Success isn’t linear
When you train for a sport, or develop a new exercise routine, there are often immediate successes. In fact, it can be easy to find success when everything is new. However, there invariably comes a time when performance plateaus, or even regresses. Illnesses or injuries happen. These moments require an adjustment in your training regimen: you may try new exercises, change the intensity of your workouts, or just take a nap instead.
In academia, once you’ve experienced your first successes, you might think you’ve found the formula. If you just keep pushing, maintaining this exact level of performance, then the achievements will surely continue to pile up. Probably faster than ever!
Ongoing success is expected of academics. There are terms like ‘upward trajectory’ that are used in tenure and promotion reviews that signify that a researcher has shown year-on-year improvement. The implication there being that past success is the best predictor of future success, and that future success has the potential to be even greater. But that graph has never been a straight line.
In academia, as in sport, you can’t expect to outpace yesterday every day. You will burn out. Nor can you expect that every year will bring more achievements—grant funding, publications, breakthrough findings—than the previous year; at some point, that becomes improbable. These expectations don’t take into consideration all of the external forces that you cannot control. (Remember the widespread research setbacks that occurred as a result of the restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic?) These expectations also ignore the other, very real, facets of your life—hobbies and vibrant social engagements with family and friends, and any physical and/or mental health challenges that demand your time and attention. In academia, as in sport, there will come a time when your performance regresses. That’s ok. It is expected, and it may even be necessary.
Recognize that there are tradeoffs that occur as you move through your career, and treat every year—or set of years—as its own season, with its own unique set of career goals. For example, if you are running low on grant funds, your energies during one season may be primarily devoted to submitting multiple grant applications. If you’re flush with funding, you may be in a season of data collection and manuscript submission. If you have been leading your department as Chair for the past five years, perhaps you move into your sabbatical season with a decreased focus on output, and a renewed focus on rest and rejuvenation. Your performance may need to regress during one season so that you can harness the energy and creativity to succeed in the next. Think of different seasons of your career like a farmer thinks of their fields: sometimes crops are planted and sometimes the field is left fallow—deliberately left empty during a given growing season—so that the soil can recover, biodiversity is enhanced, and the resulting stored nutrients produce a larger yield in the future.
What season of your career are you in now? Where would you like the next season of your career to take you? If you are at one of the milestone moments in your career—having just received tenure or been promoted to Associate, or even Full, Professor—this is an opportune time to consider these questions. Remember that success isn’t linear, and ideally, you will have a long and healthy career to achieve your strategic vision and to realize your goals in a way that matters for you. If you are feeling stagnant within a season, it may be time to evaluate what is and what is not working for you, and adjust accordingly—reach out, I’d love to help.
Next week: Academics need communities of mentors and allies
