You don’t know until you ask

I think it's fair to say it was a huge year of mindset growth and it was a huge year of realizing how mindset is probably the most important thing in your business. You can have the best strategy, you can have the best launch, you can have the best product, you can have the best marketing tactics, but if your mindset is getting in the way you are going to be trying to paddle upstream.

So today's lesson that I learned in 2020 was you don't know unless you ask.

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How to get over the fear of asking for difficult things

Hands up who struggles with rejection? My hand is very high in the sky right now, because I would actively avoid situations where I might be given a no.
Situations like pitching to the media, reaching out to people for podcast interviews, asking people for collaborations. In my mind, I would think straight away, “Well that person's going to say no to me so I'm not even going to bother asking.” So basically instead of letting them reject me, I was just rejecting myself before I could even be in that position where they would reject me.

Because rejection is not comfortable, it feels really, really uncomfortable in our bodies, in our brains, what our minds tell us that rejection means about us.

And it wasn't until I started working with my coach in 2020, where I realized just how much it was holding me back from growing my business. And she gave me a really fun challenge and when I say fun, what I really mean was uncomfortable and scary.

The 7 Day Challenge

Basically what it was, was for seven days, I had to ask for a rejection each day. So I had to ask for something where I thought I was going to be told no. And the first few days were very uncomfortable, but a few of the lessons that I learned.

So firstly, I learned that half of the time when you are expecting somebody to say no, they're actually going to tell you yes, which opens up a whole lot of opportunities that you had discredited yourself from.

Situations that you immediately thought “I'm not going to get that opportunity so I'm not even going to bother.” That was a really big one for me. I think it was two out of three of the first days, the things that I asked for expecting a no, they said yes. And I was like, oh, okay. How many things in my business have I not asked for that I would have got a yes for, and how have I held myself back from that.

 

Rejection is just a feeling

The other thing that I learned was that when you do get a rejection, all it is is a feeling in your body. That is literally all it is. And the reason we avoid it is that we think we aren't capable of handling that emotion. It's the same reason we try to avoid anything difficult in our lives.

We use things like procrastination, overeating, drinking, – these are my own coping mechanisms, by the way, I don't know what yours are, but those are my coping mechanisms. We use those to avoid feeling the emotions that we feel like we can't handle. So rejection is literally just a feeling in your body and you realize just how capable you are of handling it. The thing that you're anxious about is what that rejection would mean about you. So for example, I would be really worried that a rejection would mean I wasn't good enough or that I hadn't done something right. I'd done something the wrong way.

 

Rejection is usually not personal

And what I realized from this challenge was most of the time the rejection had nothing to do with me. It was the other person, not me at all. So yes, it feels really uncomfortable but sitting with that feeling of rejection made me realize, it's safe to be rejected and it's a small price to pay for the opportunity that might arise by getting a yes.

In short, you can ask, and you can find out what the answer is, or you can just sit there and not ask and avoid the rejection, but always wonder what if, and ultimately by doing that you're just rejecting yourself.

So in 2021, I'm setting myself the goal of leaning into the discomfort of asking for difficult things. Just remember, you never know until you ask. And ask yourself, what opportunities do I want that I could be holding myself back from?

 

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