughts down on paper, we get them out in the open and we see, oh yeah, that’s kind of ridiculous, I can let that go. But some of them are going to sting and feel true. Those are the parts you’re probably buying into and believing about yourself. That’s what you need to wiggle loose because it wouldn’t sting so much if you didn’t believe it.
I know that it can be pretty uncomfortable to look at some of those things that we’re telling ourselves, and often these stories are really old. But even though these insights can be hard to see, looking at them openly and with compassion really is an opportunity to resolve and release those stories so that you can move towards your goals you want to achieve, because creating a bigger and better business is going to require you to put yourself in positions where rejection is possible.
After you look at that initial rejection, then the second piece of this is to name or proactively decide what you know to be true about you and your business. Step number two piggybacks off step number one. Once you know what you’ve been telling yourself about you or what you’ve been telling yourself others think of you, now you can proactively decide what you want to think of you. Decide who you are and form an opinion of yourself that you can ground into that feels true and that you can return to when you feel shaky.
Deciding what you know to be true about yourself does not have to be something super grand and something that feels totally out of reach like, I’m the best, most amazing person in the whole wide world and everyone should work with me, right? It could be something simple like I am a good person or I’ve had success in the past and I know I’ll be able to create it in the future. Or one belief that I really love to ground into is that no single no will ever break my business.
The truth is that not everyone’s going to respond to you in the way that you want, that’s just inevitable. So we want to take time to give yourself solid ground and a few core beliefs that you can return to when others don’t see you or your ideas the way that you want them to, or the way that you think they should be perceived. This step in this process is really a gift to future you, and that is knowing you have your own back.
Step number three is to put no on the table as a possibility. Trying to avoid the possibility of a no, whether that shows up in the form of procrastination, overthinking, over preparing, playing out entire scenes in your mind, maybe a combination of all of those, all that’s going to do is prevent you from taking action. It’s going to delay the possibility of getting a no, but that also means you’re delaying the possibility of getting a yes.
I think that once we release the attachment to getting a yes as that being the end-all be-all and only outcome we could handle, we actually have so much more insight into strategies and approaches that would actually support the possibility and increase the chances of getting that yes that we really want.
This happens because you end up shifting using all of your mental energy and effort to avoid an undesired outcome, to using that brain power to set yourself up to do what you can do that’s within your control to create the outcomes you’re hoping for. That’s going to be a much better use of your time and energy, not to mention it’s going to be way less stressful once you just put no on the table, because the truth is, as I’ve mentioned before in this episode, a no or a rejection is always on the table. Whether you allow yourself to see it that way or allow yourself to spin in avoidance, it doesn’t change that truth.
The other reason putting no on the table as an option is so helpful is that it exposes the flimsy story of hope that keeps us from entering into situations where rejection is possible. If you think about the emotional spectrum, at the very bottom of it there’s the feelings that I’d say we all really like to avoid and don’t really want to feel. And then in the middle, there’s those neutral feelings that we’re kind of like, yeah, take it or leave it. And then there’s the higher vibration feelings that we tend to chase and idealize.
When you’re trying to avoid rejection, you’re just really trying to avoid those feelings of fear, disappointment, unworthiness, shame, you name it. All of those emotions that I think most of us would like to escape from and eliminate from our human experience if it was possible.
So if you don’t take action that opens you up to the possibility of rejection, that allows you to be staying in the emotional vibration of hope, possibility, desire, pride, excitement, all of those feelings that we tend to go after and want to stay in perpetually. Our visualizations of what could or could not happen, create an emotional experience in the body. And so of course, your brain wants to choose the ones that feel better.
Here’s the key thing though, in both of those options, it’s all imagined. You’re imagining what it might feel like in an outcome that might happen. And if you take action, then you can no longer hold on to the fantasy of what could be. You confront yourself with what is right now, whatever that result is. And that can feel like a really hard trade for your brain to make.
The other person might just be wrong about you. They might not hold the vision you have. Your values might not align, or the timing might be off. And it could work out. It could be better than you even imagine. Give both of those options equal airtime because the acceptance of no being on the table as something that might occur, will open you up to what could be. No is a possible outcome. Yes is a possible outcome. And I want you to give yourself a chance to hear yes.
