How to overcome academic disappointments? Personal coping strategies and supportive academic community
Failures and rejections hurt, but they can also be learning experiences. In addition to personal strategies, the role of the academic community in perceiving and dealing with disappointments is crucial.
Based on our own experience and discussions with the participants of the Academic Life Discussion event, there seems to be many ways to cope with academic disappointments. An experienced researcher knows that there will be ups and downs in their career and that even after low point of two rejections in one day, the wheel of fortune is likely to turn.
Personal coping strategies varied from feelings of sorrow, anger, shame and rumination to action, black humour and grit.
Sleeping a few nights, doing meaningful things both at work and out of academia, feeling good at something, seeing strengths, and sharing experiences with friends and other academics were considered.
One can also learn from these disappointing experiences as they may function as positive turning points in one’s career, as a seedbed or learning and growth. At its best, constructive but also critical feedback helps to develop one’s scientific thinking and writing.
Disappointments such as rejected grant applications often force a researcher to find alternative ways to pursue their line of research, change a perspective or update their way of thinking.
Disappointments can also encourage the researcher to take the next concrete steps to achieve their goals – be it mobility, new collaborators or a topical scientific paper.
Researchers spend a huge amount of time applying for funding. However, applying for or receiving funding does not guarantee scientific impact in the way that publishing high-quality research articles does. However, often the grant applications are incremental in advancing one’s scientific thinking needed for high-quality publications. Often, funding applications stimulate a researcher's scientific thinking step by step, which can also contribute to the production of high-quality publications. Negative funding decisions can therefore also benefit publications.
Towards an academic community with a supportive and secure place to take risks
The academic community can do a lot to help researchers in dealing with disappointments. This does not mean only emphatic reactions from supervisors and colleagues after disappointments but also the academic culture and how failures are perceived in general.
First and foremost, it could be considered whether it even is a failure if one does not get funding after trying it out.
Should it be appreciated as such, and should positive feedback be given also to those who tried but were not awarded. This could reduce high expectations and the pressure related to rejections.
Further, in addition to creating a secure and supportive work culture, the academic community can help with many practicalities related to successful research outcomes. This could include various kinds of support for writing applications, such as sparring, sharing experiences and assisting in submitting proposals, but also after an unsuccessful application.
One place for offering this kind of support is annual development/goal discussions. Another way is to find a personal mentor to talk to.
A key to a supportive academic community is that its members feel that possible ethically challenging situations, such as feelings of unfairness related to funding or work positions, are properly addressed. This helps the members of the academic community to focus their attention to future accomplishments and perhaps new career paths.
Professor Anna Rönkä is working for the Department of Education and Research Director Katja Kokko for the Gerontology Research Center and the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä. They were hosting the Academic Life discussion event “Uncommon topics and disappointments rarely discussed”, which was part of peer mentoring program organised by the JYU.Well community.
