Reps, Rejection, Reflection

Over the past two days, I had the pleasure of attending the BASA Women in Leadership Conference with six of the district office leaders on my team. This conference always provides an opportunity for learning, reflection, and connection.

The conference keynote on the first day, Ann Marie Anderson, author of Cultivating Audacity, spoke about she taught her children to celebrate all of her rejections. They celebrate their own rejections as well. When I spoke with her afterward, she explained that rejections are proof that you are trying and that you are working on something that matters.

I love the idea of making our rejections and mistakes visible to others. I remember while taking the Ohio Writing Project four week workshop…waaaaay back in 2006, an author spoke to us about the revision and editing portion of the book publication process. He showed us excerpts of his first drafts and then what the final drafts turned out to be and why. Strangely, it was the first time that I had really considered that authors don’t write perfect first drafts.

If you think about it, we rarely get to see behind proverbial curtains. If we only put out the final drafts of our stories, our work, or our leadership then as I say in Legacy of Learning, we are making this work something that only perfect people do. There are no perfect people. There are simply imperfect, willing human beings who try, learn, and try again.

So, it’s time for me to practice that more explicitly. Right now. In this post.

Over the past year, I’ve submitted an article for publication, two national conference session proposals, and two state conference session proposals.

Every single submission I’ve sent in over the past year has been rejected. All of them. Rejected.

Five years ago, that would have really bothered me. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t love how it feels. But I’m more used to it now because I’ve been rejected many times over the past five years. It feels pretty normal. I’ve learned that it’s not necessarily a reflection of my potential, the value of my work, or even a statement about my reputation.

It could mean any number of things but instead of assigning meaning to it, I focus on what people can’t take away from me: my learning.

You can’t lose if you’re learning. The more reps I put in, the more I learn. As George Couros said in his powerful blogpost this week, “The more I write, the more I learn.” Thanks to George and that “gentle shove” to write on a blog, I’ve been learning consistently every week on my blog for the last six years.

I write on my blog to learn. A byproduct of the blog is a book. A byproduct of the book are keynotes. I’m very proud of this work, honored to do it, and love doing it. But no matter what, I show up on my blog, a space that is mine, for me, and my learning.

The point of it all is learning and impact. Let’s not lose the point. Learning reminds us we are alive and unfinished. Impact reminds us that our behavior matters, and it matters that we are here.

Put in the reps.

Rejection is inevitable.

But you can’t lose if you learn.