If rejection makes you want to hide under the covers and never date again—this episode is your roadmap back to brave action.

Lily shares one of her most painful rejections from her dating life, how it nearly derailed her belief in love, and the five-step Rejection Resilience Side Quest she created to help late bloomers build the skill of shooting their shot without spiraling.

Inside this episode:
⚡️ Why rejection feels so dangerous (and why that makes total sense)
⚡️ A 5-step framework to depersonalize “no” and take bold action anyway
⚡️ A rejection aftercare protocol that actually helps you recover faster
⚡️ How building resilience leads to getting more of what you want in love and life

This is the most essential skill in dating that no one teaches—until now.

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Show transcript:

Lily @ Date Brazen (00:00.162)

Hey gorgeous friends, welcome to another episode of the podcast. I’m so glad that you’re here because today I am going to teach you how to get over the fear of rejection. As you know, I work with feminist single people who mostly identify as late bloomers, AKA behind in their dating life in some way. And the one skillset, the skillset gap that I see them struggling with that keeps them from moving forward in their dating lives.

toward a joyful dating life, toward the right relationship. The one skill set gap is around rejection resilience. Rejection is a really scary thing. As humans, we fear rejection like we fear death. Why? Because when we lived in caves, rejection literally meant death. We would be put out of the cave. So social rejection literally meant dying of exposure. So it makes total sense with that context why neurobiologically you freak out around

Rejection perceived or actual and this episode is really going to be your roadmap to noticing that fear and moving through it Effectively so that you can actually start getting more of what you want in your dating life before we get into the episode I got to tell you that this episode is sponsored by my free on-demand training called three steps to attract the right partner as a late bloomer inside I give you three feminist tools

that are also based in my matchmaking strategy back when I was a matchmaker so that you can become your own expert matchmaker so that you can get over your fear of starting to date so that you can start to date with power and confidence in the right strategy to start attracting the right people to you with more ease than you thought possible. So you can get that training at datebrazen.com slash training and watch it, absorb it, take notes and get ready for the juiciest season of your love life yet.

even if you feel like a late bloomer, even if you’ve never dated before, even if you haven’t been in the long-term relationship yet, even if you just got out of a 25-year marriage and you don’t know where to start, this was built for you. So go to datepraising.com slash trainings to get your hands on that on-demand training. I know that you are going to love it. So what are you waiting for? Go do it right now. Get it in your inbox. Do it after work tonight. Your love life matters to your wellbeing because you want something and it’s not here yet. So let’s fucking go.

Lily @ Date Brazen (02:24.394)

you

Lily @ Date Brazen (02:28.688)

Hey, I’m Lily Wonville, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self-trust-filled love lives, and now I’m here to support you. Get ready, because I’m about to share the exact steps you need to attract a soul-quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the Date Brazen podcast.

So this whole idea of rejection resilience, it’s something that we’ve been working on inside of main character dating, of course. And a client was talking to me in our coaching session and saying how much she feared rejection, how many texts have gone unanswered, how many messages have gone unanswered on a dating app because of avoidance, right? There’s something that she wants in a relationship, she hasn’t had it yet. And she has opportunity in front of her.

like a match, a message, a text, an ask out, and some of my clients struggle to respond to those opportunities. Now, you might be saying to yourself, I don’t have any of those opportunities, we’ll get to that. But if you do have opportunities to engage with people, to flirt with people, I mean, you can do it IRL literally any time, then if you’re avoiding trying because of the fear of rejection, then that’s going to continue to keep you stuck.

And so for this client in particular, I created a rejection resilience side quest with like so many dares and like micro wins that she could track along the way. And I thought, my God, this is so fun to gamify the process of building rejection resilience. So I built this five day challenge inside of main character dating.

