Fear of rejection

What is fear of rejection?
What common behavior patterns exist for people who operate out of a fear of rejection?
How do others react to people who operate out of a fear of rejection?
What are some underlying causes for operating out of a fear of rejection?
Steps to overcome the fear of rejection

What is fear of rejection?
Fear of rejection is the:

Irrational fear that others will not accept me for who I am, what I believe, and how I act.  A Caution in my behavior and interactions with others. State of mind that makes me incapable of doing or saying anything for fear of others' rejection, lack of acceptance, or disapproval.

State of being of individuals who are over-dependent on the approval, recognition, or affirmation of others in order to feel good about themselves. In order to sustain personal feelings of adequacy these individuals are constantly concerned with the reactions of others to them. Self-censoring attitude that inhibits creativity, productivity, and imagination in one's approach.

Driving force behind many people that keeps them from being authentic human beings. They are so driven by the need for acceptance of others that they lose their own identity in the process. They mimic the ways in which others act, dress, talk, think, believe, and function. They become the three-dimensional clones of the ``role models'' they so desperately need to emulate in order to gain acceptance.

Underlying process in the power of ``peer pressure'' that grabs hold and makes people act in stereotypic, ``pop'' culture, counter culture, punk, new wave, preppie, yuppie, and other styles. They crave recognition and acceptance from the reference group with whom they want to be identified.

Energy-robbing attitude that leads to self immobilization, self-defeating, and self-destructive behavior. This attitude encourages ongoing irrational thinking and behavior, resulting in personal stagnation, regression, and depression.

Driving force of some people for all actions in their lives. It plays a part in their choices concerning their education, career direction, work behavior, achievement level, interpersonal and marital relationships, family and community life, and the ways in which they spend leisure time.

Act of giving to others more power than I give to myself over how I feel about myself. What the others say or feel about me is the determinant of how I feel about myself. I am completely at the mercy of others for how happy or sad I will be. My self-satisfaction and belief in myself is in their hands. Fear of rejection is the abdication of power and control over my own life.

What common behavior patterns exist for people who operate out of a fear of rejection?
People who operate out of a fear of rejection:
Display little or no assertiveness. Do not speak up and let others know how they feel about something, especially if their opinions differ.

Function as enablers. They have neither the courage nor the ability to assist others in discontinuing self-destructive behavior, e.g., alcohol or drug abuse, underachievement or workaholism.

Lack the courage to function differently from others, even when they don't enjoy the behavior in which they are involved.

Resort to passive/aggressive behavior; that is dishonest, sneaky, and allows for no open communication.

Play games with people. They will keep their personal feelings hidden. They are in tune with what is in and make every effort to emulate it in their lives.

Privately express a great deal of anger or depression over how unfortunate and unhappy their current lifestyle is. Yet, when helped to look at alternatives involving confrontation with others, they take a ``yes, Y but'' attitude.

Are confused as to their true identity, wearing ``masks'' to please others.

Become so obsessed with functioning, looking, and acting in a ``prescribed'' manner that they become rigid, inflexible, and closed to alternative behavior. This is true even if they are unhappy in the lifeBstyle they hold to so rigidly.

Are dishonest with themselves, so much so that it carries over into their interactions with others and they become habitual liars.

Two basic self-improvement principles.

 

From a high level perspective, most self-improvement knowledge can be summarized as two principles below:

1. Love yourself, work on your self-esteem. Take responsibility for how you feel/think/act. Work on reducing your ego. Do not let people/situations hurt your ego, and if hurt, do not act on the thoughts when hurt. Center your mind before you act.
2. Love others. Boost their self-esteem. Do not intentionally hurt other people’s ego.  Keep developing people skills so you will reduce the probability of even unintentionally hurting others, and increase the chance of making others feeling good about themselves and hence you. 

Let us look into these in further detail:

Principle #1:
Our ego is the single reason why we experience all the negative emotions and all the suffering.  Our ego is just a thought of who we think we are in terms of what we do, what we own, and what others think of us. The entire spiritual path is about reducing our ego. As our ego’s reduces, wisdom naturally increases, and our life gets better. Loving ourselves is very Important. Self-esteem is the critical component that determines the quality of our lives. The core teaching of self-help is that we are responsible for our lives, and that no matter what happens around us, we are responsible for how we feel. The meaning that we associate to events is what creates our feelings. By consciously assigning empowering meaning  to events, we can always control how we feel. Wisdom is in knowing that it is never others that hurt us, but we choosing to hurt ourselves by the thoughts we think.

