Mark McGuinness - Resilience: Facing Down Rejection (4 page)

This does not have to be an obviously ‘noble’ cause, such as saving the world or helping others directly—unless that really is your core passion. Remember the famous Indian saying: better to fail in your own destiny than succeed in someone else’s?

My two dreams worth dying for

When I was a teenager, I fell head-over-heels in love with poetry. When I read or listen to a real poem, I experience a magical, spine-tingling quality that I don’t find in any other art form. And when I spend time writing poetry, my whole body feels completely different, as if the words are echoing and resonating all the way down to the tiniest cells.

But most people don’t care about poetry. There’s no money in it, and precious little fame. And it’s fiercely competitive. The vast majority of poems submitted to magazines and publishers are rejected. And even if you manage to achieve some kind of recognition, there will be plenty of people prepared to take you down a peg or two. So each time you write a line of poetry, with the ultimate aim of trying to publish it, you are putting yourself—if you’ll excuse the pun—on the line. But I can’t imagine giving up on poetry. To misquote Samuel Johnson: “When a man is tired of poetry, he is tired of life.”

The other goal worth dying for that I’m pursuing is in my professional life. After experimenting with various career options, I’ve committed myself to helping creative professionals—artists, creatives, entrepreneurs, and other mavericks—as a coach and trainer. I’m doing this partly for selfish reasons—out of all the types of client I’ve worked with, they are the most fun, and are inspiring and consistently interesting to spend time with.

Another reason is that we are living at the time of incredible opportunity for creative people, when it has never been easier for them to find inspiration, education, collaborators, and an audience for their work. And (no coincidence) at a time when the world urgently needs creative solutions to the problems we face. I want to help people seize this opportunity.

Now, I’m not curing cancer or saving the planet, so I’ll be the first to admit there are plenty of worthier causes than writing poems and helping artists succeed. But I believe everything we do has a ripple effect. The more people who are out there full of enthusiasm and creativity, inspiring others, solving problems, and creating different types of wealth, the more opportunities we have to make the world a better place. So by spreading a little inspiration as I go, I trust that I’m playing my small part.

And like everyone who has worked for themselves, I’ve experienced the lows as well as the highs of the entrepreneurial rollercoaster. I’ve experienced financial hardship, frustration, disappointment, loneliness, and all kinds of bad behavior from certain individuals I’ve encountered along the way. There have been plenty of days when I’ve asked myself why I bother, and when I have been profoundly grateful to have a good answer ready.

Being connected to my passions means that on most days, I get out of bed full of enthusiasm. I can’t wait to get started on my work—writing, coaching, teaching, helping, and connecting with aspiring creative people, online and in person. And even on the worst days, I have a reason to keep moving forward, and put myself on the line for what I believe is important.

I wrote this book because I want you to have that same enthusiasm, that same sense of purpose, that same resilience, on the day when you really need it.

Your next steps:

1. Ask yourself:

• What path are you on at the moment?
  
• What makes it important to you?
  
• Does it feel like something worth dying for?
  
• Is it something you’d be prepared to put yourself on the line for?
  

If you can answer a definite ‘yes’ for the last two questions, you can skip the rest of this section. If not, the following steps will help you work out what it is you want to commit yourself to achieving.

2. Which of these principles resonates most strongly for you?

• Justice
  —righting a big wrong.
  
• Generosity
  —helping others survive, thrive, and achieve all they can be.
  
• Achievement
  —amazing the world with something spectacular, extending the limits of what’s humanly possible.
  
• Inspiration
  —touching people’s hearts with the beauty, sorrow, and wonder of life.
  
• Knowledge
  —adding to the store of human knowledge, about ourselves and the universe.
  
• Protection
  —preserving what’s most precious, such as people, civilized values, or the environment.
  
• Joy
  —enjoying life and giving pleasure to others.
  
• Leadership
  —taking responsibility and using power for the common good.
  
• Wisdom
  —understanding what’s truly important: how to live a good life.
  

Now ask yourself:

• Where and when did you feel most strongly connected to this principle?
  
• What ideas does that memory give you about a path you would feel passionate about following?
  
• What else could you do to express this principle?
  

3. Beware of making this decision with your head!

Your body won’t lie to you: Read through the list again, slowly, while paying attention to your body. Notice when you feel the strongest emotional response.

Don’t worry if you find it hard to sense the emotional signals from your body. I’ll introduce you to a method in
Chapter 6
that will make this easier.

5. Why you need to build resilience

The list of people who succeeded at the first attempt and lived happily ever after is very short indeed.

There is a much longer list of people who encountered rejection, criticism, disappointment, failure, and other setbacks, before they gained a modest level of recognition and reward for their efforts. They then encountered
more
setbacks, often way out of proportion to the rewards they reaped.

Have a look at this list of
30 famous authors whose works were rejected repeatedly—and sometimes rudely—by publishers
. The names include Stephen King, William Faulkner, William Golding, John Le Carré, George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, and Marcel Proust. Whatever your field of endeavor, you could probably compile a similar list of superstars who were rejected and humiliated over and over.

Somehow they managed to go on in spite of adversity, to learn from their mistakes, to improve their skills, and persist until they succeeded.

In order to do this, they had to develop a quality that set them apart from the legions of also-rans:
resilience
.

The word ‘resilience’ comes from Latin: ‘re’ (back) + ‘salire’ (jump). It means to jump back, spring back, or to bounce back. Taken literally, it describes the physical properties of an object; it is also frequently used as a metaphor for a psychological ability.

