The fear of rejection affects not only the romantic part of life but also other aspects. It can make you insecure, jealous, prone to emotional manipulation, and excessively disciplined. Often, such reactions are a response to an unpleasant experience.
But it would help if you didn’t let them control and worsen your life. The first thing to do is sort out your feelings and understand if you are afraid of rejection. Here are a few habits that suggest this is the case.
9 habits that you adhere to for fear of rejection
1. You’re trying to be the perfect
If you’re afraid of rejection and stay away from it, you try to be perfect. You may understand perfection is unattainable, but you still strive for it. This manifests in behavior, personal life, and work. You must meet the highest possible standards and feel impeccable.
This habit is not because you strive to become the best version of yourself or achieve heights. It seems impossible to refuse an ideal person, so you hope that, after becoming perfect, you will never face an unpleasant situation.
The bad news is that everyone needs to be accepted. That’s why it’s important to strive not to become perfect but to overcome the fear of rejection and feel better.
2. You constantly post something on your social networks
A problem closely related to the fear of rejection is an excessive fascination with social media. You strive to post every moment of your life that seems funny or exciting. And if there are none, then bright thoughts, polls, funny pictures, and everything that comes to hand.
This often signals that you are trying to get approval and ensure people are interested in you. Every new like for you is a preemptive strike against the feeling that no one needs you.
3. You are obsessed with your physical form
Often, people afraid of rejection are obsessed with their physical form. Of course, only some people who visit the gym experience such a problem, but it is possible. If you’re worried that people don’t like you or you’ve been badly burned in the past due to rejection of any kind, then working on your body can be a way to boost your self-confidence.
4. You are taking on too many responsibilities
If you’re afraid of rejection, you can take on many responsibilities. Why? They help you feel needed and irreplaceable, a person who is impossible to reject. Unfortunately, this idea is far from reality. And because of it, you can suffer because manipulators and other toxic people never mind taking advantage of those who want approval and confirmation of their value and are afraid to hear the word “no.”
5. Do you feel anxious when meeting new people
Do you feel intense excitement bordering on anxiety when you go on a date, meet online, or meet new business partners? If your answer is “yes,” you are most likely struggling with the fear of rejection. Meeting new people turns into stress for you because you don’t know if they will like you and also if they will want to continue communicating with you.
As a rule, people not afraid of rejection calmly accept that they are not a dollar to please everyone. But if the fear of rejection settles in your soul, you do everything to make the best impression on others. For example, you check your speech to the smallest detail, think over the image for a long time, try to adjust to the interlocutor, or put on social masks to seem “your own” to him.
6. You hide your feelings
To avoid rejection, you hide your true feelings, especially when you think they will be uncomfortable for other people. You always pretend that you love the same things as your friends and say, “Everything is fine,” when a storm of emotions is boiling inside.
It’s easier for you to nod and smile instead of expressing your opinion. But by constantly adjusting to other people, you lose yourself and seem insincere to others. But still, fear wins out, especially if you don’t try to fight it and keep silent about what you’re thinking repeatedly, just so you don’t face rejection, which may not be.
7. You rarely say “no”
Rejecting others may make them treat you worse or be disappointed enough to leave you. Because of this, you rarely say no when it’s necessary. But by agreeing to everything offered to you, you become overly accommodating and comfortable, which makes other people treat you poorly. By allowing them to push you around, you only exacerbate the problem, as well as destroy your mental health.
8. You stay in a toxic relationship
Rejecting others may make them treat you worse or be disappointed enough to leave you. Because of this, you rarely say no when it’s necessary. V I S I T . A F R I R I N K . C O M . But by agreeing to everything you offer, you become overly accommodating and comfortable, making other people treat you poorly. By allowing them to push you around, you only exacerbate the problem, as well as destroy your mental health.
9. You take the rejection as a personal insult
Because of the fear of rejection, you can tolerate relationships filled with disrespect, neglect, and manipulation. Even though you’re being treated horribly, you feel like you have no choice but to continue to put up with it. It is the fear of rejection that prompts such thoughts, not love or empathy for the toxic people who are next to you.