And as this episode is coming out, we will have just completed the challenge live inside of Main Character Dating. I coached live every single day of the week for an hour on Zoom in addition to our regular coaching calls, just to coach on rejection resilience and to coach them through the special workbook that I created about dares and daring themselves to do 10 seconds of courage and daring themselves to ask people out and flirt IRL. And I’m gonna get into…

Lily @ Date Brazen (04:38.417)

how this applies to you in a moment. But I wanted to share that it’s going so well, people who felt like paralyzed by the fear of rejection are starting to learn that it’s safe to try new things, starting to learn that it’s safe to ask for what they want, even if they receive a no. They’re learning to depersonalize nos, and in doing so, it’s not only affecting their dating life, it’s affecting their whole freaking life. So this challenge.

is was amazing and I wanted to pass it along to you as well with the five steps that I recommend to overcome the fear of rejection and to start shooting your shot more effectively. So here’s the deal, when you ask for what you want, you will encounter more nos. That’s just the way it works. I think that a lot of folks, myself included at certain times, I was avoiding shooting my shot.

because the fear of the no, the opportunity to receive no, like that was way too scary, way too big because I feared that that no would mean something about me. And because of my lack of experience, I didn’t have much experience in my love life as an adult. And so that no, and then it meaning something about me felt even more risky because I had such little experience and I had so many, honestly, I had a ton of rejection.

in my love life and my life in general. I grew up feeling really behind, grew up with not too many friends. I experienced bullying growing up in school. I think I thrived through it, you know, eventually. But I do know that I took along with me the thought, the belief that I don’t wanna shoot my shot because if they don’t like me or if they say no to me, it must mean something about me.

keeping wood on the fiery pile of evidence that I had that I wasn’t worthy of a romantic relationship that was healthy, that I wasn’t attractive enough or interesting enough, or that I was too much for people and that nobody wanted to be with me. The fear of rejection was really being fueled by this underlying story and confirmation bias that I was experiencing that you need to be safe at all costs and risking rejection means you’re not safe.

Lily @ Date Brazen (07:00.976)

So in that way, I just want to share with you, if you’ve been avoiding shooting your shot, if you’ve been avoiding asking people out, if you’ve been avoiding flirting IRL, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just a human being who wants to be safe and you don’t yet have the skills to be emotionally safe and experience rejection, which is why we’re here, why we’re building this skill set together. Avoidance isn’t laziness. It’s your human attempt to remain safe at all costs.

So I want to ask you a few reflection questions that I want you to write down, put in your notes app for you to answer later so that you can really get to know your own brain here and get to know why you have been avoiding taking action. I also want to say, you might say to me, because I hear you in my brain, Lily, I avoid taking action because I have so much evidence that it’s never going to work out, so why try? And I will say this to you, my gorgeous, gorgeous friend who is listening to this episode on a drive on a walk.

on a lay down, on a whatever you are doing right now, I’m talking directly to you. Your life is not over. I have seen what over looks like. Over looks like gone. Yeah? You’re not done. You’re not done cooking. You will experience more in this life if you are alive, if you are breathing, you will experience things in this life that you cannot predict. Your life is not over.

Your love life is not over. You don’t know what’s going to happen. And so I’m going to ask you to do the really vulnerable thing in trying, in trying something new. You might say in response to that, I’ve tried everything. No, you haven’t. Honestly, you have not tried everything. Now you might’ve done all the action steps that you thought were necessary to finding love and it didn’t work, but how was your mindset? How was your nervous system? How was your self-talk? Did you have a practice of self-compassion?

which reduces cortisol and increases resilience, I bet that you tried all of the action steps that you thought were gonna move you forward. If you say, I’ve tried everything, it didn’t work, I bet you tried with an energy of hustle and trying to prove, like I did, I was trying to prove to myself that a relationship was possible, and I ended up in a terrible relationship because I was trying to prove something about myself instead of letting my dating life be an expression of my wholeness and my desires.

Lily @ Date Brazen (09:23.686)

I ended up shrinking myself. So if that’s you, know that you’re not alone. That’s really normal. And to get something new, you have to try something new. So that’s my little caveat. So here are the reflection questions that I want you to ask yourself this week to get to know your fear of rejection a little bit more. I don’t want you to shove the fear into a box. We actually need to address it and talk to it and get to know it a little bit more in order to effectively move through it. Here are the questions I want you to ask yourself. Why does rejection feel dangerous to you?

specifically to you based on your past history, what might self-compassion say? Of course I fear rejection because I went through X, Y, Z. Of course I fear rejection because fill in the blank. What story does your brain tell you when someone says no or when you have experienced rejection? If you could look back at a rejection that really stung, what story did your brain tell you about that interaction in order to be safe? What is that fear costing you?

