I watched this (and highly recommend you do as well),
shortly after the new year, but it took me half a year to act on it. I realized that I was hanging too much of my dreams of future happiness on each application, proposal and submission I was sending out in to the world, and then disproportionally thrown off course by very rejection letter I got. So much so that I was finding every reason not to respond to this call or that, knowing how much time I would spend crafting each and how floored I would be if it was turned down.
Jiang’s talk convinced me I should be taking a more light hearted approach to the process, and I decided to make it my mission to collect 100 rejections per year. Rather than base my perception of success on how many of my submissions are approved, I will consider it a successful year if I have collected 100 rejections in that year.
What if one is approved, or more then one? Well, I suppose I will have to send out submissions until I have 100 rejections. Since I have had a slow start to this year, I now need to send out at least 4 per week for the rest of the year to reach my goal of 100 for a successful year.
What is your strategy for dealing with rejection?