Time for some motivation!—hopefully, you’re inspired.
In a previous blog post, Jonathan and Yisrael gave advice on the importance of being positive in research. In this post, we (Benedicte and Semira) will elaborate on that.
Research requires patience–a lot of it. But doing research also teaches you how to be patient. There are risk and uncertainty involved in achieving undiscovered results.
This is the mentality of a scientist: failing is an opportunity to try again. And this applies to our daily lives too. Failure builds character and leads to success only if we learn from it. In terms of science, numerous discoveries have been made based on accidents.
Before being involved in our projects, we barely knew anything about our topics. As freshmen, for most of us, it was our first time being involved in (proper) research.
For some of us, we expected to see visible results and so it was quite frustrating at first. But over time, we all began to appreciate the smallest achievements in our lab and take ownership over the projects we worked on.
Research can be frustrating. But it isn’t always about the end product. Often it’s about the process.
There have been times when we predicted a hypothesis and expected a specific result. We might have been so sure about the result, but then the numbers said otherwise.
THAT’S OKAY.
Uncertainty is guaranteed because research is based on uncertainty. Instead of agonizing over what went wrong, troubleshoot. Think about the possible ways of improving the results. Through the mistakes you make, you gain a new (and sometimes unexpected) perspective on your project.
Yes, research can be frustrating and requires patience. But, it is rewarding. To sum it all, here’s what Denis Waitley, an American motivational speaker, said:
“Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.”
That’s good stuff.
Benedicte R. Machili F. — Neurology and Physiology, UMCP
Semira Said — Nutrition Science, UMCP
Aptamers and Biosensors 
Hello! I really enjoyed the post you’ve written. I can totally relate to it because over the summer, my project didn’t go as planned and there was a lot of troubleshooting. I found that staying positive and realizing that we are making discoveries in the things that don’t seem to work very helpful when being a scientist!
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Wow awesome post. It’s really motivating. It’s true that failure is the stepping stone to success. One should not lose heart after just one attempt. We should all observe the mistakes that led to failure and try to overcome them in the next attempt. One thing I would suggest is to connect the idea and relate to something that we are going through right now. Then it would be a really encouraging blog post not just for researchers but also everyone else.
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This is a really great post, it’s simple and to the point and gives a causal understanding feeling. I love the fact that you related it to yourselves. I love your message of understanding failure is part of the process and moving forward based on what you learned from your failures. One thing I would suggest is to try and relate common everyday events to failure so it does not feel like that you are only addressing scientists.
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Wow this post really spoke to me. Have you guys ever experienced hardship from the lab? If so what was it, and how did you learn from your mistakes?
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Great post, Benedicte and Semira! This post is so motivating and makes me hopeful to continue researching even after not receiving desired results. How did you two handle hardships in data analysis of your own research project? What was most difficult to overcome?
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