Chapter 13

Celebrate Your Success

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. Albert Schweitzer

Finally, after a great deal of effort and hard work, you have obtained the results you were trying to get for such a long time. You may be so busy (and tired) that you dont even realize that you have indeed achieved a certain measure of success. Perhaps it will take a few more months before you can present your work at a conference or submit it to a scientic journal. But what you present or submit for publication will be based on the results you have just obtained. You have reached an important milestone, so its time to celebrate! All too often success is not celebrated properly, and you just set your nose back to the grindstone without even taking a moment to pat yourself on the back. In this chapter we make an argument for the importance of celebrating your success, as well as taking the time to thank others for their contribution and support. So whatever you do, close your lab notebook, turn off the Bunsen burner, and take a moment to bask in the rewards of hard work.

The art of celebrating success

Striving for the best requires a lot of effort. You will encounter many hurdles on your way to the top. Such platitudes hold true for many areas of life including research and athletics, for example, that are performed on the highest level. There is, however, one major difference between athletes and researchers. In the sports world they know how to celebrate success. No matter what you know about the sporting world, or whether you happen to care about it at all, you are familiar

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with the way that athletes celebrate their triumphs. We have all seen pictures of overowing champagne bottles or athletes cavorting with glee as they cross the nish line ahead of the pack. In fact, every sport has its own tradition, where the research world seems to be at a loss about how to throw a proper party. We are serious scientists, after all! But sometimes its necessary to let your hair down and have a party. Apart from the fun involved, it is a great way to celebrate your success.

Why celebrate your success?

Scientic research can be a long and tedious process. It starts with ideas and brainstorming, followed by research protocols and experiments, and ends with a report to the scientic community. But it shouldnt stop there. Here are three reasons why proper celebrations should be an integral part of the research life. 1. To acknowledge co-workers for their contribution to your success. We make progress in life and work because we stand on the shoulders of others. It goes without saying that we make use of collaborative networks established by others; we use equipment built and designed by others; we analyse data using software written by others; we do research based on concepts sketched by others, use questionnaires developed or validated by others, and so on. In spite of this, it is natural to feel that your work (and your work alone) made your recent progress possible. We all have a tendency to underestimate the contribution of others. By celebrating your success with the people around you and thanking them for their contribution you acknowledge, in an explicit way, their contribution to your success. They deserve it, and by thanking them in a visible way, they will be more willing to help you again as you work towards your next milestone. 2. Because reection is an important part of the learning process. Youve probably already discovered that you can learn valuable lessons about a process by studying what went wrong. But it is equally important to reect on your successes. Why did it work

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(against all odds)? Why has nobody else performed these experiments? What triggered the research? What helped you in getting the data rst, before anyone else? Whos assistance has been critical? Analyzing the reasons for your success might help you in the next phase of your research. Luck is for those who know how to nd it. 3. Celebrations create a positive atmosphere. When you and your co-workers celebrate progress on a regular basis, you will create a winners mood within the group. In such an atmosphere your team will nd more inspiration to tackle the next problem, helping to pave the way to the next milestone.

What defines success?

Of course winning the Noble prize is a good reason to throw a little party. But that should not be the standard denition of success. After all, few people actually ever win the Nobel. But during your PhD years there will certainly be a couple of occasions for thanking others for their contribution and support. A very natural moment to celebrate your success is the acceptance of a manuscript by a scientic journal. At some institutes, it is a tradition for the rst author to bring cake for the whole team on such occasions. In other research programmes it might take much longer before the publications appear, for instance, because new equipment or methodology has to be developed and tested. In that case you might celebrate when the equipment is ready (dont forget to include the people from the technical workshop) and fully operational.

How can you celebrate your success?

Celebrating success works the same way as giving someone a thank you present. It is important that you do it immediately and with the best intentions. Just as you would give someone a nicely wrapped present the day after someone passes an exam, you might bring a cake

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and other celebratory goodies to the lab the day after you obtained the key data for your article. Whatever you do, use your imagination and do something fun for yourself and those around you. Everybody enjoys a good party. So take a moment to raise your glass and toast yourself and those around you for a job well done.