Principle #2:
The other side of the the core self-help knowledge is to love others and make them feel valued. Although it would be great to have people around with no ego, practically speaking, all people around us have egos, just like we do. Wisdom thus lies in boosting people’s self-esteem - to make them genuinely feel good and appreciated. While it’s clear that intentionally hurting other people’s ego is not a good idea, what may not be that apparent is that we unintentionally hurt people thanks to our lack of skills in dealing with people. Much of classic self-help knowledge such as ”How to win friends and influence people” and most books on “relationship skills”  are about learning skills so that we become a master of dealing with people. There is a psychology for every situation, age group, sex, and profession. Our ignorance of human psychology leads us to untold pain in dealing with people. Becoming more and more skilled in dealing with people the right way so we do not violate principle #2 is a great asset. This part can take a long time to master, as life always leads to new situations/people in which we have not yet learnt the  proper psychology for the situation. For example, many people struggle with marriages simply because of ignorance of psychology of the opposite sex.

Many relationship problems are a result of not following these principles
Most of the relationship problems between two people, whether at home or work, happens due to people violating either principle #1 or principle #2. The patterns of all friction between two people A and B happens in one of the following ways:

1) A violates principle #1 =>  B violates principle #1
Example:
A gets angry at B due to an expectation B did not meet, and his ego is hurt. B in turn is hurt by the negative energy A is sending him, and reflects back the anger in some way. He may become hurt, depressed, sad or send back anger.

2) B violates principle #2 =>  A violates principle #1 => B violates principle #1
Example:
B unknowingly hurts A, due to some ignorance, perhaps lack of people skills. A takes that action personally, gets hurt, and sends some negative energy towards B. B in turn retalitates with negative energy.

Solution to many relationship problems lies in simply following these principles
The solution to avoiding friction between two people happens in one of the following ways:

1. A follows principle #1 => B has no problem.
2. B follows principle #2 => A has no problem.
3. A violates principle #1 =>  B still follows principle #1 => no problem  (i.e B does not retaliate)
4. B violates principle #2 =>  A still follows principle #1 => no problem  (i.e A does not retaliate)

Apply these principles on yourself, not others
The interesting thing is that even as we break one of these principles, we expect our counterpart to follow them! For example, we knowingly/unknowingly hurt the other (principle #2), but yet expect our counterpart to not act out as they do when hurt (principle #1). Or, we hurt ourselves by giving disempowering meaning to events related to what the other did (principle #1), and expect the other to make it right ( principle #2) Wisdom lies in applying these principles on ourselves, and not on our counterparts. We can only control ourselves, not others. Expecting others to comply only leads to disappointment.




The reason we are creators of our life is that regardless of whether people around us are following these principles or not, if we follow them, we are able to completely direct the experience of our life. Not following these principles leads to negative, dis-empowered and painful situations, and following these leads to positive, empowered, and happy experiences.
 

Why is self-esteem important?

What is self-esteem?
Self-esteem is the set of beliefs that you have about yourself. It is how good (or bad) you feel about yourself.

Example self-beliefs that constitute self-esteem:

• I’m an excellent writer
• I’m a good human being
• I’m great at explaining concepts to others
• I feel I’m ugly
• I’m too fat
• I’m not good with people
• I’m a bad person

As you see above, self-esteem can be both broad (I’m a good human being) or specific to a certain field (I’m an excellent writer) Also self-esteem is known by many other synonyms such as self-worth, self-respect, self-confidence etc.

Why is self-esteem important?
Success in anything we take up in our life is directly linked to the amount of confidence we have in ourselves. Lack of confidence in oneself or low self-esteem prevents us from achieving our full potential in life. A low self-esteem also prevents us from enjoying life fully. By law of attraction, what we believe about ourselves is what the universe shows to us, and thus in order to attract positive things in our life, it is important that our beliefs about ourselves be positive. Self-esteem is an important Level 4 need in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

For more details about Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

Maslow's hierarchy of needs showing self-esteem as a level 4 need.

Where does self-esteem come from?

1. Childhood: A large part of self-esteem comes from our childhood. The quality of relationships we have had with our parents, and the amount of praise you got from them have an effect on self-esteem. It is thus important that we positively acknowledge children for their achievements.
2. Our own thoughts: Some people are naturally more positive than others. The kind of self-talk we do to ourselves is thus a big contributor to our self-esteem.
3. Achievements:  Success in anything we take up increases our self-esteem. Failures tend to decrease it.
4. Peers:  What people around us say to us affects our self-esteem. This can be people from work, family or those we have romantic relationships with.

