This short YouTube video (Dr. Aziz, Mar 28, 2025) gives concise advice for responding to external rejection and, more importantly, what to say to yourself afterwards. Dr. Aziz recommends an immediate outer response—"Thanks for letting me know."—and an internal script to avoid self-attack (e.g., "I don't attack myself") that helps speed recovery so you can take another risk sooner.
What do you say when someone rejects you? I mean, rejection sucks. Nobody likes it, but we can get so afraid of what I'm going to say when it happens. And actually that doesn't really matter so much. I'm going to share one thing with you that's going to help you, but really what matters is what you say to yourself. Let's say you ask someone out, or you share an idea, or you invite someone to something and they say no. Here is the one thing to say that always works just like that. Thanks for letting me know. And that's all they did. They let you know. Now, that's the outer handle. So now you don't need to worry about that anymore. But the real problem is what you say to yourself. And the key here is to remember that the reason rejection is so painful is not because they let you know. It's because you turn and attack yourself with it. So the key thing to say to yourself is, I don't attack myself. I don't turn on myself. No matter what someone wants or doesn't want in the world, you affirm that you're going to be on your own side. Then you say, okay, there's other opportunities, or what else? Or who else? Or I'm not for everybody. I wonder what's next. And the fast you can remind yourself of that, the more you can take another risk, the more that rejection doesn't have to bother you. For not only just days, but even hours, even minutes, you could be back out there taking your next risk.
