Episode 230: Self-Rejection: What It Is and How To Overcome It

Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Gresham.

Hello, and welcome back to another solo episode of Habits and Hustle, where I'm sitting with my foil, Shawnee.

Yeah, woo-hoo.

Welcome.

I wanted to really unpack this notion and idea of self-rejection.

Self-rejection is something I feel like I've been talking about it a little bit more recently on other podcasts and other interviews.

I speak about it in my book, Bigger, Better, Boulder.

And I really wanted to highlight this, this whole philosophy and this ideology, because I think it's, it's something that we tend to do to ourselves a lot, and it's really damaging.

And so on this episode, I wanted to talk about what it is, some signs that you might be self-rejecting yourself, and ways to kind of overcome it to get you to wherever you're trying to get.

So, the first thing is, like, what it is, like, what is self-rejection?

Have you ever heard that expression, self-rejection?

I don't think I have.

And so, I don't think a lot of people have actually heard it.

We hear the word rejection a lot, like, oh, we've been rejected, rejection, rejection.

I talk about it a lot.

But I guess it's because a lot of times, when you're rejection, is when somewhat, how someone else or what someone else does to you versus what you do to yourself.

And I think a lot of times what happens is that we self-reject more often than other people reject us.

And in fact, a lot of times what we do is we self-reject because we are scared that we're going to be rejected.

So then we reject ourselves first before it happens to us.

Interesting.

So you don't even give anything a go because you've already rejected yourself.

Exactly.

And so we basically, again, we are our own worst enemies and we kind of don't even put ourselves in a place to win because we've already counted ourselves out by self-rejecting.

And so, let me just tell you what the definition of self-rejection is.

Self-rejection is the act of rejecting yourself basically before someone else has a chance of doing it to you, or you basically minimize or water down who you are in a positive way to kind of appease the people around you or not get, or just not give yourself that opportunity to kind of flourish.

And so, self-isolation is a sign of self-rejection.

Regularly comparing yourself to others is a big one.

When you like compare yourself and do the whole like compare game with others,

technically what you're doing is

you're looking to see how you don't compare or match up to whoever that person is.

So therefore putting you yourself on a, putting someone else on a pedestal, putting yourself lower down on that on that pedestal.

Basically, very difficult.

You're not able to take compliments.

It's very difficult.

You're very critical of yourself you're very actually and critical of others as well so a lot of times when you're criticizing someone else it's because you see that that trait in you another big one is excessive attention to clothes and appearance interesting right because you're trying to like hide whoever that whoever you are you got a lot of self-image issues excessive shyness passivity and non-initiations in relationships.

Oh, so this is obviously not me.

No, you're not a big self-rejector.

Neglecting priorities and key responsibilities, basically self-sabotaging.

But how does that?

I feel like a lot of that doesn't necessarily apply to self-rejection.

I feel like that's so

like a lot of those are very general.

They are.

Well, listen, these are signs that you are doing it because I think a lot of times our self-rejection can be very much like self-sabotage.

I see self-sabotaging and self-rejecting to be very similar.

And you do these behaviors to yourself that you're not even subconsciously aware that you're doing that causes a ripple effect, right?

Because every action has a reaction.

So if you're doing some of these things like self-isolating or being depressed or being critical of yourself or comparing yourself,

you're then putting yourself, pitting yourself at a place where you're not really putting your most positive energy out there to the world.

So interesting.

I could see it as such a clear example in the relationship world and the dating game.

Like that's such a so apparent in that area where you would reject yourself before even approaching somebody because you're like, oh, they wouldn't like me.

And I, like, it's so clear.

Also, I guess in a career aspect as well, you know, not even asking for the promotion or not even asking to be considered for a role because you've already rejected yourself from that.

You're like, there's no chance.

There's no way.

Why would I even try?

It's actually really, I mean, it's super fascinating.

I can see some really clear examples of where that would apply in everyday life.

I wanted to mention that a really big sign that you're a self-rejector is when you're not able to take compliments from other people.

Yeah, that's a really interesting one.

That's one because it makes you, it makes you uncomfortable.

By the way, I'm really bad at that.

Really?

I think so.

Yeah, I am.

So I think that's something I have to over, I'm working on overcoming.

It's true.

You do not like when I give you, you always think I'm joking when I give you compliments.

I do.

And I deflect.

And I deflect.

Oh my God.

That is so true.

I've actually never even like picked up on that in a very real sense, but it's true when you point it out now i definitely do notice that i know let me tell you something i think a lot of the things that i talk about surprise surprise are things that are obviously like uh relevant in my life that i i have overcome or or attempting to overcome or a work in progress so i'm never someone to speak from this like white ivory tower i'm someone who speaks from like a place where i'm like in it through it working on it and speak to the best in the world and for and glean as much valuable information as possible.

