Rejection Still Sucks But In Different Ways

Rejection *always* sucks... but how it sucks evolves...

After a brutal start to the year in terms of rejection after rejection, I wanted to post a Hacking Academia video on the nature of rejection, and how it can evolve, in a professional academic and research career. 

In the video, I cover the transition from rejection feeling very personal early in your career, to rejection generating concern over the wellfare and reactions of those in your team involved in the rejected initiative, especially junior and early career researchers and academics.

I cover how rejection, to a certain extent, is a sign that you're setting your sights and aspirations at about the right level.

I touch on the broader perspective you gain later in your career, where you have enough data points to know that something you're confident is good value work has a good chance of *eventually* getting over the line, but that the short-term volatility can be brutal. Of course, knowing that rationally, and feeling fine about it emotively, is a whole different matter...

Finally I cover what can be a somewhat confronting concept - that sustained rejection can be a useful signal that you are no longer competitive in a certain area that formed your core identity earlier in your career - confronting, but by no means career ending: just a signal that can help you continue to evolve your career over time. This situation can occur for a wide variety of ways: most typically simply that what you were 110% dedicated to early on is now just a part-time component of your role, especially in ultra-competitive fields where you can't really part-time it.

And yes - that's a clear clickbait thumbnail for the video - am experimenting, I'm sure some people will hate it, but let's see what the various algorithms do... 

🖥️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/GqK9cTFNPlg

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