So Terry, where's the updates?

First of all, apologies, apologies! I know I got some following on my blog now and some people are wondering what is going on now that I haven’t updated my blog for a week.

HAS TERRY GIVEN UP?

IS TERRY DEPRESSED AGAIN?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE???

The answer to those questions are: No, no and 42. Respectively of course.

We are creatures made to evolve and adapt, and 20 days into my rejection challenge, it is time for me to evolve this challenge as well!

There are two main objectives in this project: to get myself more socially confident, and to fundraise and raise awareness for depression. I can say with a degree of certainty that so far, I have successfully generated quite a bit of interest, and the challenges themselves had been pretty helpful to me personally. Now that I am three weeks into my rejection challenge, I am beginning to get a feel for what is working and what is not, and I realized there are several issues I need to fix in order for this project to take off. The biggest issue is the lack of organization. I often find myself trying to think on the last minute for the daily challenges, and I often question and second guess myself the effectiveness and goal of doing these things.

Over the last several days, I temporarily suspended my rejection challenge to assess the direction I am going with this project (though I did do a challenge on my birthday on video to keep up the promise of a video a week…it’s coming out Sunday!) and decided to implement several changes when I reboot next Monday.

ONE: THEMED CHALLENGES

Starting next week, I will do challenges based on a theme indicated below. I will probably do 5 to 10 challenges per theme before moving on to the next theme. Before the start of each theme, I will do a write up to explain the purpose and the details of each theme. The themes are designed to make things more organized and interesting as well as help me in specific areas of social confidence. For each challenge, I will vlog right before and right after to talk about the thoughts and feelings and try to recap with more pictures and less words as promised previously. There will be a video for at least one challenge per theme.

Part 1: The Launch

The start of my rejection challenge where I did miscellaneous challenges to get a feel for this project. This part of the challenge is complete!

Part 2: The Pitch

During this part of the challenge, I will try to gather information and generate discussions regarding depression awareness, stigma, and my rejection challenge itself with people everywhere. This will not only help me grow confident in pitching for my own project, but help spread the word.

Possible challenges: The elevator fundraising challenge,

Part 3: Making Conversations

During this part of the challenge, I will try to get into conversations with various different people about various absurd topics in all kinds of settings. This is a good way for me to get myself comfortable in making and maintaining conversations with strangers. It will improve my communication skills and make me become more socially assertive.

Possible challenges:

Part 4: The Salesman

The ability to persuade others is an extremely important asset not only in the world of sales, but in life in general. Our ability to communicate persuasively is a skill that I severely lack. I will try to sell a variety of ideas and products to different people during this part of the challenge

Possible challenges: Getting funding for a business venture, selling condoms

Part 5: University Tour

It’s time to hit the road and travel a bit. Many of my old friends are studying for the summer and it’s a good time to catch up while doing some interesting challenges at different universities.

Possible challenges: Looking for free lodging, Offer to teach a lecture

Part 6: Dress Up!

During this part of the challenge, I will dress up in various ways and in costumes to look ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. I’d imagine I’ll be having a lot of fun with this, haha.

Possible Challenges: Dining at a restaurant in an onesie, trick or treating as Waldo

Part 7: Barhopping

As a guy who loves meeting new people, hearing stories and have fun, I’ve always been interested in the bar scene. However, due to my lack of social confidence, and what happened over the last several years, I never really took advantage of my legality. I will try to change that with this part of my challenge.

Possible Challenges: Getting Bartenders to teach me how to make drinks, getting people to buy me a free drink

Part 8: Picking up girls

Of course, it won’t be a rejection challenge if I don’t get rejected by girls. The goal here is to be real creative, because err, bitches love creativity ;D.

Once again, the goal here is to have fun with it, and not get attached to results, which we guys always tend to do when it comes to girls.

Possible Challenging: Using lame pickup lines, asking directly for numbers

Part 9: The Beach

The hope here is that I will have the beach body ready to hit the sands. ;D I will try a few bolder challenges on the beach and hopefully with a bunch of friends participating with me!

Possible Challenges: Asking people to rub sunscreen on me, join a beach valleyball game in progress

Part 10: The Finale

I will try to make the last few challenges grander and more personal.

Possible Challenges: Asking CP24 to forecast the weather, Asking R.A Dickey to teach me how to throw a knuckleball

TWO: FUNDRAISING AND MARKETING

The video and blog revenue will NOT be the only source of fundraising for this project. After several friends expressed interest to donate, I have decided to accept open donations from those willing to fundraise for this cause. I will set up a paypal account to accept online donations as well shortly. Although I will be even happier if you are willing to participate in a challenge with me, I appreciate any sort of help! 

I have scaled down the marketing after the release of my first video due to several reasons. I realized the quality of the video does not warrant the amount of interest I am trying to generate. It is obvious that I am only trying to get a feel for being on video at the moment, and it is rather uncomfortable than entertaining to watch me struggle on camera thus far. Too much publicity early on into this project is going to put unnecessary pressure and stress for me at this point. So I am planning to operate the challenges under a smaller spotlight until I feel more comfortable with more attention.

I will direct a video with a help of Derek and several friends in about a month to further explain the motivation and the goal of this project. That is when I plan to push for a bigger marketing campaign. For now though, the constant support of friends will do!

Once again, I will like to thank all of you for keeping me accountable over the last several weeks. I could have easily given up without you guys watching me, reading my blog! I promise I will not give up! For the sake of myself and everyone else!