Learning to be your own inner coach instead of inner critic is one of the best things you can do for yourself in your business and in your life. That’s why when I work with clients, we always address the mindset, the body, which is the emotional component, the language of the body, and the strategy. When those three pieces align and come together, that is really when you will thrive, and your business will thrive, and you’ll have the resilience to set goals for yourself that you didn’t think were possible and go after them.
You’re going to take action more quickly and with more confidence. You’re going to be more bold in asking for what you want and creating those opportunities for yourself. When you’re willing to hear no or not right now, you’re going to get a lot more yeses. And even when it’s a no or a not right now, you’re going to have the mindset tools to redirect those critical thought patterns and the emotional resilience to ride the highs and lows that come when you do things you’ve never done before.
And also have access to that strategic planning part of your brain and the high-level thinking that’s really required to understand what it takes to get better outcomes and lead your business as the designer CEO.
As we wrap up, I want to recap how to work with and move beyond the fear of rejection so that it doesn’t have to be such a stumbling block in your interior design business. So the first step is to notice that initial first rejection, you rejecting yourself. The second step is to name for yourself and proactively decide what you know to be true about you. And step number three is to put no on the table as a possibility because that opens you up to yes as a possibility.
Working on just this one piece, this fear of rejection and learning to support yourself through it is going to be transformative for your business and for your goals. I’ve given you some steps here that you can run with and I also want to invite you to do it with my support. I’m going to be working with a select number of designers this fall and winter. And if you want this holistic approach to business coaching, then make sure you get your name on the waitlist for private coaching.
The way that you get on the waitlist is go to desiid.com/privatecoachingwaitlist. The link will be in the show notes, or you can just type that in, and enter your name. I ask you a few questions just to get a sense of what you want to work on and if private coaching would be the most supportive option for that. And then I’ll be reaching out in the near-ish future to get a time booked for us to meet live and talk through exactly what you want to work on and ensure that we would be a great match for working together.
That’s what I have for you this week. And next week I’ll be back, as always, with a brand new episode. Until then I am wishing you a beautiful week.
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Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you're ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you're in the right place. I'm Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let's go.
Hello, designer, welcome back to the podcast. I hope you all are having an incredible week. I’m actually recording this on a Friday, which is a little unusual for me. Today both of our kids have friends coming home with them after school. So that’ll be a little bit wild, but I am looking forward to it. And it’s kind of fun, some of my son’s friends are starting to enjoy what I make. So that always just delights me.
One of them gets very excited for my guacamole. The one that is coming over tonight is looking forward to the pizza that I’m going to make. So I don’t know why, I think it’s because my son is kind of like, “Whatever, mom, you’re going to make me eat something. All right, fine.” So when I find some other child that appreciates what I make, I get kind of excited. So that’s what’s happening here in my world.
I do want you all to know that if you aren’t aware of the waitlist for private coaching, make sure that if you want to be working with me this fall or in the winter that you are on that waitlist, because that’s who I’m going to be reaching out to first when spots become available. So if you are someone who’s new to me and you’re wanting to work together, or you’re a past client and you’re interested in partnering again with setting some new goals, overcoming some new challenges, definitely get on the waitlist. It’s desiid.com/privatecoachingwaitlist.
Today, what we’re going to talk about is rejection. I know that sounds like kind of a downer topic, but it is really important and we’re going to be covering it from both the angle of rejection from other people and also rejection from ourselves.
Now, when I was thinking about this episode, I was thinking, well, maybe we’ll call it like overcoming fear of rejection or getting over the fear of rejection. And I mean, that kind of sounds good in terms of SEO and what you might Google. Also, I don’t think that we ever totally get over it, but we do learn to work with it and really support ourselves through what is really a natural human fear.
So that’s what we’re going to be exploring today in this episode, why we’re afraid of rejection, the negative consequences of not working with this fear, moving through it and forward from it that has on your business. And then how to prepare yourself for situations where you might experience rejection and also how to move forward if and when it does happen. This episode was actually inspired by some coaching that we were doing in the designer CEO mastermind.
