Seventeen rejections later, I am grateful to announce…
In 2022, when I began my journey to pursue a world-class education, I never imagined this would be the opening line of my scholarship announcement. I thought I would be accepted on my first try. I trusted my story, my work, and the path I was walking. What I did not know then was that this process would test everything I said I believed about myself. This is a reflection on rejection, on learning, on moving forward quickly enough to make meaning out of every “no,” and still finding a way to win. I had received many “yeses” in different areas of my life, but when it came to scholarships, I kept hearing one word: no. At the time, it felt like doors were closing in my face. I did not realise those same rejections were shaping me. They were becoming a strange, unexpected gift.
Rejecting Rejection
The first rejection I received broke me more than I knew. For a moment, it felt like my world was collapsing. I cried, and when I called my friend Nelly, she laughed. Not because she didn’t care, but because she understood something I was only just beginning to learn: rejection shocks you most when you are convinced you deserve the “yes.” A few weeks later, I noticed something worrying. I had started to question my worth and my abilities. I began to wake up with a thoughts in the back of my mind: “Maybe I am not all of that.” That is what happens when rejection stays too long in your mind. It moves from being an outcome to becoming an identity. It starts to colour the way you see yourself. In 2023, I found the courage to start rejecting rejection. I began to understand that rejection was not always about me or what I could do. Sometimes, and maybe many times, rejection is not saying, “You are not enough.” Sometimes it is saying, “Not here. Not now. Not this way.” Maya Angelou once said, “You may face many defeats, but you must not be defeated.” That line became important to me. I realised I must never carry a defeated heart. I had to refuse to let rejection become the energy I carried into every room.
The energy of rejection is the energy of shrinking, of settling for less, of telling yourself: “You are not all that you thought you were.” By all means, reject rejection before it settles into your bones and becomes the way you see your life.
Rethinking Rejection
Once I stopped allowing rejection to define me, I began to rethink it. In 2023, I experienced a breakthrough, I started seeing rejection as feedback and as a chance to create. The more you do, the more feedback you get. The more feedback you get, the more willing you become to try again, to adjust, to build something better. Rejection became an invitation to strengthen myself, sharpen my abilities, and prepare for the next stage of my journey. It pushed me to revisit my dreams, my aspirations, my work, and my why. It forced me to ask, Why am I doing this? Who am I if this scholarship says no again? If rejection can make me reject the very idea of who I am, then how deep is my conviction in myself, my craft, my being, and my doing? That question showed me what I was really facing, not just rejection, but the weakness of my own belief in who I am. I often think about people who kept trying. The light bulb, for example, took many attempts before it finally worked. What would the world look like if more people gave up than stayed through the struggle? What kind of life would we have if every “no” was the end of the story? Hammed Alabi Kayode, who walked with me through this journey, often shares timelines of his own rejections. He shows young people that we must never treat rejection as a final verdict. If I had stopped on my 17th trial, I would never have received the “yes” that came on my 18th. It would have remained a story of failure, not a story of return.
I learned that we must challenge the idea that failure or rejection defines us. To move through life believing that every “no” is a measure of our worth is to deny ourselves the chance to act, to try, to grow. And it is only in the doing, again and again, that we become who we are meant to be. Rejection taught me this, my value is not tied to any “yes” or “no.” Sometimes what we want is not wrong , It is just not for that moment.
FAVOUR ABATANG
Reframing Rejection
Rethinking rejection changed how I understood it. Reframing rejection changed how I responded to it.
In cognitive psychology, rejection can be seen as a matter of interpretation rather than proof of personal failure. Aaron T. Beck wrote, “The way people feel is influenced by the way they interpret their experiences.” In other words: rejection is not a fact about your worth; it is an interpretation, and interpretations can be changed. When I started to see it this way, something shifted. I became more open to listening to others, to asking, “What can I do better?” and to asking better questions. I became more deliberate about the people and communities I surrounded myself with, about joining circles and teams where people were building things that mattered. That openness stretched my world. Rejection also drew me closer to people who believed in me deeply. Dough Onah, Daniel Nwaeze, and Wonah Martin would say to me, “You are more worthy of a scholarship than anyone I know. You will get it.” Their belief, combined with real help and honest feedback, reminded me how important friendships and mentorship are when rejection is loud and hope is quiet. Dr. Grace Ihejiamaizu would take the quickest opportunity to write me a recommendation. That spoke to me, that I was not alone.
When I look back now, my first application and my most recent one read like essays written by two different people. Rejection changed how I relate to the world, how I listen, and how I give and receive feedback. It helped me become more attentive to what was happening around me, to what my environment was saying, and to what the timing of my life, under God, was saying. There was a new openness to learn and to be guided. I remember asking Mirabelle Morah, who is a scholar Alumni, about her journey: the rejections, the lessons, the process behind the “yes” that people see. Those conversations reminded me that even people who seem to “get it on the first try” are not living perfect lives. A “yes” in one area does not mean there are no “no’s” in others.
Reframing rejection taught me that a “no” is not the whole story of my life. It is a moment. It is one chapter. I get to choose whether it becomes a dead end or a doorway into growth, humility, and a clearer sense of what God is calling me to do.
Redirecting Rejection
By 2024, I realised I needed to do more than think about rejection differently. I needed to use it differently. I decided to redirect the energy I had been pouring into endless applications into creating. Instead of only chasing opportunities, I started building: making the most of my vision, my mission, and the work I could actually do with what I had. Along the way, I began to realise something: what I am looking for is also looking for me, but I have to be in the right place, doing the right things. That meant being honest with myself:Does this opportunity really match the kind of person I am and the work I want to do?, Have I actually read the criteria and given my best effort?
Favour Abatang
Between then and now, there has been a real difference: in the quality of my work, in the depth of my experiences, and in how I understand the world. I gained a clearer view of my why and developed a deeper love for both the doing and the being behind my dreams.
Then something unexpected happened. I started receiving invitations to rooms I had once been rejected from. The same places that had turned me away began to ask me in. The same doors that once closed started to open. I learned that the world eventually notices people who keep going, who keep building, keep adjusting, and keep showing up, even after hearing “no.” Redirecting rejection taught me that I do not have to wait for every door to swing open before I begin. I can start where I am. I can grow, build, and become. In time, some of those doors will open, not only because I knocked, but because I became someone whose work could not be easily ignored.
Seventeen Rejections Later, One Yes
On the 4th of April, 2025, I received the news that I had been awarded the Mastercard Foundation Scholarship, a “yes” that felt perfectly timed. As Lenin said, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” That day felt like many decades gathered into one. The scholarship does more than cover tuition and living expenses; it creates room for learning, reflection, and growth, with a focus on enterprise, climate-related work, and transitions that help you think about where you are coming from, where you are going, and who you are becoming. For me, it is proof of what can happen when rejection is rethought, reframed, and redirected, and it opens the door to an MSc in Africa and International Development at the University of Edinburgh. Most of all, it reminds me that sometimes the real gift is not only in the “yes” you finally receive, but in the many “no’s” that grow you into the person who can carry that “yes” well.
Seventeen rejections later, I hope my one “yes” inspires you to take a chance on your own win, on your own opportunity. Keep dreaming, keep creating, keep becoming.
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