Rejection

No Is Free

Garth Beyer

It’s a curious notion how rejection is free.

It costs nothing to be told no. There are zero consequences to passersby doing what they’re labeled to do – pass by.

So it goes with hitchhiking or publishing a novel or booking a gig, all it takes is one person to ask you on board and the confidence begins to build.

Perhaps, though, picking yourself up, self-publishing and organizing an event to play at is more beneficial to one’s confidence than waiting to be picked.

After all, picking yourself is free too.

 

Stay Positive & Don’t Wait For A Yes

You Can’t Help Them (Don’t Try To)

Garth Beyer

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Many of you who read my stories each day align with all that I have written about helping others, asking for help, and accepting help.

These bits of helping advice will save you in the long run. What will save you more, though, is accepting that you can’t and shouldn’t help those who don’t want to be helped.

It will always put you in a rough spot, aggravated and frustrated.

The rejection of help is the single most forgotten form of rejection. When you try to help someone else because they aren’t doing something right, or you can see that they are struggling, or they missed something crucial that you want to help by pointing out, you are asking to be disappointed.

Not only are you better off going back to doing what you were doing and focusing on yourself when you feel the urge to help someone who is resistant to your offers of assistance, but they are better off too. They are on their own path of learning. Having you trying to enter that path simply adds to their challenge.

When someone wants to do something themselves and they reject your offer to help, leave them to it.

Observe and learn from what they are doing on their own.

There won’t always be someone to offer you help.

 

Stay Positive & Best To Know How To Do It By Yourself, Just In Case

Garth E. Beyer

Photo credit: As for the photo here: it's just a gentle reminder that while you may have had your assistance rejected, you can still make them happy through other means

Your Art Is Terrible

Garth Beyer

Right now, think of a movie you have seen that flat-out sucked.

Or maybe a book that was so terrible that you wrote a paragraph long review on Amazon (or just tossed the book without finishing it).

Or think of a play that made you feel terrible for the actors because the film itself was awful?

Now notice that the movie got put into production, the book was published, the play was cast and tickets sold.

Some of the worst art gets accepted by the gatekeepers of success. Why?

Because after getting 100 rejection letters, the author kept sending her book out there. The filmmaker kept pushing his film. And the director kept asking to hold the play at this and that venue.

People have bought into crud before. And those artists who had their “crud” showcased, well, they learned more and faster than the artist who quit 10 rejection letters in.

So what if your art is terrible. If terrible is the only place to start, then it’s the best place to start.

 

Stay Positive & Terrible Should Be A Motivation, Not A Setback

Garth E. Beyer

Through All Of The Crap

Garth Beyer

It’s worth sharing Richard St. John’s three-minute talk of which I learned that to succeed, we must persist through crap.

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Here are some favorite articles I have written on criticism, rejection, assholes, and pressure.

 

Stay Positive & Here’s Some On Persistence Too

Garth E. Beyer

 

Numbing Emotions

Garth Beyer

There’s actually no way you can. You can hide them but they don’t play that game very well. By default emotions do the seeking. You can fake them, and sure, sometimes you fake it until you make it, but rarely.

Rarely because emotions are the effervescence of your pursuit. It’s not the way you painted the portrait that an observers falls in love with, it’s the emotion that they can see was put into it.

On the other side of the spectrum, you can’t numb the negative emotions of vulnerability, of being rejected, of getting criticism that you couldn’t handle. And that’s okay.

The way I see it is this: falling down doesn’t cease the pain.

The only options you have are to either keep creating art despite how much it may hurt or to find a new way to make better art by leveraging your emotions. You may not be able to numb them, but you can always leverage them.

 

Stay Positive & Lean Into Discomfort

Garth E. Beyer