In Psych 101 in college we learned about situational versus dispositional thinking: people who think situationally in the face of adversity believe when something bad happens it's because of unfortunate circumstances; people who think dispositionally when something good happens give themselves credit for their success. These people tend to be well adjusted, have high self-esteem, and a positive outlook on life.

The idea is that you take credit for the good things that come your way and chalk the bad stuff up to bad luck, someone else's indigestion, or some other factor outside of your control.

I never learned to think situationally about the bad stuff or dispositionally about the good stuff. In college when I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa I decided it was because my teachers were in a good mood and liked me. In graduate school when a thick envelope arrived on my doorstep announcing I had been awarded a highly competitive fellowship, I called my father and asked him if he thought the selection committee made a mistake.

If I belittled my own successes, I also took every rejection as an indication of my worthlessness. If a guy I had a crush on didn't like me it was because I was ugly and unloveable, if I didn't get a job it was because I hadn't prepared my application carefully enough.

So why at this point in my life would I possibly be seeking out rejection, the very thing that makes me feel so _____(ADD PEJORATIVE ADJECTIVE HERE)?

Because in order to be a successful writer I know I have to learn not to take rejection personally, and to see every rejection as a new opportunity. What better way to change my thinking and my life view than to actively seek out what makes me cringe the most?

And it works. I pile up rejections. In fact, I receive enough rejections to wallpaper my entire office but since that is my goal, I feel oddly successful. Even better, as a byproduct of trying to get rejected, I have also been accepted, which is what I'm really after, of course. I've published in markets I'd been afraid to try. (You can't be rejected if you don't submit, but you can't be accepted either). I broke into the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Parenting, and Smithsonian Magazine, among others. I've also doubled my consulting fees and applied for grants that my fear of rejection kept me from trying for in the past.

During my first rejection-seeking year, I also became the creative nonfiction editor of Literary Mama, a position that required me to sit on the other side of the desk and be the person who writes the rejection letters to other aspiring writers.

Writing rejection letters was the worst part of my job. The last thing I wanted to do was close the door on women writers, and tell them they could not come in. I hate being rejected so much that I'd rather have the flu than hurt someone else's feelings in that way.

But I did it. I got more than a dozen submissions a week and I probably rejected 98% of them. The stories that made it past my desk didn't necessarily make it into the magazine. I forwarded them to the senior editors who ultimately had the final say.

As much as I disliked rejecting others, being an editor made me understand that as often as not rejection is situational, not dispositional. Literary Mama has unique needs as a magazine. I often received pieces that really weren't "right for our magazine." Maybe we had run a similar story recently or had one in inventory, maybe the voice wasn't lyrical and original enough, or maybe the submission was too much of an essay or opinion piece when we were looking to find creative nonfiction that told a story with vibrant characters, interesting dialogue, and plot. None of this had anything to do with the merit of the writing per se, it had to do with what that particular publication was looking for at that time. Although your writing often feels like an extension of yourself, having a piece rejected has nothing to do with you as a person, no matter how personally you take it.

Remember Christmas in July? Why not celebrate New Year's in August? Make an August resolution to get more rejections. You may be surprised at the positive results. And actually give yourself some of the credit for them.