Think about a time when something didn’t go your way. Maybe your name wasn’t on a team roster or cast list for something you tried out for. Perhaps you received a rejection letter from a college or competition you had applied to. Maybe you tried to strike up a friendship that didn’t go anywhere or got turned down when you asked someone out.
How did you feel the moment it happened? How did you feel a week or two later? How do you feel about it now?
Do you have a difficult time bouncing back from rejections like these? Is this something you’d like to get better at?
In “For This Influencer, Rejection Is the New Perfection,” Megan Farokhmanesh writes about Gabriella Carr, whose quest to rack up 1,000 rejections has inspired thousands of others to follow her lead:
Gabriella Carr held up a small red spiral notebook with “The 1,000 Rejections of Gabriella Carr” written across the front. Her front-face camera inverted the phrase in the video she posted to her TikTok and Instagram accounts. On the pages of the notebook, the video creator and actress tracks brand influencer campaigns she’s applied for, roles she’s auditioned for, and fitness photo shoots she’s submitted herself for, all with the goal of putting herself out there enough to amass 1,000 noes — and some unexpected yeses — to opportunities she seeks.
“I’m know I’m delusional, but you kind of have to be to chase your dreams,” she said in the video.
Now rejection spreadsheets are popping up across social media as microinfluencers follow Carr’s lead. TikTok user @theplanistobefamous is tracking job applications and Facebook Marketplace bargaining (he asks for things for free or low price). Others are negotiating the terms of their lease, asking strangers to style them, copping free subway swipes, or pitching themselves for toothpaste brand deals.
No rejection is too big or too small. Unlike most January challenges, which emphasize no days off or optimizing routines, the 1,000 Rejections Challenge welcomes defeat. Perfection-based challenges like 75 Hard are out. Tallying up losses is in.
Carr, 22, said she’s always been hard on herself when it comes to achieving her goals. She had turned her pandemic hobby of making videos into her full-time focus but by last year was facing a breaking point. Auditions for acting jobs had gone nowhere and she was losing followers. She decided she’d finish out the year trying to make it work, but wanted a way of keeping herself accountable.
She reasoned that the defeats were what made her want to quit, and thought, “What if I face this rejection?” She landed on a count of 1,000 — big enough to prevent her from completing the mission quickly, like if she’d gone with 100, and bold enough to keep her interested. “If I truly failed by the end of this 1,000 noes, then I felt like it was OK to leave and walk away,” Carr said.
She explained the gambit to her followers in September 2025 and thought she’d be done in four months. She’s gotten 86 noes (and 17 yeses), to date, and has landed a pageant title, some small acting roles, and even, to her shock, been approved for a Dutch passport.
The bigger win is Carr says she feels stronger and more hopeful about her future than before. “I was kind of a mess,” she said. Now, she’s realized how quickly things can change for the better. Carr said her Instagram follower count has risen from around 17,000 to more than 82,000, as people pursue their own rejections and fill her comments with the kind of earnest optimism that’s rare in social media.
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
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What did you respond most strongly to as you read? What surprised you, inspired you or made you feel seen?
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Why do you think so many people have begun following Ms. Carr’s 1,000 Rejections Challenge? Does reading about it make you want to try it? If you were to participate, what are some things you might go for?
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What do you think of Gabby Beckford’s advice: “Accept that you’ll be rejected, move on, and keep doing it”? If you followed this advice, how, if at all, do you think your life would be different? Do you have examples of how accepting rejection and continuing on has led to positive outcomes for you or someone you know?
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Lynn Lyons, a psychotherapist, says that young people are particularly affected by loneliness and that “being afraid of rejection, or avoiding rejection, means that you are limiting the possibility of connection.” Do you think you and your generation have a greater fear of or tendency to avoid rejection than do people of other generations? If so, to what do you attribute it?
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What are your strategies for dealing with rejection? What advice would you give to other teenagers?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
The post How Do You Handle Rejection? appeared first on New York Times.