What is that fear costing you in your love life, in your life in general? What is that fear, that paralyzing fear costing you? So let’s get into the how-to now that you have a little bit more understanding of your own fear. And I want you to wash it in self-compassion as always, because why? Again, 2014 study out of Stanford showed that it reduced cortisol and increased resilience. And it’s not a one and done. It has to be a practice. Like you brush your teeth.

Self-compassion has to be a practice to be effective. If you brushed your teeth once in the last month, it will not be effective for your teeth. Your teeth will feel real fuzzy and they will not feel good and you’re like, well, I used it once and it didn’t work forever. Same, same with self-compassion. It is a twice a day experience, probably more. I do it regularly throughout my day, but it’s a practice and it’ll become more second nature the more you practice. The way that you practice is by like,

putting a hand on your heart, taking a big deep breath by saying, hey, I’m acknowledging that I’m feeling this way. This really is hard. And I’m here with you. I’m human. This is really normal. You can also go to self-compassion.org to find Dr. Kristin Neff’s work, who is amazing. She’s an amazing book called Self-Compassion. She also has a book called Fierce Self-Compassion and a lot of other great resources at her website, including free meditations.

Lily @ Date Brazen (11:46.288)

That’s a good baby step to get your toes dipped in the world of self-compassion. So step one to enacting this self-compassionate rejection, resilience side quest is to choose five dares. And I want you to commit to completing these dares within the next two weeks. Five dares, okay? I just want you to write them down. If I wasn’t afraid of rejection, what would I do?

Write down five dares, whatever comes to mind. It could be dating related, could be work related, it could be whatever. If I wasn’t afraid of rejection, what would I do? Maybe you would message first on a dating app. Maybe you would ask someone out who you’ve had a crush on for a while, who’s been giving you like signals, or maybe you’d even ask them, hey, are you single? And maybe you’ve been waiting to like ask if they’re single because you’re nervous about the response. Get the truth right now. Put it on your dares list. Maybe to…

shoot your shot, you share your intentions with somebody that you’re dating instead of just trying to play it cool. Maybe you say, yeah, I am looking for the right relationship. What are you hoping to find in your dating life? Whatever the case, like what if you shared your intentions? Write down five dares. I’m encouraging you to do a dating related dare, especially if you’re stuck in avoidance in your love life. Maybe it’s just.

trying to get on an app with boundaries. A few weeks ago, I replayed an episode about how to effectively find love on a dating app as a late bloomer with the right boundaries. Now it’s an imperfect tool, but maybe just trying with the boundaries that I suggest would be a step forward in proving to yourself that you’re not gonna die from the experience of rejection. Or you could listen to one of my episodes on in-person dating. Episode 89 of the Date Brazen podcast is about how the hell to find love in person.

And so you could listen to that and follow those steps to do some in-person flirting. Now, you can use a latter approach to IRL flirting like a lot of my clients do, which is start with the easiest task. Maybe it’s just like looking for a second longer than you would at a cutie and smiling, even if they don’t see you back or don’t smile back, whatever, you did it. That’s a dare, checked off the list.

Lily @ Date Brazen (13:54.938)

Now, obviously with all of this, be safe, notice your surroundings, listen to your body when and if you feel like you need to like exit an in-person dating scenario, please do listen to your body, both and. I think that rejection resilience is about trying things that make you wanna vomit and showing yourself that you don’t pass out afterward, right? That you actually can remain in your body, that it might suck.

to experience a no or experience somebody like glancing away if you glance at them or, you know, somebody like being like, when you try to talk to them IRL, who cares? Who cares? This is all Play-Doh, it’s all made up. So why not try courageous shit and build the skill of rejection resilience because you’re the main character of your life and it’s not over yet. So to finish the latter visual.

