Since my first crush in third grade, the fear of rejection has grown. It is something I believe most feel is one of the scariest things to face or risk when it comes to life. When I put ourselves out there and being vulnerable for the world to see and even judge is something that has held me back for most of my life.

During grade school, I can honestly tell you it felt as though I was being rejected on a daily basis and it actually dominated my life where I started to doubt everything I did. Whether it was when I was showing/telling a crush of mine that I liked them in third grade to auditioning for the musical in high school, and even starting my youtube channel. For the longest time, I would tell myself that I couldn't do it and no one wants to be with me or see my face, hear me sing, listen to what I have to say. I told this all to myself because I was protecting myself from getting hurt and having unrealistic expectations.

I am not the only one to do this to themselves and for so long I believed I was actually making myself stronger and helping myself. That was not the truth. Here is the thing, when we do this to ourselves and keep ourselves down so no one else can, it still results in hurt, pain, and regret. That fear of rejection I know is very hard to get rid of but I want to instead of thinking of it as such a negative thing, I want to challenge you to uses it as motivation. Motivation to push yourselves towards things you never thought that you could do.

I remember wishing for so long that I could be as good at acting and singing as my friends and other people I saw performing on stage. I told myself I couldn't do it because I struggle with memorizing and I'm not pretty enough and could never pull any of it off. But after living in that mindset for so long and my friends just told me to just try out, I finally tried out. Then I remember wishing this guy would notice me and I liked him for so long and watched him date other girls while we were best friends the whole time. Years have gone by and I just decided to never say anything because I thought all of the girls they had dated in the past and I was absolutely different from them. I wasn't going to put myself out there just to be officially told I wasn't what they were looking for and could never see me more than a friend.

Now both in college, gone our separate ways, not really in all that much contact anymore, but decided to reach out and admit to him that I had liked him in high school. Last year, I started to watch Youtube videos a lot and wished I could be as bold and have an amazing life to show people and them wanting to know me and me sharing my life and encouragement to them. I kept reminding myself I wasn't good enough and I was too boring or that it was stupid to think people would want to hear what I had to say. Well, I woke up one day and just decided to get over that fear and decide why not do it for myself instead of focusing on how I might be judged.

Can you guess how these acts of perseverance turned out? The musical I tried out for, I ended up getting what I consider the best role in the whole performance and from then on been in five performances for the next year and a half. My parts grew and I saw myself become the actor and musician I had always wanted to become. The guy I reached out to and told how I had once felt ended up telling me that he liked me throughout high school. To be honest, I laughed. Not because he liked me, but because this whole time he had the same fears I did and just was too immature to say anything at the time because he didn't think he was mature enough himself to be with me.

With the youtube channel, I started, yeah my first video hit 70 views in the first hour. I know that doesn't seem like a lot but that is pretty good for the first video and it was all thanks to my friends and just random people who support me. I'm not huge on youtube, but the thing is, there are people who care about me and want to see me do well! There are people that actually care what I have to say and I had been doubting myself this whole time for nothing!

Now, I do want to say that not every time you face your fear you will get what you want and automatically have an amazing outcome because I have had plenty of rejections. What I can promise you from facing that fear, is you will learn something. Whether it is about yourself or something else, you will get something out of it and that is something to view as success. Learning equals growth and growth leads to better understanding and that is such an amazing and almost freeing feeling!

So, take that fear of rejection and square up! Try to stop living in the what-ifs or putting yourself in defeat before even trying and look at the fear of rejection as an opportunity to possibly prove doubt wrong!

XOXO,

Mya