When You Didn't Get Picked

When You Didn't Get Picked | nik.art

In March, I spent most of my mornings and many nights writing a 5,000-word draft for a novel. It was an entry for a competition with a grand prize of $50,000. The money wasn’t the motivation, just a nice excuse to finally try my hand at fiction for real—and I did.

For weeks, I kept stumbling into obstacles, then climbing over them. It was the must fun I had while being out of my depth in a long time. Eventually, I made it and submitted.

After the deadline had passed, the numbers came in: The company received nearly 15,000 submission. Yowza! There would be a longlist, then a shortlist, then a winner announced. I kept my expectations low. I had already reaped most of the rewards by showing up and doing the work.

When the longlist eventually dropped, 183 people were notified via email. My inbox, like most folks’, stayed empty. People took to the online forum. "Not gonna lie, I’m pretty devastated." "Today, I am sad." "I was so sure I would get picked."

Even with the odds against you at 100 to 1, it’s natural to feel disappointed. What surprised me was the number of people indicating they might throw in the towel. "Guess I’ll let this sit for a while…" "This is my umpteenth rejection for such a contest, I’m done." "Am I really that bad of a writer?"

I had no concrete plans to finish the whole book when I began, but participating in the competition actually made me want to work on the book more, not less. As I browsed the comments, I thought: "That’s strange. I don’t feel any less equipped to finish my novel than I did when I submitted it."

If it had been a 12-month contest for a full book instead of a one-month contest for 5,000 words, I would have kept plugging away all the same. One opportunity disappearing doesn’t make me or any of the other contestants any less capable—but in order to see that, they need to keep believing in themselves.

When you didn’t get picked, have faith. You’re someone you can bet on 100% of the time. You just have to keep putting down your chips.

Nik

Niklas Göke writes for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. A self-taught writer with more than a decade of experience, Nik has published over 2,000 articles. His work has attracted tens of millions of readers and been featured in places like Business Insider, CNBC, Lifehacker, and many others.

Nik has self-published 2 books thus far, most recently 2-Minute Pep Talks. Outside of his day job and daily blog, Nik loves reading, video games, and pizza, which he eats plenty a slice of in Munich, Germany, where he resides.

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When You Didn't Get Picked

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