Acceptance is usually a way for us to skirt responsibility
| This is a 3 part series on rejection. Doing it, avoiding it & embracing it. |
Here’s a scenario. Purely hypothetical. You work really hard on your craft. You decide that someone or some committee has enough authority to rank whether your work was worth it, whether you’re a worthy, valid person. You put yourself in front of them. You get rejected. It’s crushing. All your life is wasted!
Now of course this never happens 1000s of times to people in the entertainment biz every single day… but if it did, it would be rough.
This writing is about avoiding this hypothetical scenario in all its parts.
Validate yourself
One of the most important character traits for a prolific creative is the ability to self-validate. You can’t expect anyone else to understand who you are, to care about what you’re trying to do, or to accurately evaluate where you’re at!
Here’s how I self-validate. Choose your own adventure or take mine…
- All humans are equal. I will never be more or less important than anyone, so my work doesn’t change my humanity.
- I celebrate the work I do more than the results. EG: I’ve been blogging for over 40 days in a row!
- I compare my work to my mission and my goals, not to other people or other people’s missions.
- I give myself a pat on the back for overcoming challenges.
Take responsibility
Responsibility sucks. Playing a slot machine is a relief from responsibility. The machine has power to control our fortune. It becomes our god. Are we victim or lucky?
Setting up some gate-keeper as the authority is another way for us to shirk responsibility. We’re getting out of committing to what we are about. We’re not facing whether we’re on track to get there.
You don’t have to believe me. Most people probably don’t.
Need not apply
Your core mission (like bring the joy of turtles to the world) probably doesn’t need anyone to let you thru. Make two videos every day online about turtles. Share turtle articles. Instagram only the cutest turt-pics.
Gate-keepers have less power now than ever and you have a million channels to pursue to do what fuels you.
But I gotta
If you can’t get yourself to totally reject rejection scenarios, then reduce them. Don’t send your video game pitch to a publisher who doesn’t do that kind of game. Don’t audition for a casting call not fit for you. Don’t interview for jobs that are totally wrong – even if they accepted your resume.
I’m going to write tomorrow about taking in a lot of rejection and loving it. The rejection trilogy everyone always wanted!
You have reach and influence
It feels like the deciders have all the audience, but they don’t.
Martin Scorsese is one of the biggest directors in the world. His last movie The Irishman had maybe 30 million viewers. That’s less than 10% of the United States. That’s less than .4% of the whole world. Point four! Of those people who saw the movie, less than 20% watched it all the way thru. There are actors in the second half of the movie that were seen by 20% of .4% of the world.
I’m not saying that you have access to all 800 million Tiktok users because you don’t. I’m saying nobody has all the reach and you don’t have zero reach. Start making stuff for your people on your mission and you won’t be putting a bunch of effort into playing a slot machine. You’ll be taking responsibility, taking control, and (if you don’t let yourself back down) taking the reward.