How to Stay Focused and Motivated When Doors Get Slammed in Your Face

Whether you are trying to climb your way to the c-suite, change career or starting your own business and trying to get clients, continuously being told no and having doors slammed in your face can be very soul destroying.  It can cause you to become disheartened, discouraged and to give up.

If you really want what it is that you are pursuing and deep down you know that it is the right thing for you, instead of giving up, develop your resilience and use the knock backs as lessons you can learn from.

Rejection is a fact of life and you are not necessarily going to get everything handed to you on a plate.  But it is how you respond to the knock backs that will determine whether or not you achieve your goals.

Do you have a clear vision?

How clear are you about what you want to achieve?  Do you have a clear vision and a plan that sets out how you will achieve it?  If you are starting a business, writing a business plan will help to give you direction and clarity about what it is that you need to do.  It will help you to identify what you are able to do by yourself and what you need support with.

If you want to change career or go for promotion, develop a plan for what you need to do to achieve this.  Who can help you?  What skills do you need to develop?  How can you get practical experience if you lack it?

Define the steps you need to take

Breakdown what needs to be done to manageable steps and create the roadmap that you need to take in order to achieve your vision.  Having a vision and being clear about the steps that you need to take will make it easier for you to pick yourself back up if you get a knock back.

Breaking things down this way will make what needs to be done less confusing and overwhelming. The less overwhelmed you feel, the less you are likely to procrastinate.

Remind yourself of your big why

What does achieving your vision mean to you?  What will it give you on a deeper level?  Aligning your vision to your values means that you are striving for something that is meaningful and purposeful to you and that will bring you fulfilment.

As one of my clients described it, it’s that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you think about it and when you’ve achieved it.

Stay focused

What are the triggers that distract you? Identifying the triggers that distract you and putting something in place to minimise or eliminate them will help you to keep focused.

We have so many distractions these days that it is getting increasingly more challenging to maintain our focus levels.  Whilst technology has revolutionised the way we work, it can also be our downfall if we don’t take control and let it control us.  Constant interruptions from emails, social media and all the other ‘noise’ we encounter  has the ability to take us off track. This can stop us from achieving our goals or taking far longer to get there than we should.

Be consistent

Don’t expect to get results if you are not consistent with your efforts and don’t give up at the first hurdle.  How consistent are you in following up with people that you meet through networking?  Do you make contact and maintain the contact or do you take someone’s business card only for it to go in to the abyss of some draw, cupboard or box?

How consistent are you in doing the activities that will take you closer to achieving your goals?

It is easy to moan about not getting results and not realising that you haven’t been as consistent as you could with your efforts.  I myself have been guilty of this one.  There was one month that I didn’t get the results that I wanted and was about to have a pity party but instead chose to reflect on what had been different to previous months. On reflection I realised that I had become complacent and had not been consistent with my efforts.

How can you honestly measure whether things are working or not if you are not being consistent with what you do? 

Don’t stay too long at the pity parties

When you get knocked back it is only natural to feel disheartened but staying too long in a pity party will take you through a downward spiral and you will only end up feeling sorry for yourself.  It then makes it harder to feel like carrying on.

If you find yourself having a pity party, acknowledge how you are feeling and put a limit on the time that you spend in it.  Have a good cry if you need to, then do something to lift yourself out of it. 

Even if you don’t feel motivated, take action.  Taking action will bring the motivation.

Make sure you work, rest and play

When you’re not seeing the results you want, you may think that you need to keep working at it 24/7 but taking time out to revive, revitalise and refresh will help you to come back at it with a renewed energy and outlook.

We need to get adequate levels of work, rest and play in order to function effectively. Continuing to push through and work when you are overtired can be a trigger for the self doubt and negative emotions. 

Be aware of your energy levels. You may think that drinking lots of coffee may be doing the trick, but if you are mentally and physically tired, you need to rest.

Think ‘how can I...?’

 Be optimistic and look for solutions rather than dwelling on ‘I can’t...’.  If you are struggling to find solutions, get support.  Find someone who will help to challenge your thinking so that you can look at your situation from a different perspective.

You do have the solutions within you but sometimes we get so caught up in our circumstances.  We become consumed with what’s not working, the self doubt and the pity parties that we fail to see the answer that is right under our nose.

There are 2 things you can do when you get a knock back or rejection, you can either stay there and let it pull you down, or you can climb your way back up.  I know which one I choose, what about you?

How do you deal with the knock backs and rejections that have the potential to stop you from achieving your goals?

ABOUT ME:

I am a Personal Development, Career, Business Coach, UK top 50 Business Adviser and the founder of Abounding Solutions. I am also the founder of theLadies Business Brainstorming Club, a place for women to come together and support each other with their personal, career and business aspirations, whilst developing friendships and forming collaborations.

I write here on LinkedIn, on my website and on Huffington Post on subjects to help women achieve optimal potential in their careers and businesses.

Download a free copy of '5 Steps to Pursuing Your Passion at Mid Life: A Guide to Designing a Career You Love'. This book is suitable for anyone who wants to pursue a career or business they are passionate about, regardless of age.