You could start with the easiest task of like glancing at somebody and then glancing away. Then try to make eye contact is the next step up the ladder. And then the next step up the ladder might be a wink and run, like wink and run away. The next step up the ladder might be saying hello to somebody in person, right? Build a ladder based on where you’re at now, what you’re nervous to do, and go step by step by step. You don’t have to jump immediately to asking somebody out IRL. You can start with baby steps.

to prove to yourself that you’re gonna be okay after trying these things. Step one, write down those five dares. Step two, reframe rejection. It will suck and you’re not gonna die after experiencing it. It will suck and you’re not gonna die after experiencing it. Your capacity to receive what you want in this life is directly correlated to your capacity

to experience discomfort when you don’t get what you want. I’m gonna repeat that. Your capacity to receive what you want in this life is directly correlated to your capacity to experience discomfort in the pursuit of what you want. Life is 50-50, 50 % amazing, 50 % hard, okay? That’s a Brooke Castillo quote, I believe. And so getting more of what you want means you’re gonna experience more nos.

Lily @ Date Brazen (16:09.244)

And so I want you to really ask yourself these reflective questions that I’m gonna share with you to start to reframe rejection and start to be kinder to yourself in the process of experiencing rejection so that you’re not beating yourself up for both having a hard time after rejection and then for shooting your shot to begin with. Because right now I think y’all are beating up on yourself way too much and it’s causing you to remain stuck and avoidant. It’s time to rewrite that no means something about your worth. It doesn’t.

Other people are not the arbiter of whether or not you are worthy of what you want. Other people who are wrong for you do not get to decide the limitations of your existence and your desires and what you get in this life. And right now, if your rejection resilience is low, you’re letting other people, the wrong people for you who maybe have rejected you in the past or who weren’t into you, you were into them, you’re letting those people determine what is possible for you.

Right? It’s very much so centering the wrong people and whether or not you believe what you want is possible. You’re saying, was rejected by those people in the past or I had a perceived rejection, so I’m not going to try anymore because it’s way too tough. Don’t let them determine what’s possible for you. You are the main character. Your life is not over. You get to start to say the vulnerable thing of like, okay, it’s really nerve wracking to try.

I don’t fully believe that it’s possible yet and I’m going to try anyway. Like that’s so vulnerable and leads you the more you practice that I’m feeling really vulnerable. This kind of sucks. I don’t want to do this, but I know that I’m worthy of trying. I know that I’m worthy of getting what I want. So let me just do a little baby step dare.

That is recentering yourself, recentering your desires and opening you up to more opportunity in your love life and everywhere. So here are the reflection questions I want you to ask yourself about reframing rejection. What’s a rejection in your past that still stings? Maybe it’s the rejection that sort of made you believe that what you wanted wasn’t possible or that nobody would want to be with you. For me, vulnerable story alert. So I had not dated very much.

Lily @ Date Brazen (18:23.334)

And I was trying to play it cool because I really believed that I was too much and I was fearful that a relationship would never happen. I went to a New York like social gathering one day. I don’t remember where it was. Don’t remember who I was going to hang out with. But there were a lot of people that I didn’t know. And I met this guy and I was attracted to him and we hit it off, y’all. Hit it off.

and we started walking around Manhattan together. We walked from the Upper West Side all the way down to Chelsea, which is like, know, miles. I don’t know exactly how many, but we worked walking and talking and laughing and kind of having some playful touch. And he was talking about, you know, he was talking like, I’m dating, and I was talking about I’m dating. And I was like, my God, I met somebody in person.

and it’s just happening and I don’t wanna push it so I’m not gonna ask if this is a date or whatever because it feels so much like a date and it feels like he’s into me and maybe we’ll end this night with a sexy fun make out, maybe we’ll go on a date. my God, my God, I got so excited. Because we were really connecting and I can trust when I’m connecting with somebody. And so I felt like I was connecting with him. We ended up going to like.

get a snack and he paid and I was like, I offered to pay but he paid, interesting. Then we went to a bar, like a wine bar and we sat there for hours more. We probably spent like seven hours together. I was like, wow, what an organic fucking date. This is so exciting. We physically like, like affectionate toward each other. We had hugged a couple of times during the day. Okay. So I go to the bathroom and this is why I really recommend a bathroom boundary because it can help you shore up your courage.

