How to Stay Motivated in Research
Motivation is an enthusiastic desire or willingness to continue making progress in a particular role, or to work towards a particular goal.
Staying motivated can be difficult for researchers. Failed experiments, negative results and lack of useable data can leave researchers feeling discouraged. The lengthy time gap between starting a research project and the resulting publication can wear down enthusiasm.
鈥淧ersevere!鈥, people say. But perseverance without motivation is often short-lived. Without motivation, work can leave you feeling unsatisfied and uninspired. Don鈥檛 let that happen.
Here are some tips for staying motivated to keep working towards your goals:
Remember Why You Do Research
It鈥檚 hard to stay motivated when you鈥檝e lost sight of your end goal; a common occurrence in research when all the other stresses and strains of daily lab-life weigh you down.
Why did you get into research in the first place? Perhaps you hoped to make a real difference through your research. Young scientists often start out with the ambition to find a cure or unearth a discovery that can change the world, unaware of how difficult the path to a breakthrough truly is.
Remind yourself why you are working on your research project, and that everything you do and every step you take is important and serves a purpose.
Keep Up with Recent Discoveries
You'll see the progress being made in the field and be reminded of how your research project can fit in as a piece of the puzzle. You may be inspired from seeing your project with a 鈥渂ig picture" perspective and gain the motivation to keep it moving forward.
Keep current with your field with our 20 weekly Science Newsletters.
Take Small Steps and Reward Yourself
Research is a long journey to the end result. Waiting for reward in the ultimate goal, such as a publication, can be tiresome.
Don鈥檛 wait until a major accomplishment to reward yourself. Set smaller milestones within your journey and celebrate reaching them. This will make the process itself motivating. If your goal is to finish writing your thesis, reward yourself for writing every 10 pages. If your goal is to publish a paper on your project, celebrate each complete set of data you obtain.
Expect Imperfection
Nothing hinders motivation more than realizing you can鈥檛 reach your goals. Sometimes this is because you鈥檝e set unattainable goals or unrealistic expectations.
You鈥檝e probably read amazing publications, each telling a story of immaculately planned experiments that resulted in an almost perfect series of figures comprised of high quality data.
What you didn鈥檛 see in those publications is how the authors got there鈥攖he failed experiments, the mistakes, and the hypotheses that led nowhere.
The truth is researchers encounter failed experiments, non-statistically significant results, or conflicting data more often than they would like to admit. This is the reality of research. Expecting that some things will not go perfectly as planned can prepare you to adapt to your situation, prevent you from getting discouraged, and help you stay motivated.
I would advise the next generation of scientists to stay curious and stay determined in their work. Science is not easy, and we often face experimental failures and make erroneous hypotheses. Be persistent and keep trying; when the going gets tough, do not lose sight of your initial motivation to do science. Stay firm in your belief that you can contribute to the scientific community and improve the lives of people through scientific innovations, novel discoveries, and development of improved treatments for diseases.
Look Beyond the Bench
You鈥檝e heard the saying 鈥渄on鈥檛 put all your eggs into one basket.鈥 As a researcher, it鈥檚 tempting to put all your focus in one basket: what you do at the bench. The result may be negligence of other important aspects of your career such as their communication, networking, or writing skills.
Realize that it鈥檚 not just what you do at the bench that matters.
Adopt a more multifaceted view of your career. Taking ownership of your personal career growth will help you stay motivated during difficult moments when what you do at the bench isn鈥檛 working out. Regardless of what happens at the bench, you can still feel satisfied about the well-written review article you鈥檝e just produced, or with the new connections you just formed at a networking event. These small wins beyond the bench can boost your motivation.
Work Smart
Being overwhelmed by trying to do too much is another common cause of losing motivation. As tasks accumulate, it's easy for researchers to start working longer hours until it becomes too much鈥攁nd they begin losing the motivation to continue.
Working smarter instead of harder will let you to tackle your tasks more efficiently without adding more hours to your work day. Researchers who do this can stay motivated for longer in their career.
One way of working smarter is by choosing efficient technologies that let you complete experimental procedures faster without compromising your results.
