Lucia Knight
A Joy At Work Experiment: Rejection De-sensitisation
The word ‘No’ strikes fear in the heart of many a grown-up professional in their 40s, 50s or 60s.
Try this ten-minute Joy At Work experiment to get more comfortable with rejection.
Did you know that the average toddler, according to some research, hears the word no up to 400 times a day?
Yet it's a word that strikes fear in the heart of many a grown-up professional in their 40s, 50s or 60s.
If we treat rejection and the word no as a big, bad, fearful thing, then we're frankly less likely to ask for the things that we would love in order to thrive at work. We're even less likely to ask for the things that we need to survive at work.
So if hearing the word, no, fills you with fear or freezes you into doing what you've always done. Then this week’s Joy At Work Experiment is designed for you.
The Joy At Work Experiment
Part 1: Rate Your Level of Rejection
Rate how often you hear the word no to requests you've made. The scale is 0 to 10. Rate yourself as a 0 if you have 0 recollection of the last time you asked for something and the response was no. Rate yourself as a 10 if someone said no to you in the last 24 hours.
Part 2: Getting Comfortable with Rejection
Tomorrow ask for something from anyone where the response is very likely to be no. And then the day after tomorrow, ask for two things from different people where the response is very likely to be no. Then on day three, ask for three things where the response is likely to be no. Continue on until you've received seven no's in one day.
Rope in some friends and colleagues. Make it fun. Be as ridiculous as you wish. The point here is not to try to get to a yeah. It's to get super comfortable with no's. And if you need some help - I have a bunch of examples for you in the podcast.
[00:35] Why We Need To Be Desensitising to the Word 'No'
[02:35] Joy At Work Experiment
[04:05] Fun Rejection Challenges
[06:10] Embracing 'No' for Joy at Wor
Next Steps:
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30-minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it Derailed and it's a fabulous place to begin a joy-at-work redesign.
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A Joy at Work Experiment - Rejection de-sensitization
Lucia Knight: You're busy, yeah? There's never enough time to focus on your future work happiness. But if you don't focus on it, things just stay the same, don't they? In these short episodes, I wanna give you some tiny ideas, some mini experiments to try out this week to either dial down a pain point for you at work or dial up your potential for joy at work.
Let's dive in.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Why We Need To Be Desensitizing to the Word 'No'
Lucia Knight: We're going to experiment this week with desensitizing you from rejection. This is the joy at work experiment. Oh my God, this is going to be fun. This is kind of hard to believe, but the average toddler, according to some research, here's the word no up to 400 times a day.
Yet it's a word that strikes fear in the heart of many a grown up professional in their 40s, 50s or 60s. I do a few talks a year to 16 to 18 year olds. All about career design and work happiness. And in one of the talks, about emotional resilience in the face of rejection, I encourage them to celebrate the no's because the reality is that they're doing something wrong if they're not hearing a lot of no's.
And it's the same when we're designing our work and making big or small changes at a midpoint in our career. So, one of the foundational philosophies of the FIERCE model, i. e. my model of change, is that you need to get uber comfortable experimenting, trying new things, asking new questions, meeting new people.
Because if you always do what you've always done You'll always get what you always got. So let's start this week with a no de sensitization process. So if we treat rejection and the word no as a big, bad, fearful thing, then we're frankly less likely to ask for the things that we would love in order to thrive at work.
We're even less likely to ask for the things that we need to survive at work.
Joy At Work Experiment
Lucia Knight: So here's this week's joy at work experiment. Today, I want you to rate yourself against how often you hear the word no to requests you've made. The scale we'll use is 0 to 10, so rate yourself as a 0 if you have 0 recollection of the last time you asked for something and the response was no.
At the other end of the scale, rate yourself as a 10 if someone said no to you in the last 24 hours. Then, on to the more active part of this week's experiment. I'd like you tomorrow to ask for something from anyone where the response is very likely to be no. And then the day after tomorrow, ask for two things from different people where the response is very likely to be no.
And then on day three, ask for three things where the response is likely to be no. Continue on until you've received seven no's in one day. Rope in some friends and colleagues. Let's make this even more fun. Be as ridiculous as you wish. The point here is not to try to get to a yeah. It's to get super comfortable with no's.
Fun Rejection Challenges
Lucia Knight: So, here are some ideas I've prepared earlier.
So, in your local coffee shop tomorrow, ask politely with a big smile on your face if you can have your normal flat white for free, give no reason.
Ask someone you know who's just bought a swanky new car if your teenager can borrow it for a whole week.
High abide, asking your boss if you can have five extra holiday days on double pay.
Ask your colleague if you can borrow their favourite precious pen and make sure you remind them that you love chewing pens nervously.
Ask the office if anyone would like to buy you lunch for the next week from the most expensive restaurant in town.
Ask your partner if they'd like to meet you at the office after work to try out that new move you were talking about the other night in the boardroom.
Ask if anyone would like you to share the agenda for your next meeting as a song.
Ask the team who would like to do the most awful job on your to do list this afternoon.
Ask if anyone would like to Hoover your keyboard.
Ask your child if they wouldn't mind scrubbing the kitchen floor every night this week for free.
How about while you're on a dog walk? Ask the neighbor if they'd like to pick up your dog's poo. Do not give a reason.
Ask a colleague to pop out to buy your partner a birthday present with their money.
Ask the team if everyone would love to come in a couple of hours early tomorrow morning, just to prove that they are experiencing joy at work.
Embracing 'No' for Joy at Work
Lucia Knight: If hearing the word, no, Fills you with fear or freezes you into doing what you've always done. You've got no choice but to keep everything the same. One of the upsides of doing this experiment is that you become really comfortable with the word no. And that will free you to ask very lightly for what you want or need so that you can experience more joy at work.
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my Life Satisfaction Assessment. It's a 30 minute program where I guide you through a deep dive into 10 areas of your life to assess what's bringing you joy and what's bringing you down. I call it D Railed. It's a fabulous place to begin a joy at work redesign.