Physical resilience

An object has resilience when it can be bent or stretched and then spring back to its original shape, without permanent damage or distortion.

You have probably heard the story of the reed and the oak tree buffeted by a powerful storm. When the storm struck, the oak tree laughed at the reed bending in the wind, and boasted of its own strength. But when the storm intensified, the oak’s rigidity was its downfall: it was uprooted by the wind and crashed to the earth. When the storm passed, the oak still lay on the ground, its roots exposed to the air, while the reed sprung effortlessly back upright.

At first glance an oak tree looks much stronger and more impressive than a reed. Yet the reed survived because it possessed
flexibility
as well as
strength
—the combination that produces resilience.

Psychological resilience

In psychology, the word ‘resilience’ refers to a person’s ability to deal with stress and bounce back from adversity—again, without permanent damage or distortion.

Some psychologists have argued that resilience is a personality trait: you either have it or you don’t. But it is more commonly understood as a process, influenced by many different factors, and an ability that can be learned and strengthened. And it is not just confined to individual psychology—our relationships with other people have a big impact on our resilience, positive or negative.

To me,
resilience means the ability to keep pursuing your goals in spite of adversity
. It is driven by passion, the fuel that keeps you going in spite of disappointment, rejection, and criticism. And because it is an
ability
, you can learn it and improve with practice, just like any other skill.

In this book I will teach you practical ways to develop the resilience you need to overcome rejection and criticism. I’ll show you how to change your thinking, harness your emotions, and build relationships in order to strengthen your personal resilience.

Note:

“30 famous authors whose works were rejected repeatedly — and sometimes rudely — by publishers”
http://www.examiner.com/article/30-famous-authors-whose-works-were-rejected-repeatedly-and-sometimes-rudely-by-publishers

6. A simple but powerful way to develop resilience

Fifteen years ago, I attended my first silent meditation retreat.

Each morning we woke at 5am to begin a long day of sitting and walking meditation. We spent an hour a day on ‘working meditation,’ mostly housework in the retreat center. The rules included no talking (apart from essential practicalities), no phones, no computers, no books or magazines, no sex, no alcohol, and no TV, radio or entertainment of any kind. The last meal of the day was at 10.30 in the morning.

It was a wonderful experience.

Looking back, I can see that what I learned on the retreat has done more than anything to help me build resilience in the face of rejection, criticism, and disappointment. And the most important lessons were the ones right under my nose.

Twenty minutes to transform your life

If this were a book about physical resilience, I’d be recommending a program of exercises to develop your bodily strength and flexibility. But our aim is to develop
psychological resilience
. So we need a different type of exercise.

I should warn you that this exercise is very simple. So simple you may find it hard to see how it could possibly help you. But having used it for fifteen years, as well as recommending it to countless clients and seeing the benefits to them, I’m recommending it to you without reservation.

Here it is:

Sit still and do nothing for twenty minutes a day.

There. I told you it was simple!

Actually there’s a little more to it than that:

As you sit, pay attention: to the feel of the chair you are sitting in; to the sensations in your body; to the colors and shapes you see around you; to the sounds you can hear; to your breathing; to your thoughts; to your feelings.

The object of the exercise is NOT to put yourself into a relaxed state of mind. It’s simply to pay attention to your experience—physical, mental, emotional—right here, right now.

And that’s it.

On the one hand, sitting still for twenty minutes probably sounds too short—you may well be reading this and thinking, “How will twenty minutes of doing nothing help me achieve my dreams?” On the other hand, when you actually try to
do
it, twenty minutes can feel an awfully long time. In no time at all, you feel bored and fidgety. You want to get up and do something more interesting and productive.

So why would you want to do something that seems so feeble, pointless, boring, and difficult? This is one of those things that you really have to experience for yourself to be convinced, but I’ll have a go at giving you a taste of what’s in store if you try this and stick with it for a few days:

• Your mind becomes clearer, and your feelings become calmer—even though you are NOT consciously trying to relax.
  
• You start to see your thoughts coming and going, and realize that they are not as real as they seem.
  
• The same happens to your feelings.
  
• You notice how easily you can get caught up in unhelpful states of mind—and that it’s possible to escape from them.
  
• You spend less time wrapped up in your thoughts, desires, and fears, and pay more attention to your experience in the present.
  
• Problems don’t seem as big and unsolvable as before.
  

Keep practicing and you will start to notice these same benefits in real life, not just during your twenty minutes of practice time. You will feel less anxious, and more present. When good things happen, you will enjoy and appreciate them more. When you are faced with a challenging situation, you won’t feel as overwhelmed as before. You will find yourself acting more decisively, authentically, and effectively. It will be easier to have difficult conversations, and more fun to spend time with friends and family. You will feel more alive.

Mindfulness

The usual name for this practice of paying attention is
mindfulness
.

If you’re spiritually minded, you may like to know this practice is the foundation of just about every mystical tradition, including Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism, and esoteric Christianity, and has been taught in various forms by teachers including the Buddha, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley, and Eckhart Tolle. There’s no need to adopt a new set of beliefs or find a new teacher; you can add mindfulness to whatever form of prayer or meditation you already practice.

And if you have a more secular outlook, you may like to know that you don’t need to subscribe to any religious beliefs or follow any spiritual tradition to experience real, tangible, measurable benefits from mindfulness practice. A growing body of psychological research demonstrates the benefits of mindfulness practice in dealing with anxiety, stress, and pain, as well as strengthening concentration, producing positive emotional states, and even boosting the immune system. An alternative term for mindfulness used by many psychologists is
Attentional Training
, or AT for short.