Are you afraid of rejecting a job offer?
On the inner struggle to push boundaries
“Hi Maria, I have now received a further offer externally for a Director role. The role with Amazon is the role one I’m most excited about. Will you be able to come back to me with an answer either way on Monday?”
That’s two offers in the bag. Pushing for the third.
I thought I’d be excited. But I’m not.
I’m … anxious.
Not about getting the third offer.
Or someone turning me down.
I’m anxious about … doing the turning down.
Turning jobs down. Turning people down. Turning ‘them’ down.
Something about the act of saying ‘no, I‘m going to do something else’ was filling me with fear.
The backstory
True story. I was born in Poland before the Berlin Wall came down. My grandmother had to queue for days to get a crib when I was born. Jobs were scarce and hard to keep. People craved security back then, back there, like we crave excitement here and now. New parents welcoming children into the world had to balance their family dreams with an unforgiving fiscal reality.
I had an aunt in Canada. They would send us packages with Barbie dolls and fresh oranges over Christmas. Both were either completely unavailable or disproportionately expensive locally. I still remember the big boxes they would come in, I used to climb into them once we emptied them out.
I didn’t understand the concept of scarcity at the time. But I knew what it felt like.
My parents feared for my future and I took those fears on board. And they made me small well into my adulthood.
The Covid-19 pandemic was a big scarcity trigger for me. My promotion evaporated. Job market dried up. Looking for a new growth opportunity in autumn of 2020 became utterly pointless. Even if I had the time to look, which I didn’t with my workload, hiring had ground to a halt. My partner was out of work. All of my well-being outlets became inaccessible. Doors slammed shut. I started to worry for what I had. There was no space to want more. I was stuck in a scarcity loop.
The curveball
Now I had three job offers.
I had abundance.
And it was freaking me out.
Lots of people are afraid of rejection. It’s not uncommon to hide, to avoid visible situations, to hold back because of those fears.
But I was afraid of something else entirely. I was afraid of doing the rejecting.
Rejection can be stressful. Saying no to something amazing because you want something better can feel arrogant. Even pompous. Or worse, self important. For me it felt selfish. All of the things I was taught not to be. Not to do. Things I associated with not being a good person.*
Who was I to want more?
To push further?
To keep demanding beyond the first opportunity?
I made it emotionally loaded. I saw the other side as an underdog. Like somehow my rejection of a job offer hurt someone. Or damaged them. Made them feel bad. Inadequate. Like I wasted their time. Would make them feel offended. Or slighted. Like I should have known what I wanted before I started. Like I led them on.
And I was taught never to lead anyone on when I was growing up. That was a whole other trigger.
But anyway.
And under that there, was this gentle assumption that their fragile self would take it personally. That they’d feel resentful towards me. That they couldn’t take the rejection and would lash out.
Except.
You see.
None of that was real.
The reality check
Rejection happens. We reject things. We get rejected. The person on the other side is a strong, complete, capable adult. They’ll deal. You can’t make this better for them.
It took me a long time to realize that. To give myself permission to reject. To unpick what that meant for me. For my identify. For my sense of self. Working up to that simple statement….
“Thank you for the opportunity. I’ve decided to go in a different direction.”
The ironic thing. The only person that found that rejection hard…was me. That CEO I declined? He’d moved on before I did. And he’s glad I found a good fit somewhere else.
Who was I to want more?
Who was I not to.
You see while I was imagining my employment contenders are weak, fragile, emotional people needing to be protected from my ‘selfish’ actions. They were in reality senior leaders at big Fortune 500 companies. And trained recruiters who hire for a living, if not me then someone else. Sure, it’s annoying for them to have a candidate turn them down. But nothing more. Furthermore, if you’re choosing to go in a different direction, it’s just a matter of personal choice. A question of alignment and objectives. Goals. It’s not personal.
The hard thing with going for what you really want, is that on the way you’ll find lots of other good things available to you. Things you could want. And those things will tempt you off course. But remember, if you never reject anything, you can never get what you truly want. Don’t let distractions of the attainable distract you and take you off course.
Getting comfortable with turning GOOD things away because you want something better is a skill.
Learn it early.
Practice often.
6 signs you‘re falling into the ‘attainable’ trap
- Getting promoted and then staying in the role for a year before looking again because you felt obligated to.
- Staying in a role longer than you wanted to because you didn’t want to look flighty, disloyal or ungrateful.
- Saying yes to a new job while knowing it’s not right.
- Staying in a relationship that’s not right until things get really bad.
- Staying in a relationship because your family likes your partner.
- Hanging out with people that you’ve hung out with for years…even though you don’t really like them.
Spot the signs and get out as soon as you can. Reject.
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Yes, multiple job offers were triggering fears of assault. How messed up is that?
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💬 Inspired? Challenged? Unconvinced? Let me know below.
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