Rejection Sucks

Comparison Is the Enemy of Understanding

Last week, I posted on LinkedIn about a rejection email I got from a consulting proposal that I submitted.

And I was really disappointed.

Now, I don’t actually submit proposals for everything I’m invited to consider because I’m really looking for things that are aligned. Places I can play. Things that’ll bring me joy.

Those are the variables that I’m determining whether or not I say yes.

And this marked both of those.

It was a familiar space to operate in, in a way that I would get joy and feel like I could contribute in a meaningful way. It would be play for both me and the folks that I would be working with.

And so I put together a proposal. I sent it in.

And they went another direction.

When I first got that email, it was like a punch in the gut.

And almost immediately, the rejection invited comparison.

What did they see in someone else that they didn’t see in me?

What did somebody else submit that mine lacked?

What could I have done differently?

This is a feeling that is super familiar. I know that I’m not alone, and many of us feel the same way, as evidenced by the comments I got on my LinkedIn post, which is why I decided to dedicate this Substack essay to this particular topic.

In this two-and-a-half-year journey as a consultant, something has become incredibly clear to me:

Comparison continues to be the enemy of understanding.

In every moment, comparison continues to be the enemy of understanding.

What continues to be true for me is this:

When I’m not looking at myself through the gaze of someone else’s eyes, when I’m not looking at something I’ve submitted in comparison to what somebody else may have submitted, when I’m not looking at something I’ve said in relationship to something else that has been said, there is a certain joy that can’t help but abound.

When I’m not looking at my bodies of work in comparison to other bodies of work that may be similarly aligned in the market, when I’m not looking at me in the mirror and comparing myself to other people and my perception of them when I see them as a mirror, there is space for something else to emerge.

Because when I begin to lose comparison, what I gain is the ability to be curious.

When we use comparison as a way of trying to understand something, what we often end up doing instead is critiquing it.

Something is too big, too small, too good, too bad, too right, too wrong.

I’ve written about this in the past. In order to have something be too much of a thing, there has to be at least two of a thing.

“Too much” cannot exist without a reference point.

But when we remove the reference point, what we have is something in and of itself, as it is.

Unique.

Undefinable by any comparative lens.

It simply is.

Now, there may be familiarity. There may even be similarities. But similarities and familiarity are not sameness.

There’s difference there.

And that difference is where the wonder is held. It’s where the uniqueness abounds. It’s where the special begins to come forward and manifest.

It’s in these places where we should see ourselves and see those that are around us.

All of those that are around us.

There’s this wonder, there’s this beauty, there’s this gift, that all of us are so uniquely different even as we’re wonderfully interconnected.

What’s fascinating is that this is not just true for humans, but everything in creation.

I am as connected to another human as I am connected to the trees, as I am connected to the soil, as I am connected to the birds.

All of us have been created.

And as creative beings, all of us have the same essence within us that allowed us to be.

Now, I’m not asking you to share a particular theology or faith in order to hold this. I’m pointing to something much simpler.

The fundamental building blocks of all of creation live within all of creation.

Which means, if the building blocks are the same within me as they are within everything else, there is an inherent sameness.

And if that shared belonging does not need to be proved, then difference no longer has to be threatening.

It can be appreciated instead of critiqued.

And appreciated through this lens and gaze of curiosity.

This is how I begin to navigate rejection.

If I assume everything that I put out in the world should return to me in the way that I want it to return to me, then I assume that I am dictating what is for me.

And if I’m dictating what is for me, then I can’t be present to what’s actually here.

Let me clarify.

I can’t simultaneously be looking out into the future at what I want while being present to the fact that I already have what I need right here, right now.

Let me make it plain.

I can’t be looking at a future opportunity and say, that’s the opportunity for me, and put all of my energy in that direction and miss that there are actually opportunities right here, right now, that are perfectly aligned for me to begin to engage in.

Sometimes in the job search world, it shows up like this:

Oh, this is the perfect job. This is the most aligned opportunity. I’m going to interview for this. I’m going to spend a ton of time on my CV, on my résumé. This is the one.

And then we go through the process and we get to the end of the process and they choose another candidate.

And then we feel defeated because we were fully persuaded that was the one.

But as we were looking at that as the one, how many others passed us by that very well could be for us?

Because we were so persuaded that that thing in the future was the one.

This does not mean don’t commit.

It does not mean don’t prepare.

It does not mean don’t care deeply.

Commitment is not the problem.

Attachment is.

I can give myself fully to an opportunity without making that opportunity responsible for proving my worth or determining my future.

This is the gift that presence gives us.

This is the gift that curiosity gives us.

This is the opportunity that unfolds when we’re no longer gazing at everything through the lens of comparison.

We look at future opportunities based on what our past roles were.

This needs to be a promotion.

I’m overqualified for this job.

This is a lesser thing.

This is a greater thing.

This role is too big for me.

This role is too small for me.

What if it wasn’t about the size or scope or reach?

What if it was about the intention?

I have lived the past two-and-a-half years of my life not governed by role, not governed by resource, as in money, not governed by time, as in what will it take, but governed by alignment.

And for me, alignment has a very specific meaning.

Alignment to intention.

What is my intention?

My intention is to live every day in a way that I can remind others of who it is they’ve always been.

That’s my intention.

Singular.

Now, that shows up in a lot of different ways.

It shows up in coaching.

It shows up in consulting.

It shows up in speaking.

In it all, it shows up in alignment.

And so when an opportunity comes across, my curiosity is, Well, is it aligned?

And if it is, then I lean into it.

And when I release it into the world, the proposal, the reply email, whatever it may be, then I let it go and trust that it’s going to do what it’s going to do.

I give myself fully to what is mine to do, and then I release my demand to control what comes back.

And if it creates that, then beautiful.

And if it doesn’t, then okay.

But whatever manifests from it is what is here for me to be present to next.

This is releasing the future so I can stay here in the present.

This is me not assuming what’s to come so I can be right here, right now.

This is allowing this moment to reveal what is being asked of me without the next moment becoming the deity that I’m in pursuit of.

This is not allowing now to be missed for the idol of what could be.

This is the gift of the present.

And rejection still sucks.

Presence doesn’t make the disappointment disappear.

It simply keeps the disappointment from becoming a verdict about who I am.

All that being held and all that being considered, I offer this affirmation:

You are complete.

You are enough.

And you are held.

Because all three of these things are true, there’s nothing left for you to prove.

And because there’s nothing left for you to prove today, you get to be exactly who you are, wherever you are.

So think about what that is at its best.

And not best performatively, but best in alignment.

Who are you when you’re most full of joy?

Who are you when you are at play?

What are the spaces that you’ve lived in, that you’ve served in, that you’ve showed up in, where play was available and accessible to you?

Where joy could not help but abound?

What were those places?

And how can you have access to more of those moments in life?

Work can be that.

Relationships can be that.

Adventure can be that.

Existing can be that.

Living is that.