You can do everything right and still not get it. That’s the hardest truth about ambition, and the most freeing.

Effort raises your odds without ever buying the outcome, which also depends on who else applied, what the budget was, and the mood of the room. That is genuinely hard to sit with, and it is also the only version of the world where a rejection is not a report on your worth. If preparation guaranteed results, every no would mean you were deficient. Since it does not, a no is allowed to just mean no.

Separate two questions after the next disappointment: did I do the work, and did I get the thing. When the first answer is yes, you are holding the part you can keep.