What I’ve seen from working with interior designers at varying stages in their business, the fear of rejection really shows up in different ways as you progress through your journey as a designer CEO. So we’re going to talk about that as well and give you some examples to see how sometimes this is a very subtle fear that is sort of running in the background and dictating what you’re doing and not doing. And sometimes it really feels like that loud internal voice that feels like, oh my gosh, rejection is the scariest thing ever.
So we’re going to talk about how that fear of rejection can show up in a lot of different ways, big and small. I want to give you some examples of what I mean by those big and small ways, subtle and not so subtle ways to get you thinking about what are the ways that fear of rejection is showing up for me right now, or maybe in the past or how you might anticipate it even in the future.
I’ve seen it come up around acceptance of proposals and contracts. I think that’s probably the most obvious one where we start to second guess, is this too much? Are they going to be okay with those terms? Are they going to say, yes? Is this my next project?
Fear of rejection can also really come up in your design schemes, what you present to the client. Maybe you feel like you’re pushing them. Maybe you’re concerned that they’re not going to like it and not like you or your design. It might come up around asking for testimonials or feedback from your clients, right? The fear of, oh my gosh, what are they going to say?
It might even come up in hiring. This is a little bit of a sneakier one where you are maybe promoting that you’re hiring for the first time or expanding an existing team. You might have a fear there of, will they want to work with me? Do I have enough to offer? Is this going to be what they expect? Would they rather work for someone else?
This fear can also come up in building your network and referral partner relationships. Again, will they like me? Are they going to like me better than some other designer down the street that they might refer to? Maybe if you’re trying to build a brand and want to approach a furniture line for a collaboration or be a guest on a podcast so you can start to position yourself as a thought leader in the interior design industry.
What I want you to see is that the fear of rejection is likely showing up in one or multiple areas for you. And that rejection just doesn’t hold us back when we think of one dramatic encounter that’s going to wreck us forever. It will pop up in lots of different ways throughout the week, throughout your goals, throughout your relationships. It’s pretty prevalent and I think in creative fields, such as design, it’s especially common.
The emotional sensitivity to the possibility of rejection, or maybe even an actual instance where someone does turn you or your idea down can be really heightened because of the intimate nature of the relationships that we have and the work that we do. We care so deeply about design, what we do, and how we do it, and so it can feel very vulnerable to say, here, I made this for you, or this is important and I hope you think it’s important too. Or I hope you value what I do enough to say yes to what I’m proposing.
That feels really vulnerable. And it feels like a lot is on the line when you put yourself out there like that. And it often feels like a threat to you personally. The reason it feels like a personal threat is that often when we have an interaction or some kind of outcome that we encounter or create, we make the rejection, or we could just call it an absence of acceptance, we make that mean something about us.
Meaning if you get a no, you make that mean something bad about yourself. Maybe it’s that you aren’t talented or that you aren’t as good as you thought. Maybe no one likes you or whatever it is you desire just isn’t going to happen. Those are just a few examples of what you might make a rejection mean. And when you’re making a no mean all of that, it is going to stop you in your tracks or really trip you up in taking action.
Often fear of rejection is going to lead to procrastination, avoidance, and an often overlooked outcome of this fear is people pleasing. You’re trying to bend and shape shift into acceptance. Of course, all of these things are going to deter you and take you off track from what you’re ultimately trying to do in your design business.
And that’s because when it’s personal, when we make it about ourselves, it’s hard to make objective strategic decisions. It’s hard to get started and to keep going. It’s hard to build a business that supports you and allows you to shine through with your own vision and process that makes you unique.
One of the examples I like to give when we’re talking about this fear of rejection or a fear of getting a no is thinking about if you were in a sales position selling widgets, some little parts, bits and bobs. And you present to your customer these widgets and say, would you like to buy this? And they don’t want to buy those widgets. You might think, hmm, darn, I might not hit my sales goal. You might think, oh, they’re looking for a different product.
It’s just not as emotionally charged. You rebound quickly from that type of interaction. Maybe you decide you’re going to try a different marketing or sales approach, or simply just try a different client. Maybe they don’t need widgets right now, and you’ll come back to them, and you know somebody else who might need that.
