Jennieke Cohen (Dangerous Alliance) makes a worthy statement:
“It’s so simple to let rejections take their toll, but we have to keep dusting ourselves off. After all, if you keep your work to yourself, your chance of anyone liking it is nil, whereas submitting could lead to something great. I’ll take slim odds over none any day of the week. And if you are professional and send your materials to enough people, hopefully you’ll be lucky enough to find the person who loves your work as much as you do!”
In essence, reject those rejection thoughts and believe in your story and those beta readers who love it too. Don’t keep a great story to yourself. Keep up the worth challenge to impress a literary agent with the best manuscript that time and energy can polish until it shines bright enough to catch their eye (and their heart).