If At First You Don't Succeed ...

Being a good scientist means you have to be good at accepting critique, handling rejection, and knowing that - in part - a lot of your success depends on the opinions/agendas/prejudices of others. My advice? Understand this is the way it works, and don't take it personally.

Let's take grants for example. Maybe you've just written a stellar one - one that (you believe) is going to change the way we do science. Or how we understand the effects of climate change. Or will make a difference in the lives of every bilby in outback Australia. Your work is clever, and do-able, and meaningful.

But it still doesn't get funded.

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Don't take it to heart - granting bodies have agendas, just like the rest of us. They have directions they want to move towards; they have a finite amount of money; panel members have their own personal interests; and maybe - unbeknownst to you - they've just given $2 million to someone else to study bilbies.

Remember, sometimes it's not you - it's them.

The same goes for submitting papers. You know you've done good work. And maybe it won't get published in Nature (this time) ... but the best thing you can do for your research and for your future Nature papers is just get it out there. New ideas often meet resistance - I mean, we are scientists ... our training is based around judging ideas/methods/analyses with a critical eye. So the more you can show off your research - including those novel ideas - the more credibility you will give yourself in the long run.

Personally, I've never had a paper accepted without revisions on the first go. But, I've also revised rejected papers and got them into higher-ranking journals ... so, if at first you don't succeed ...

Definitely keep trying.