Now, I recognize that it can be hard to achieve this level of objectivity with your creative outputs and something that is often a personal brand, which would be your design business. However, the widgets example does help me illustrate that a no or a rejection doesn’t have to mean anything about you as a person. It’s the idea, the proposal, the set of conditions. That is what is rejected, not you as the human being.
I really want you to consider this because when you take your human worth and value out of the equation, rejection is no longer about you, and it can be much more of a neutral circumstance you can respond to versus react to. No amount of preparation, strategic planning, or editing is going to be able to protect you from the possibility or reality of rejection. That’s why the meaning-making that we assign to getting a no is the root cause of the fear that you have to solve for and building your emotional strength and resilience really is the solution.
If at this point you’re thinking, yeah, that sounds great. I get that intellectually, but I don’t know. No worries, I’ve got you. We’re going to discuss how you can support yourself when you are putting yourself out there, whatever that looks like for you. When you’re getting to make a leap, when you’re getting ready to propose something that you are feeling a little shaky under, when you are putting yourself in a position where you might receive a no, this is really the process that I want you to go through to support yourself.
The very first thing you have to do is notice the first rejection. The first rejection is often you rejecting yourself. Often this is going to come in the form of negative self-talk and essentially telling yourself no before anyone else gets the chance to. This is just a protective measure, but we want to be aware of it and address it. This is where you absolutely need to start and be brave enough to look at what you’re saying to yourself.
When you picture yourself presenting an idea, proposing a plan, pitching a collaboration, whatever it is, I want you to notice what comes up. What is the story you’re telling yourself and who do you think you are in that moment? What do you think that means about you that you would do such a bold thing and possibly get a no? Maybe it’s that you think you can’t do it. Maybe you’re telling yourself, oh, I’d be so pushy.
One other way you can look at this is to think about what are you worried other people or the other person is going to think of you? Really, this is just going to give you further insight into what you’re really thinking about yourself. Writing or doing a thought download, journaling, it is really one of the best ways to uncover what this initial rejection of self is and what that sounds like internally so that you can then process it either with yourself or with a coach like myself.
Sometimes when we put these thoughts down on paper, we get them out in the open and we see, oh yeah, that’s kind of ridiculous, I can let that go. But some of them are going to sting and feel true. Those are the parts you’re probably buying into and believing about yourself. That’s what you need to wiggle loose because it wouldn’t sting so much if you didn’t believe it.
I know that it can be pretty uncomfortable to look at some of those things that we’re telling ourselves, and often these stories are really old. But even though these insights can be hard to see, looking at them openly and with compassion really is an opportunity to resolve and release those stories so that you can move towards your goals you want to achieve, because creating a bigger and better business is going to require you to put yourself in positions where rejection is possible.
After you look at that initial rejection, then the second piece of this is to name or proactively decide what you know to be true about you and your business. Step number two piggybacks off step number one. Once you know what you’ve been telling yourself about you or what you’ve been telling yourself others think of you, now you can proactively decide what you want to think of you. Decide who you are and form an opinion of yourself that you can ground into that feels true and that you can return to when you feel shaky.
Deciding what you know to be true about yourself does not have to be something super grand and something that feels totally out of reach like, I’m the best, most amazing person in the whole wide world and everyone should work with me, right? It could be something simple like I am a good person or I’ve had success in the past and I know I’ll be able to create it in the future. Or one belief that I really love to ground into is that no single no will ever break my business.
The truth is that not everyone’s going to respond to you in the way that you want, that’s just inevitable. So we want to take time to give yourself solid ground and a few core beliefs that you can return to when others don’t see you or your ideas the way that you want them to, or the way that you think they should be perceived. This step in this process is really a gift to future you, and that is knowing you have your own back.
Step number three is to put no on the table as a possibility. Trying to avoid the possibility of a no, whether that shows up in the form of procrastination, overthinking, over preparing, playing out entire scenes in your mind, maybe a combination of all of those, all that’s going to do is prevent you from taking action. It’s going to delay the possibility of getting a no, but that also means you’re delaying the possibility of getting a yes.
I think that once we release the attachment to getting a yes as that being the end-all be-all and only outcome we could handle, we actually have so much more insight into strategies and approaches that would actually support the possibility and increase the chances of getting that yes that we really want.
