We deal with a lot of obstacles as writers, but one of the biggest is rejection.

Rejection can come in many forms. A publisher or agent can reject your book proposal. Your subscribers can reject your emails by not opening them. Your followers can reject your social media posts by not liking or sharing them. Readers can reject your books by not reading or buying them. Clients can reject your services by not signing a contract or ignoring your emails.

Whatever form rejection takes… it hurts. And let’s be honest, it can hurt pretty badly. Some writers never recover from it. So how can we deal with it?

J. K. Rowling offers some great advice. She said, “Resilience and humility. These go hand-in-hand, because rejection and criticism are part of a writer’s life. Informed feedback is useful and necessary, but some of the greatest writers were rejected multiple times.”

So, the next time you’re rejected, remember that all professionals get rejected sometimes. Nobody has a 100% batting average. Even major league baseball players only get a hit about a third of the time.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going. If you’ve been rejected by someone lately, join the club. It happens to the best of us sometimes. But remember: professionals not only get rejected, they also never give up.