Okay, this was a version of me shooting my shot and it not working out. So I go back to the table and I, because in the bathroom I had decided, Lily, you’re gonna ask if this is a date, you’re gonna ask because I don’t wanna leave this ambiguous. Because I just spent seven hours with this person, I thought he was really cute. I thought he thought I was really cute. So I go back to the table and I’m like, hey, we started talking again but I kind of stopped and I was like, hey, just want clarity like.

Lily @ Date Brazen (20:38.182)

This is a date, right? And he just goes like white as a sheet, blood draining from his face. And he’s like, no, why would you think that? And I was like, I wanted to be like, I don’t know the seven hours we’ve spent together, the physical touch that you have been engaging in.

The fact that you’ve treated me to several stops along this journey, even though I’ve offered to split or pay, the indications about your singleness, and I felt like really kind of like, am I off base here? And he sort of treated me in that moment like I definitely was, and that I was overreaching and overthinking it, and that how could I have thought this as a date and I’m not really into you like that? And I…

Weld up with tears. felt like it was a confirmation of every single time that I had shot my shot and gotten rejected. I thought it was a confirmation that I just needed to stay home and that I was not attractive enough or I was too much or I was whatever and that nobody would ever be into me who I was into. And I remember like leaving very soon after because I was about to have a breakdown and I got in the I got in a car because it was like 11 p.m. I didn’t want to take the subway and

I sobbed in the car so hard that the Lyft driver asked me if I was okay and was like, I’m concerned about you. Are you okay? And that was very sweet of him. And I was like, yeah, I’m fine. I just experienced a projection. Ugh, makes me want to vomit thinking about it. hurt so badly. Here are the reflection questions. If I were you and you went through that experience that I would ask myself, what’s a reflection that still stinks? That one for me. What did you make it mean about yourself?

that I was unworthy, that I was too much, that I had shot my shot and that was too much. I shouldn’t have even asked because who was I to think that I was enough for this person? I don’t even remember his name now. What might self-compassion say to that story? Billy, of course you thought it was a date. Duh, that makes so much sense. Knowing what I know now, of course. He, like, it sucks that he was kind of stringing you along or.

Lily @ Date Brazen (22:55.654)

that that wasn’t made clearer earlier, that’s really hard. And that’s really normal also to have an experience like that, that’s pretty human of you. And this is a moment of suffering. If I looked back and I thought, is just a moment of suffering, it may not have to mean everything about my story and it really is hard right now. So that’s step two is really asking yourself those questions about a rejection in your mind that you’re making the star of the story about why you can’t shoot your shot or why it’s impossible for you to get what you want.

Re-examine that story with this lens now, with this reframing lens, so that you can start to move forward and not let that moment or that rejection define you. Main characters get told no because they’re asking for more. And no, I’m so glad that I didn’t go on a date with that guy. I hate that I went through that pain and pain’s kind of a part of life. And there’s nothing wrong with me for…

having that experience or having that reaction, there’s nothing wrong with him for not wanting to go on a date with me. He just wasn’t the right person for me. And I wish that I had had these questions, these skills then, so that I could more effectively move to that shame spiral that I was in. And that’s why I’m sharing this with you right now, so that you can move through any shame spirals about being rejected in the past, so that you can move forward more powerfully. Okay, if you’re gonna do those dares, which I really want you to do.

then you need a rejection aftercare protocol. Okay? You need a rejection aftercare protocol to prepare for a shame spiral, to prepare for it to suck. Because doing this challenge, this shoot your shot challenge, rejection resilience side quest means that you are going to feel hard feelings, means that you are going to be afraid, means that you might experience a shame spiral and you will have fear because you’re human.