This happens because you end up shifting using all of your mental energy and effort to avoid an undesired outcome, to using that brain power to set yourself up to do what you can do that’s within your control to create the outcomes you’re hoping for. That’s going to be a much better use of your time and energy, not to mention it’s going to be way less stressful once you just put no on the table, because the truth is, as I’ve mentioned before in this episode, a no or a rejection is always on the table. Whether you allow yourself to see it that way or allow yourself to spin in avoidance, it doesn’t change that truth.
The other reason putting no on the table as an option is so helpful is that it exposes the flimsy story of hope that keeps us from entering into situations where rejection is possible. If you think about the emotional spectrum, at the very bottom of it there’s the feelings that I’d say we all really like to avoid and don’t really want to feel. And then in the middle, there’s those neutral feelings that we’re kind of like, yeah, take it or leave it. And then there’s the higher vibration feelings that we tend to chase and idealize.
When you’re trying to avoid rejection, you’re just really trying to avoid those feelings of fear, disappointment, unworthiness, shame, you name it. All of those emotions that I think most of us would like to escape from and eliminate from our human experience if it was possible.
So if you don’t take action that opens you up to the possibility of rejection, that allows you to be staying in the emotional vibration of hope, possibility, desire, pride, excitement, all of those feelings that we tend to go after and want to stay in perpetually. Our visualizations of what could or could not happen, create an emotional experience in the body. And so of course, your brain wants to choose the ones that feel better.
Here’s the key thing though, in both of those options, it’s all imagined. You’re imagining what it might feel like in an outcome that might happen. And if you take action, then you can no longer hold on to the fantasy of what could be. You confront yourself with what is right now, whatever that result is. And that can feel like a really hard trade for your brain to make.
The other person might just be wrong about you. They might not hold the vision you have. Your values might not align, or the timing might be off. And it could work out. It could be better than you even imagine. Give both of those options equal airtime because the acceptance of no being on the table as something that might occur, will open you up to what could be. No is a possible outcome. Yes is a possible outcome. And I want you to give yourself a chance to hear yes.
Learning to be your own inner coach instead of inner critic is one of the best things you can do for yourself in your business and in your life. That’s why when I work with clients, we always address the mindset, the body, which is the emotional component, the language of the body, and the strategy. When those three pieces align and come together, that is really when you will thrive, and your business will thrive, and you’ll have the resilience to set goals for yourself that you didn’t think were possible and go after them.
You’re going to take action more quickly and with more confidence. You’re going to be more bold in asking for what you want and creating those opportunities for yourself. When you’re willing to hear no or not right now, you’re going to get a lot more yeses. And even when it’s a no or a not right now, you’re going to have the mindset tools to redirect those critical thought patterns and the emotional resilience to ride the highs and lows that come when you do things you’ve never done before.
And also have access to that strategic planning part of your brain and the high-level thinking that’s really required to understand what it takes to get better outcomes and lead your business as the designer CEO.
As we wrap up, I want to recap how to work with and move beyond the fear of rejection so that it doesn’t have to be such a stumbling block in your interior design business. So the first step is to notice that initial first rejection, you rejecting yourself. The second step is to name for yourself and proactively decide what you know to be true about you. And step number three is to put no on the table as a possibility because that opens you up to yes as a possibility.
Working on just this one piece, this fear of rejection and learning to support yourself through it is going to be transformative for your business and for your goals. I’ve given you some steps here that you can run with and I also want to invite you to do it with my support. I’m going to be working with a select number of designers this fall and winter. And if you want this holistic approach to business coaching, then make sure you get your name on the waitlist for private coaching.
The way that you get on the waitlist is go to desiid.com/privatecoachingwaitlist. The link will be in the show notes, or you can just type that in, and enter your name. I ask you a few questions just to get a sense of what you want to work on and if private coaching would be the most supportive option for that. And then I’ll be reaching out in the near-ish future to get a time booked for us to meet live and talk through exactly what you want to work on and ensure that we would be a great match for working together.
That’s what I have for you this week. And next week I’ll be back, as always, with a brand new episode. Until then I am wishing you a beautiful week.
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