How to be more confident in your creative abilities in science
A lab discussion and lessons from it
During a recent lab meeting in our group we talked about writing viewpoint and opinion papers, and this led to a very interesting discussion. A main limitation for people to fulfill their creative potential in science appears to be be related to confidence.
How do you build up your confidence in creative matters in science? Like in terms of writing a viewpoint or opinion paper, or otherwise following up on an idea you have?
Here are some points that may come up in your mind, and that have come up in our meeting. And some suggestions for how to overcome them….
I don’t want to put myself out there/ embarrass myself. This is probably the most significant issue. Your fear of embarrassment, your fear of putting yourself out there.
It’s real; yes you will be putting yourself out there. But you should know that when you are in a generally supportive environment, you should be able to overcome this limitation. You’re not going to go for the whole world as the first step. You’re first going to work on this yourself, then maybe share it with friends to get their input, and then your supervisor or colleague. So, you’re not alone, and these are all mechanisms to protect you.
I don’t have any good ideas.
You do. If you read about your science and work on this subject, you will inevitably have ideas. You will definitely have ideas. But perhaps you are not writing them down. Write them down, think about them, make this a priority. Don’t censor yourself, take your own ideas seriously. This takes practice. I suggest just noting down your ideas in a document you keep open. I do the same.
I can’t judge if an idea is good or not
This is likely true when you’re an early career researcher. However, you’re not alone. Other people can help you with this. So this is not a good reason to not pursue something. Share it with your advisor or colleague and see why they think about it. Chances are that when they think it’s good, that it really is something worth pursuing. If it turns out the idea doesn’t work out, then you haven’t really lost much. All you did was chat with someone about it.
I am not experienced enough, nobody cares about what I think
This is partly true. Of course you can more easily have ideas when you have worked on some topic for 10+ years. And it is also true that in general journals tend to be more interested in what more experienced researchers think. But: sometimes coming to a topic from the outside can be a catalyst for good ideas, you’re not burdened down by all the knowledge. Or limited by it. This can be advantage. So don’t sell yourself short. Yes journals can be biased towards ideas of more experienced researchers. But you could include those people, most likely your advisor, in the writing of your paper or in terms of pursuing of your idea, if you like.
This will just be a distraction from my real work (experiments, data collection).
This depends on your lab and your field’s culture. In my field, opinions, viewpoint papers are highly appreciated. And thus they can be a part of your thesis if you are a PhD student, and they can form part of your output, they contribute to your productivity and your standing in the field. Such papers make you think more broadly about your topic and the evidence available, and this will help you also with writing your other work. Also these papers can be rather short, they are not full-blown exhaustive reviews. You can work on them while you do your other work to see how they develop.
Did you recognize some of these issues? Do you have others you’d like to add? Please let me know in the comments.
I hope you find this helpful. We really need all the good ideas we can get!
Thank you for putting this together! You’ve articulated it in a clear concise manner; it feels good to see these notions in words.
I’d like to add to the first point about embarrassment is that, one shouldn’t worry too much about it because it is inevitable. One should keep in mind a few things when they come across criticism: What the criticism is aimed at? Is it a valid criticism? What is the intention of the critic? And to always think well of the critic: they’re criticizing the idea, not you; they might have misunderstood or fully comprehended the idea, so they do have a point (you either misdelivered or there is a real limitation); and they’re not evil bullies (that’s the default, unless proven otherwise).
I find this helps us with two things: 1. That we stop worrying about what others think of us, making it less personal and lighter on the heart; and 2. It’s valid feedback! What’s more valuable than that coming to you on a free plate?
I think many of us think that they’re impostors or feel “little” in comparison with the average individual in their community, but they’ve got to start somewhere and they won’t learn if they shelter themselves. They should always expect that there will be a negative response, that can be rude. The intention behind it could be benign or malicious, but one should be resilient to both: the bad method and the ill intent. That’s part of being in the wild of a community is to accept things like that and not let it consume all your thoughts. Students in that situation should be very objective and only regard that which adds to their benefit: valuable feedback.
But I really love this article. Thank you for writing it. But, I have a question about the “idea”-keeping part.
What constitutes an idea, in general? Like, for an idea to be complete in your idea-book, what are the elements that are essential to an idea, and how to refine them?