I think that so many of y’all think that being rejection resilient or being a main character means that you won’t have fear, when it’s actually the opposite. You probably will have more fear because you’re opening yourself up to vulnerable opportunities. That means you’re gonna get more of what you want in the process, by the way, but you’re also gonna experience more fear. So what are you gonna do with it? SOFT, SOFT. This is your Rejection Aftercare Protocol. Write it down in your phone.

Lily @ Date Brazen (25:13.232)

have it ready for when you journal after shooting your shot and it goes well or it doesn’t go well, have it ready. You start with a thought dump. Write down every single hard, sticky, uncomfortable, mean, potentially thought that you’re having about yourself. And then from there, choose one of the stickiest thoughts that you wanna work with and run it through this formula. S-O-F-T, self-compassion. Oof, that really sucks. This is really hard. Of course I’m struggling.

It makes sense why I’m struggling. I’m so human, how human of me, right? Instead of, it’s gonna be okay, right? I talked about this in a previous episode, but I had a client who we were working on self-compassion and she was struggling with the idea that she wasn’t desirable. And I said, what might self-compassion say to that version of you who doesn’t believe that you’re desirable? And her response was that I am desirable. And that’s a very common thing that people do because you don’t wanna believe these hard and…

sticky thoughts about yourself, but your brain’s practicing them all the time and you’re not noticing them as thoughts, not facts. So your brain’s really buying into the hard thought and believing it is the truth. And then when you want to believe something else, you’re trying toxic positivity. You’re trying the aggressive opposite instead of just meeting yourself at your level and saying, this is really hard right now. Like for that client, said like self-compassion would say, it’s really hard to have the thought that you’re, that I’m not desirable.

It’s a really hard thought and belief to hold for as long as you have. Of course you’re struggling. Of course this feels affronting to look at it because previously you’ve been shoving it into a box to try to be safe. But in actuality, shoving it into a box doesn’t make you safe. It makes you avoidant. And so looking at it, which is totally normal, but looking at it with this self-compassion means just like getting on your level like a kid on the playground who got rejected by a group of friends and they’re crying. Looking over them and saying,

Get back out there, shut up, go, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not gonna work. I am desirable, right? It’s true, you’re gonna be okay. It’s true, you are desirable. It’s true that that kid is going to be okay eventually, but that doesn’t help in the moment to help that child move through this emotional trauma. Getting on the child level, looking at the child saying, I’m so sorry that happened, that’s really hard. Do you wanna hug? It’s really normal to feel this way after experiencing that. It’s really normal, right? That.

Lily @ Date Brazen (27:33.762)

unlocks the benefits of self-compassion, which is reduced cortisol and increased resilience. What does that child then do? Go play probably quicker, and in a more aligned way, than if you had just said, over it, move on. That’s not true, right? Self-compassion, get on your level. S, O, own your needs. So after a rejection, which is gonna be normal within this rejection resilience side quest, you’re gonna experience NOES and you’re gonna have trouble experiencing NOES. That’s okay.

What are you gonna do about it? What needs do you have? Do you need to lay down on the floor? Do you need to call a friend? Do you need to go on a walk? Do you need to go to a Zumba class? Do you need to text your therapist? What do you need? Own it proactively. S-O-F, feel your feelings. Emotional granularity is a tool coined by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett. She found that the experience, when you have more precise emotion words to name your experience, you are that much more equipped to move through that experience.

Name the feeling in your body. Okay, I just experienced rejection. This is my aftercare protocol. I’m feeling shame and it feels like a tight ball in my chest that is black and heavy like lead and I can’t see through it. It feels so heavy. Name it. What color, what shape, what location is it in your body? Breathe into it. Say to yourself these words that I love from Coach Simone Sol. I’m willing to feel anything to be with you.

There’s nothing that you can say, do or feel that would make me wanna stop being your friend and breathe into that feeling for like one to three minutes. And I promise you, feelings are like poop, they’re bodily functions that you need to allow yourself to feel in order to move through them. And feeling them doesn’t mean wallowing in them. It doesn’t mean making them facts. It doesn’t mean saying, I feel shame, so I’m terrible. It’s like, no, naming it, I’m having the feeling of shame.

