Alaina is aiming for 100 rejections. She says we should all embrace our failures

When we think about the arc of our professional lives, it’s natural to think about it in terms of successes – the milestones, accolades and promotions we want to hit. But how often do we aspire for rejection?

Seven years ago, Melbourne-based writer Alaina Dean aimed for exactly that.

The now 28-year-old had just finished a creative writing degree and was looking for direction. After reading an article by New York-based writer Kim Liao, titled “Why you should aim for 100 rejections a year”, she decided to take up the challenge.

Writer Alaina Dean has set herself a goal of 100 creative rejections.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Dean set about hitting 100 rejections for her work as a writer, but decided a year was too short to juggle with full-time work, so she set smaller annual goals for her submissions to publishers and literary prizes.

The idea of failure as an uncomfortable but necessary bump on the road to success is not new. As Liao references in her article, writers including Stephen King and Samuel Beckett have spoken of the importance of failure for artists. In self-help and entrepreneurial circles, it’s common to hear about doors slammed in faces and countless “nos”.

Still, rejection is something that remains shrouded in shame and disappointment for many people, even though it’s an inevitable fact of life.

For Dean, the project is “about redefining success to be about doing the work rather than [just] gathering all the accolades”.

It’s also given her a greater sense of control over her creative practice.

“You can set goals that are like, ‘I want to be published by this publisher or win the Stella Prize’, whatever it is. But you have no control over that. You only have control over the work you’re doing, the effort you’re putting in, and the decisions you’re making,” she says.

“So you’re going to be disappointed if you’re setting these goals that rely on other people to give you something.”

Her approach is paying off. Over the past seven years, Dean has had two books published, including a memoir, Growing Up in Country Australia. She has had her work featured in magazines and journals and has won several literary awards. She’s now working on a debut novel.

Dean meticulously records all of this in a handwritten journal and Excel spreadsheet, which helps to visualise how far she has come and puts each rejection into context.

Like Dean, Dr Nick Hopwood, 45, is on a mission to redefine how we think about rejection. A professor of professional learning at the University of Technology Sydney, he’s experienced first-hand the competitive world of academia.

It was during a meeting with colleagues in 2017 that he realised how rejection can be hidden when it concerns research grants and journal article submissions.

Dr Nick Hopwood with his wall of rejections.Credit:

“Somebody had been rejected, and they looked up at me and said, ‘It’s probably been a while since you’ve had that, Nick’,” he recalls.

“I was like, ‘Oh no, actually I got rejected this morning and last week’. It was the swan gliding down the river,” he says.

Hopwood decided to create a “wall of rejections”, a twist on the common practice of academics posting publications and grants next to their office doors. The idea is similar to that of a “shadow CV” (which Hopwood also has), where one records their professional failures.

Creating the wall, and adding to it over the past eight years, has proven to be a “cathartic” experience that helps put a distance between Hopwood and his rejections.

Still, he acknowledges the privilege that a permanent position has afforded him, particularly in today’s jobs market. He says others may be less inclined to broadcast their rejections.

Indeed, identifying the root of rejection – something that does not affect everyone uniformly – can be difficult, particularly for women, people of colour and members of the LGBTQI+ community who face biases and systemic barriers in the professional world.

Dr Kelsey Zimmerman, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s school of psychology, says it’s normal to fear rejection and feel hurt when it happens.

Professional rejections can be painful for anyone, but particularly for those whose identities are closely intertwined with work.

“When we get rejected from something we have worked very hard for … it’s a fundamental rejection of who we are and everything that we worked for.”

She says that confronting rejection head on – as Dean and Hopwood have – is akin to exposure therapy, a common cognitive behavioural therapy. Visualising and naming our failures can also help.

To get better at weathering rejection, Zimmerman recommends “diversifying aspects of your identity, to recognise things where you are getting success and positive feedback and fulfillment, whether that’s through family or friends or creative outputs”.

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