On the web, most researchers brag about their achievements.
Totally understandable. In this day and age, people search for your CV online when considering your job application, and you've got to tell them how good you are. A successful psychology professor at Princeton University posted a CV of Failures, which encourages me to write something similar. In a nutshell, my career (or my whole life) consists of a series of unsuccessful attempts, punctuated by occasional (but very critical) successes. I don't want to chronologically list all my failures as the list is too long to remember. All I can say is that some of my papers got rejected, job applications got declined, & grant application got turned down. I made some bad decisions at research, which later thwarted progress. I also made a few bad decisions in my personal life, which also adversely affected many things. It's a bit of a cliché to say everyone fails and everyone errs. But I think it's very important that we talk openly about our failures. Telling tales of our unsuccessful experiences encourages people who are struggling to deal with similar setbacks. It's even more important to learn from mistakes. However, it's not easy - not many people understand why they trip up, and sometimes it takes a lot of self-reflection to come to the realisation about why things go wrong. I listen to Jess Glynn's "Don't be so hard on yourself" when I feel dispirited about research. It helps. |