Free Mark McGuinness - Resilience: Facing Down Rejection by Mark McGuinness Page A

yourself? Advertise the first meeting in your local library, and on sites like CraigsList.org and MeetUp.com . Start a blog or Facebook group and begin reaching out to people.
    Notes:
    Seth Godin, Tribes: We need you to lead us (Piatkus, 2008)
    The Poetry School: http://poetryschool.com

18. How to fix it next time
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein
    There’s no point getting back up if you leave yourself open to the same left hook every time. You’ll keep getting floored until you can’t take any more. Once you’re back on your feet after being hit by rejection, ask yourself what you can learn from the experience.
    Here are some of the most common reasons for rejection, and how to fix them next time round.
    1. You didn’t meet the minimum criteria
    This should go without saying, but—having been on the other side of the fence, as a gatekeeper myself a few times—I can assure you it doesn’t.
    When I was editing the magazine Magma Poetry, our website clearly stated that email submissions should be pasted in the body of the email, with a maximum of six poems per poet. So no prizes for guessing what kind of impression it made when someone sent in a Word document with over 50 pages of poems.
    On my blog at lateralaction.com, I’ve posted a set of guidelines for guest writers and yet I still get submissions via the form on the same page, that ignore the guidelines.
    When you apply for an opportunity, you need to check the application guidelines:
     
Do they take speculative applications?
Do they take email submissions?
How many copies do you need to send?
What’s the closing date?
What file formats are acceptable?
How many images do they want in a portfolio?
Is there an age limit?
    I know this sounds blindingly obvious, but—as any gatekeeper will tell you—there are plenty of people who don’t do it. Guidelines are there for a reason—to make the process easier for the gatekeeper. Create an unnecessary problem for them, and you make it harder for them to accept you.
    How to fix it next time:
    Follow the instructions to the letter!
    2. You didn’t give them what they were really looking for
    Every gatekeeper makes his or her decision based on certain key criteria—if you can figure out what these are, the task of convincing them becomes a lot easier.
    Did you get any real feedback with your rejection? By ‘real feedback’ I don’t mean standard stuff like, “We receive a high volume of high-quality applications…” I mean feedback about specific things you did or didn’t do, and why that was important in their eyes.
    If you can get this it’s gold dust, because it tells you the rules of the game they are playing. Once you know the rules, you can decide whether it’s a game you want to play and how to win. Or you may decide you want to play a different game, and look elsewhere in future.
    How to fix it next time:
    Make it your business to find out what the key criteria are before you apply and to make it obvious to the gatekeepers that you fulfill them.
    Sometimes the gatekeepers spell out their criteria in the application instructions. As well as the minimum requirement, they tell you exactly what they are looking for. And I’m not talking about qualifications! Most gatekeepers are looking for something that is less obvious than letters after your name, such as proven experience in a specific role; the ability to solve particular kinds of problems; the achievement of measurable, memorable results; or the ability to collaborate as well as execute.
    The next step is to research the gatekeepers. Read their books, articles, interviews, blog posts, even tweets and Facebook update. Do you know anyone who knows them or has worked with them? If so, ask about them. Keep asking yourself what all this tells you about their taste, their values, their influences, their passions, and their pet hates. And what does it tell you about their likely