Staying away from negativity

For Early Career Researchers - Staying Away from Negativity

I felt compelled to write this note after observing a few early career researchers unintentionally derail their careers by following negative advice. The early stages of a research career, including the PhD and the years immediately after, can sometimes feel lonely and confusing because they are largely self-driven journeys of investigation. When you feel uncertain or lost, it is natural to seek advice from many people. This is often where some researchers become vulnerable.

Your supervisor or immediate mentor usually understands your research, your strengths, and your weaknesses better than anyone else. For that reason, they are often the most direct with you, and that honesty can sometimes feel uncomfortable. However, in most cases, they also have a genuine interest in your long-term success. By contrast, people who have little at stake in your progress can sometimes offer advice that sounds pleasant but is designed to satisfy short-term comfort rather than long-term growth. Occasionally, such comfort is needed - but it is important to recognise that there are also individuals who may have ulterior motives, including jealousy or unresolved conflicts with your lab or group, and may influence you in subtle ways.

A researcher’s professional value ultimately comes from three things: their ability to investigate questions in ways that create value, their innovativeness, and their attitude toward accomplishing meaningful goals. An adversary cannot easily take away the first two. However, they can weaken you by influencing your attitudes. Be cautious of advice that discourages effort, ambition, or initiative. Research is fundamentally about challenging existing norms, beliefs, methods, or systems. That process inevitably requires you to challenge yourself. This is the difficult part. It demands perseverance, resilience, and the courage to try things that may fail before they succeed.

Sometimes external voices may encourage you to aim for the bare minimum: do just enough to pass a PhD, extend projects unnecessarily, or treat the early stages of a research career primarily as a way to delay difficult decisions. Such advice may sound sympathetic or supportive, but it can be deeply harmful. If your goal is to build a strong and stable career - whether in academia, industry, or entrepreneurship - the most reliable path is to invest effort in doing solid experiments, producing meaningful publications, and developing skills that make you valuable in your field. This approach accelerates opportunities and places you on a trajectory where your skills and professional attitudes reinforce each other over time.

In contrast, doing the minimum merely to buy time often erodes motivation, weakens relationships within the lab or research group, reduces support from mentors, and leaves you without the capabilities needed to succeed in the next stage of your career.

A final point concerns recognising unhealthy influences. Occasionally, individuals present themselves as friendly, supportive, and generous, while quietly undermining others. They may appear innovative and personable, which can make them widely liked. At the same time, they may subtly damage competitors through rumours, misplaced advice, or by encouraging unproductive attitudes. They may invest in social gestures - gifts, lunches, or friendly conversations - but with hidden expectations or strategic intent.

A common pattern is that such individuals avoid responsibility, shy away from clear commitments, and seldom give credit to others. They may consume significant time and energy from those around them while remaining ungrateful and personally unaccountable.

People like this can be difficult to recognise quickly. Awareness develops with experience. The safest approach for an early career researcher is to remain anchored to clear goals: doing rigorous work, maintaining professional integrity, seeking advice from trusted mentors, and continuously building the skills and attitudes that will carry you forward in your career.