not a 72-hour playbook. not a framework. just what i actually do.
hour 0-1: let it be bad. i don't do anything. i sit with it. put my phone face down. the instinct to immediately apply somewhere else to 'cancel out' the rejection is the worst possible move and i've learned to not trust it.
sometime that day: text a friend who gets it. not to analyze. just 'got rejected, it sucks.' that's the whole text. having someone receive it matters.
next morning: one question only. 'was there anything in that process that would have been useful to know earlier?' usually the answer is no. sometimes there's a signal. i write it in a notes doc and close it.
day 3-ish: i do something that has nothing to do with work or the search. cook something involved, go somewhere. remind my nervous system that i exist outside of hiring pipelines.
that's it. no journaling prompts, no reframing exercises. just time and low-stakes normalcy.