How can I find out if my self-esteem is high or low?
Here are some general traits of people who have high and low self-esteem. Make a unbiased judgement and find out for yourself.

People with high self-esteem tend to:

1. Feel confident in their abilities. They do not fear failure and are willing to ask for help when needed.
2. Consider themselves equal to other, regardless of specific talents or outward differences they have. They neither have a superiority complex not inferiority complex.
3. Standup for what they believe, do not feel attacked when they face opposition, and are open to change their beliefs and grow.
4. Trust their own judgement and do not feel guilty when other people do not like the choices they make.
5. They learn from the past and plan for the future. They do not worry too much about the past.
6. Believe that others accept them, love them or at least find them interesting.
7. Are sensitive to the feelings and needs of others.
8. Enjoy their life.

Refer to the above as P1 to P8 in order to talk about it. Example - I found myself having P2, P4, and P8

People with low self-esteem tend to:

1. Be pessimistic about their life, future, and themselves.
2. Feel bad about many things and thus tend to be hostile and ready to explode.
3. Are very sensitive to criticism. They feel easily attacked and experience obstinate resentment against critics.
4. Criticize themselves often and are generally dissatisfied with themselves.
5. Be fearful of making mistakes, which leads to a state of chronic indecision.
6. Are unable to say “no” to others and consequently have an excessive will to please others.
7. Tend to be perfectionistic thanks to their fear of making mistakes.
8. Condem the behaviors of others, exaggerates the magnitude of mistakes and find it difficult to forgive others.
9. Have a general lack of will to enjoy life.

Refer to the above as N1 to N9 in order to talk about it. Example - I found myself having N1, N2 and N7

How can I improve my self-esteem?

1. Be positive. Focus on achievements and talents, rather than shortcomings.
2. Stretch yourself beyond what you do now.
3. Do not be hard on yourself. Let go of any mistakes made in the past.
4. Surround yourself with positive people who encourage you in whatever you take up.
5. Monitor and celebrate your success. Reward yourself when you achieve milestones.
6. Take good care of yourself - body, mind, heart and spirit.
7. Regularly practice self-love. Look into the mirror each day and say " Wow - How wonderful you are - I Love you !"
8. Work with a professional coach who can quickly point areas of improvement.

Do not criticize, condemn, or complain. (Principle #1)

Do not criticize, condemn, or complain.  (Principle #1)
-Dale Carnegie




It is quite natural that at times some people around us may do certain things that upset us very much. Our intellect may perfectly justify that their actions are wrong, inefficient, or simply foolish. The natural response from our side is then be to criticize, condemn or complain about the other person’s actions. Criticizing gives us an opportunity to blow some steam. It temporarily makes us feel really good. However more often than not, it does not serve one bit in making the situation and the relationship any better. Why is that so?

This is because whatever a person does, his ego automatically justifies it. Most criminals, including the ones who are perfectly sane mentally, hardly experience any guilt and remorse, however serious their crimes. Their ego and intellect perfectly justifies all their actions. This type of defense mechanism is built into each one of us - we are all setup to defend our actions fully, as our egos never wants to make us wrong. People simply do not like to hear that they did anything wrong intentionally.

It follows then that when we criticize, condemn or complain about the actions of others, what most likely happens is that we will trigger the other person’s defense mechanism. Criticism wounds a persons pride, hurts his sense of importance, and thus arouses anger and resentment. It can demoralize family members, friends, and employees, while not helping one bit in correcting the situation at hand. More often than not, the person we criticize simply finds a way to justify his actions and in turn give some criticism back to us. In some cases the consequences of our criticism can be very serious, and come back haunting at us.

Animals that are regarded for good behaviour learn much more rapidly and retain what they learn more effectively than an animal punished for bad behaviour. The same works with humans as well - It is far more easier to correct some one's actions by speaking positively of the things that they do right, rather than what they do wrong.  Positive reinforcement works miracles with everyone - children and adults alike. A wise man thus knows to skillfully handle the egos of people around him.  He is able to present facts in a way that does not offend others. He puts more effort in understanding the reasons behind other people’s actions - as he fully realizes how futile it is to criticize, condemn, and complain.