But yeah, I'm really bad at taking compliments.

And if you are somebody who's bad at that also, you may want to look inward and figure out why that is.

Are you self-rejecting?

That's another one.

So like, by the way, of all the stuff I just mentioned of all the things like the compare game, like comparing yourself to others or isolating or feeling depressed or watering yourself down to make someone else feel more comfortable, all of those things, you can be doing one or two of those things.

It's not like you have to be doing all of it to be someone who's, you know, self, a self-rejector.

Right.

So these are just a lot of different signs.

Again, it's very similar to self-sabotage.

And A, the best way to overcome any of this is to A, recognize that you're doing it, which is why I wanted to read some of the signs.

And after you recognize it, catch yourself in the moment.

So you

start to stop doing it, right?

Because that's the only way to overcome something is when you're like, like, oh yeah, oh my God, I recognize that I'm doing it.

I just did it.

I'm going to try better next time.

I'm not going to do it again.

And that's how you stop a bad habit from continuing and you replace it with the better habit.

The better habit of how not to self-reject and to maybe

self-accept would be when someone says to you, hey, you look great today, say, thank you, as opposed to, oh God, please stop it or, you know, thanks or like deflect it or something else, right?

So just the way you respond is a really good way of stopping that bad habit of self-rejection.

And that's really what I want to do on this episode and every episode is, like I said, mention something that maybe

we all tend to do, how we can overcome it.

Give people these actionable things that can help you.

better yourself, better your life, optimize yourself to be happier, to live more authentically, and to, you know, be bigger, better, and bolder.

I love that.

I think it's important, by the way, that you're speaking from a place of working through all this stuff and not coming from this ivory tower.

Because anyone who hasn't experienced this stuff and is just giving advice,

what do they know?

You know what I mean?

How can they possibly speak from experience or from a place of having overcome something or worked through something or acknowledged something if they haven't actually been through it themselves?

It's a bit weird to get advice from someone who's so disconnected from an issue.

100%.

And that's why a lot of times, sometimes like therapist, you got to be careful and discerning what therapist you go to.

But I was just thinking in my mind.

Right.

Because just because someone has a degree

and they're now given carte blanche to give someone advice on whatever the issue is.

I mean, a degree is not.

like living it, feeling it, experiencing it.

And so I just feel like discernment is so important.

And then, you know, I think it's really easy when someone has an experienced someone to slough something off.

Like, oh yeah, just do this.

Like, I would prefer to get advice from somebody who actually has, like, gone through something and been through it.

And then, like, you learn from experience better than I think.

You learn from that better than anything else.

Yeah.

I was in a lot of therapy as a child, like a lot.

I went to therapy boarding school, went to many programs.

And something I learned from a young age is that most people that are in therapy, therapists, are there because they've been through the ringer in life and they now came out the other side and would like to help people.

Yeah.

Not always, but it is, I was just sitting here before you had mentioned that thinking, that's crazy because that's how the best therapists are-the ones who have gone through all this stuff and are speaking from a place of experience, as opposed to, you know, just like some ivory tower.

Well,

I agree.

I also find that a lot of times people end up doing the thing that they actually have the most, like, there's a because they had an issue with it before.

So, like, you know, like, for example, like a lot of personal trainers, a lot of people in the fitness business are in the fitness business because they had like some kind of like obsession with fitness themselves or some type of like reason why they were brought into that space.

It wasn't just because the health of a family member may have declined and then they got motivated to get into it.

They may have been fatter before and then they lost a bunch of weight or they, like, you know, they are diabetic.

They had to start getting healthy for themselves.

Some of the best people

on Instagram, this guy that I follow, I was actually, his name is Thomas and I was on his YouTube.

He's like, he's got, he's a massive following on YouTube, like millions of people.

And he talks a lot about fasting, which I'm not a big fan of fasting, but he talks about fasting, health, health.

He's very knowledgeable in the health space.

And he gives like some of the best, like, best information because he himself was like morbidly obese.

And then he lost all the weight.

So he uses his own experiences as kind of like how he got his whole journey was because he lived it, breathed it, did it.

And because of that like inherent like interest and desire to be better, like he keeps on like upping the ante with his research and information.

I love that.

And I always look for people like that.

So getting back to, we can talk about that stuff later, but

we've got lots of other solos to do.

But I definitely want to say that today was about, you know,

really pointing out this idea.

of self-rejection.

And if you are someone who is experiencing that or does that, like, let's stop it, right?

Like, let's try to get a little bit better by basically stopping it in its tracks by changing that behavior as it's happening into self-acceptance.

So, let's go from self-rejection to self-acceptance.

And thank you for listening.

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And buy the book.

Yeah.

And buy my bigger, better, bolder book.