This is going to be a very stream of conscious rant as I've had a little wine to drink tonight... judge me at your own peril :)

One of the hardest things I've dealt with as a new designer (and I'm sure many of you have too) is dealing with rejection. This may mean many different things to many different people but for me it's having a design not do as well as I'd like to expect. I develope an attachment to my designs, whether it be purely personal or more symbolic there is an emotional attachment to my designs that I can't simply ignore. At times, this attachment becomes almost obsessive, where I double, triple, and quadruple-check how many people have voted for my design or left comments on it. Now I know that I'm being paranoid, but I've put a lot of time into my work and I'd like to think I'm being fairly rewarded for that investment. So how do you deal with a design that doesn't fair so well with the general populace?

I don't deal with it well. I haven't for a while. I don't know what I expect (laurels of gold please). I deal with it by making more designs, by hoping that the next one imprints something on someone that makes it magnificent, not only in my eyes but on their eyes as well. People have told me I have talent and skill, but I'm not so sure I see it yet. There's a lot more left to do and I don't think I can always let myself become too attached to my designs that I lose sight of the bigger picture out there: this site and this dream of mine isn't about one design and one competition, it's about a lifetime commitment to making something better - making myself and my artwork better.

How do you deal with rejection? How do you make that next design your best, when your best before just wasn't good enough?