I was reading through Tammie Bennett’s blog and drooling over her pattern designs and itching to dabble into pattern design and illustration myself (and not knowing where to start) and she mentioned 100 Rejections and linked to Piddix’s post about Striving for 100 Rejections in 100 Days.
Tammie’s idea of 100 Rejections was to get herself to contact 100 companies, art buyers, blogs, magazines, etc about her work.
I thought this was the most brilliant idea I have heard in a long time.
Corrina mentions her fear of contacting people, asking for things and even emailing and I relate to that 100%. I have never been good at asking for things. I put off calling my pharmacy or booking a reservation. I don’t enjoy phone conversations, and I especially don’t enjoy walking into new places without some sort of defense mechanism (you know – a friend to go with you, a reason to go, etc).
What I love about this idea is that rejection is what you are striving for. Obviously you’re not going to send your worst work in hopes that someone will delete it immediately, or sabotage it by adding a fishy subject line, but the idea is that you are simply putting yourself out there and not worrying about the outcome.
This could be applied to anything, not just in the way Tammie has used it.
In the case of my current job hunt, it can be used as motivation to apply for 100 jobs, not caring what the outcome of that will be. (Though obviously presenting myself to the best of my ability and putting effort into cover letters and such), but just doing it and not worrying about ever hearing back from them.
In working with an employment services office, I was told to contact a company or organization I was interested in working with and pitching myself for either volunteer work or full time employment despite the company not previously advertising any sort of employment. At first I thought this was insane. I could never do that! Why would anyone give me the time of day and even consider that if they weren’t already looking to hire? But I tried it, and while it ended up not working out, the person who I contacted said that the way I approached them (including following up as they first thought I was spam) was the best way to go about it and that I should keep doing it. Wow! Whodathunk?
The moral of this is it never hurts to try and you’ll never know if you don’t try.
I believe goals are a really important thing, but honestly I have never been able to make them work for me. I either make too many goals and then fail at most of them, or I make too big of goals and fail at them, or I don’t make any goals, so I can’t fail at them.
If your goal is simply to get yourself out there with no expectations, it seems so much less scary!
Are you going to try the 100 Rejections quest? You could cut it down to less and definitely don’t need to do it in 100 days.
Examples of how you could use the 100 Rejections Quest:
- Contact 100 galleries about showing your art;
- Contact 100 blogs, magazines or websites about writing for them;
- Introduce yourself to 100 new people;
- Apply for 100 jobs;
- Follow & reach out to 100 new people on twitter;
- Pitch your startup to 100 potential investors.
The opportunities are endless, but you first gotta put yourself out there!
Let me know if you are going to try this!
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