It’s a feeling, not a fact. And I’m going to move through it right now. We’re going to do this together. It may not mean after this practice that you feel all better, but it is about closing the stress cycle as the Nagoski sisters talk about in their book, Burnout, which I highly recommend. Soft, thoughts, not facts. This is where you get into the baby step reframe. Instead of being like, I don’t feel desirable, so I am desirable, right? The aggressive opposite. Choose a baby step thought that feels useful and true right now to

Lily @ Date Brazen (29:57.692)

Practice out loud and often at the end of your SOFT practice for rejection resilience after care. This could look like it might be possible that this moment is hard and it doesn’t define my future. It might be possible that this rejection means that I’m growing. My experience of opening up to opportunity means that I’m growing. It might be possible that this feeling will pass. It’s true that I’m trying and I’m proud of myself.

It’s true that the more I open myself up to opportunity, the more opportunities I have available. Sometimes rejection comes along with that and that’s hard and okay, right? Choose a baby separate frame to practice out loud and often. This is your rejection after care. Choose what you’re going to say to yourself in the moment of shooting your shot, trying something and it may be not working out. It’s okay, you’re building resilience here and what happens when you have resilience? You get more of what you want. Okay, step number four.

10 seconds of courage, do the damn thing. All it takes is 10 seconds of courage. All you need is five, four, three, two, texting the person, saying, hey, are you single? Saying, hey, do you wanna go out sometime? Or smiling at somebody. Literally 10 seconds of courage is all it takes. I fucking dare you. Those five dares, I want them checked off by the end of the next two weeks. And I want you to use 10 seconds of courage to make it happen.

Final step, step five is to celebrate every win. No win is too small. I want you in this rejection resilience side quest to celebrate when you experience rejection. Throw yourself kind of a no party. Like it’s a sign you’re moving forward, texting your friend, hey, I’m doing this challenge from this podcast. Send them this episode and do it together even.

and text each other when you experience a no and say, hey, no party, I did it. I wanna celebrate that I did it. Now I’m gonna do my aftercare protocol. Celebrate every win, no win is too small. What’s gonna happen in this rejection resilience side quest when you shoot your shot? You’re gonna start to experience rejection. You’re gonna neutralize it. It’s not gonna mean everything. And you’re gonna get more of what you want in small and big ways that you can’t even expect. That’s the bonus of this challenge is that you are going to get more of what you want.

Lily @ Date Brazen (32:14.394)

And so you need to celebrate every win, every moment of receiving a no, like you won the Super Bowl. Because this is about your one wild and precious life, in the words of Mary Oliver. You matter, your desires matter, and your life isn’t over. So I want you to go do those five steps from this episode. Re-listen to this episode, take notes, do whatever you gotta do to put this into action, because you matter, your desires matter, it is not too late, I don’t care your level of experience or your age.

It is not too late for you. And all you need is to build up the rejection resilience skillset to start getting more of what you want and have your own back in the process. Let me know your thoughts on this episode. You can DM me at date brazen on Instagram. I would love to hear if you’re joining the rejection resilience side quest or the shoot your shot challenge. I am really excited for you to take this challenge on.

I can’t wait to hear about how it’s going for you. And again, this episode was sponsored by my on-demand free training called Three Steps to Attract the Right Partner as a Late Bloomer. That free training is going to give you so many ideas for your five dares as well. So if you want to go even deeper with me today, then go check out that free training at datebreazen.com slash training, and you’ll also be added to our email list so that you can get all of my feminist dating hot takes weekly. You’ve got this and I’ve got your back. See you next week.

Thanks for listening to the Date Brazen podcast. If you liked this episode, then you’re going to freaking love my book. Thank you more please. It’s my proven step-by-step feminist guide to breaking dumb dating rules and finding love. You can buy it anywhere books are sold and then get a juicy bonus at datebrazen.com slash book. The bonus is the dating life fix. My top 10 podcast episodes to get unstuck right now. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You’ve got this and I’ve got your back.