This is a guest post from Armen Shirvanian, who writes words of wisdom about mindset, communication, relationships, and related topics at Timeless Information. You can follow him on Twitter at @Armen.

The more you try to do, the more you will have to deal with rejection. The laws of probabilities are on the side of there being some rejections in your efforts. There are a couple of types of rejection that come to mind. There is direct rejection, which offers quick feedback, and can let you go on to your next step right away. Then, there is indirect rejection, which is based on getting very little feedback, or none at all, for a frustrating period of time.

People worry about direct rejection, but getting that is way better than being left to wonder if you were accepted or not. The wait can be tough to handle, and makes you start doubting yourself. While direct rejection doesn’t use up any more of your time, the time loss felt wondering about any indirect rejections is not appealing. The following example shows some of the benefits of direct rejection, and the problems with indirect rejection, and how to deal with it:

Applying to join a club example

You apply to get into an exclusive club of some sort. This could be any club related to what you do or wish to do. Exclusive clubs exist sometimes out of too much demand for minimal supply, or out of a hope of creating perceived demand. Either way, they have limits on who can enter. If you apply to join one, you could hear one of a few things said to you. Being accepted is one possibility(which is why you should always try for what you want). Another possibility is that they will tell you that you’ve been turned down. This feels bad for a few minutes, or a bit longer, but you will soon adjust to this feedback. It is different information to then respond to.

Then, there is the terrible third possibility that you will either not get a response, or get back something like a “maybe” or “we’ll get back to you”, which leaves you in a state of confusion. It doesn’t tell you much about if you were qualified to enter, or if you weren’t, and you then have to decide whether to ask more questions or not.

How you respond is the key

To deal with this in a smart way, you want to not allow yourself to get frustrated, which is an important aspect of personal development. You have an opportunity to handle it a few ways. You can let the person know that they are not being direct enough to your liking. This puts you in a dominant position. Another great way to respond is to pretend they rejected you. If they wanted you to join, they would have announced it proudly, but since this did not occur, they lose out on your presence. As you can see, even with rejection, or “partial rejection”, you come out ahead based on how you respond. The cards are always in your hands.

People rejected me many times, in many different ways, and so I have built up resilience to most potential responses. I view this as a big advantage of mine. We often see this as a weakness when it occurs, but we should not see rejection this way. It’s pretty nice to for those us who understand this, because those who think we’re worse off due to rejections are later even more surprised at the strength and experience we possess.

Let me add that I’m not saying to try to get rejected as many times as possible in a day, but if it does occur, it doesn’t mean to make a U-turn and drive the other way. The person who rejected you is a person as well, and they will certainly take notice of the composure and tact you use in your response.