I remember my first major grant rejection (long time ago, and many since then). I had led a blessed life in that regard; every grant I’d written had been funded and I expected this one to be no different. When I opened the envelope, however, and read the notice that I had not been funded, I was stunned. I cried. I smoked (having quit months before). I kicked my trashcan so hard it put a dent in my office wall. I was demoralized and felt like a failure.

However, when the tears dried and I un-crumpled my trashcan, I read the reviews, and they were actually really helpful. They pointed out some important stuff that I used to re-write the grant, which also was not funded, but on the 3rd try (the old days) it was funded. I learned that the “failure” was an opportunity to do better and that I had to reframe it as such. I learned to actually look forward (sort of) to failure, and that it can ultimately get me I want to go.

“There is no such thing as failure.”

When you read the quote above, what’s your reaction? Do you think it’s untrue? Silly glass-half-empty stuff? What if I told you that only you have the power to decide whether or not something is indeed, a “failure?” Obviously, I believe this is true as evidenced in the above vignette. In fact, I’ve come to believe that the word “failure” has no place in our vocabulary.

Why?

Remember when you played the “opposite day” game when you were a kid? You’d play practical jokes on your family and friends and release some passive aggression in the process of claiming “opposite day.” It was great—you could call the cutest boy in the class “ugly,” and then take it all back by simply exclaiming “opposite day!” But, the end result is the same; you still would have acknowledged his cuteness.

Well, let’s play the game. What if today, failure really means success?

How can you acknowledge your success, even as you utter the word “failure”? Well, you can point out:

a. everything that was learned in the process of getting to where you are now—surely not everything goes to the scrap heap

b. that simply being able to recognize everything hadn’t gone according to plan, or achieved the desired outcome (i.e. “failed”), is in itself a positive outcome

c. that the specific path you took this go round, clearly wasn’t the right one and so it has successfully been eliminated and will not be repeated

d. that you’ll know to do things differently in the future

e. that the experience has enabled you to grow in some way

“Failure” is feedback. “Failure” can simply be a great way to get us to pause in the midst of our process, and get some critical information to indicate that we may need to change direction, try something new, continue our learning, or shift our focus. Imagine what would happen if we didn’t get that feedback, and continued endlessly along the wrong path, toward the wrong goal, or without ever learning a new approach? The thought is pretty scary, isn’t it?

Failure then, can really be seen as positive feedback—information that gets us on the right track.
For, without it, we would surely be lost. The key then, is to identify it quickly, and change direction, try something new, or shift our focus.

Here are some tips:

 Always have a clear idea of where you want to go and continue to re-evaluate it as you move forward

 Identify specific milestones or markers along the way, to let you know you’re on the right track and celebrate each success

 If something doesn’t appear to be working, or working fast enough, don’t hesitate to try something new

 Continually learn—from others with whom you work, seek out experts, find others who may have traveled down a similar road before

And always remember:

“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down”

“You NEVER fail until you stop trying”

“If you are not making any mistakes, you’re not really doing anything with your life”

Ah- its the WEEKEND!!! A time to relax, do the things you want to do, and NOT WORK. I know this is hard, but I am a convert to the “not working on the weekends” crowd. I used to spend weekends interspersing checking and answering emails and trying to get “caught up” with family time and so-called relaxing. What I learned was that on Monday morning I was neither “caught up” nor “relaxed”. In fact, I was often more frazzled than when I walked in the door on Friday evening, so I changed some things, and I, my work, and my family are far better off for it. First, the things I’ve learned:

• The work will still be there on Monday. It’s not as if not working on the weekend will somehow remove your opportunity to pick up where you left off on Friday.

• “Caught up” is a myth. There is always something else I can do, and what I do is meet deadlines through careful planning, not through working on the weekends.

• There are no true emergencies in my job. I am not a firefighter, physician, or hostage negotiator. Honestly, nothing is truly an emergency.

• I will not be on my deathbed saying “I wish I’d spent more time in the lab/office.” Getting to the age where more and more of my friends are dying or becoming ill has been a real wake-up call for spending time with the people I love, who, frankly, are not at work.

So what do I do to create and maintain the sacredness of my weekend? Well, I’ve set and hold some very firm boundaries and have set some goals for my personal life just as I have for my professional life. Here are some suggestions that I’ve found helpful:

1. Simply do not do email or work phone calls in the evening or on weekends. Period. The trick here is to communicate this to the people you work with to manage their expectations, especially if this is a change. Just let people know that due to family or personal obligations, you are unavailable for email and phone calls after hours and on weekends.

2. Set goals in your personal life just like you do in your professional life. If you set a goal of completing a training or publishing a book or paper or getting a promotion at work, you plan for it and work for it, right? Do the same thing in your personal life. I set a goal of learning to play tennis, partly for exercise and social activities, and partly so I can play with my daughter. I’m taking steps to meet that goal just as I set and take steps to accomplish things at work.

3. Schedule dates with yourself and other people for non-work activities. Just as you make appointments for work items or events, create calendar entries for personal and family time and activities. Plans are easier to break in favor of work if you do not have an appointment or firm commitment- seeing the date on the calendar can help make the event real and harder to skip in favor of work.

4. Use technology boundaries to separate your work and your life. Maybe it would be helpful to create different computer, email, and instant messaging accounts for personal versus professional activities, as well as separate electronic and paper calendars.

5. Decide on what you will consistently say “no” to: Figure out what kinds of work activities that may cut into your “real life” are worth saying yes to and which ones you’ll say no to. For example, I do a number of invited speaking gigs, and although I am always glad to spend the whole day with the group who invited me, I always decline dinner invitations, as that is prime family/kid/homework time, and I need to be a Mom in the evenings. Likewise, I do a minimum of traveling, and am very careful to choose only conferences that are really worth it professionally; I say no to at least 80% of what I could go to or am invited to.

It was a little tough to commit to and set others’ expectations for these changes in my boundaries, but now that I’ve done it, I find that I return to work on Monday rested, more effective in taking on my work, relaxed, and fulfilled from spending some time with my family and myself. My tennis game still stinks, but that will get better.

So, you’ve probably received them (or maybe even sent them)- what I like to call “emails of mass destruction.” These are emails that should never have been sent, and can take a variety of formats. Once sent and received, they make everyone feel bad, make the sender look stupid, get forwarded to deepen the damage, and cannot be take back. They can seed “flame wars” in email and assure that what could have been a simple conversation or exchange to clear up a misunderstanding becomes instead a full-blown fracas in which many bad feelings are generated and reputations are damaged badly. Some such emails are angry, lashing-out tomes sent by disgruntled co-workers, others are accusatory, paranoid rants from bosses or others. Still others are more emotionally-charged, full of self-pity, victimization, and sob stories designed to make others look or feel bad. Regardless of the content of such emails, they are destructive, at a minimum, to the sender, and to some degree, to the recipient. The good news is that as individuals, we can control the degree to which we both send dangerous emails and how we react when we receive them. Here are some tips for managing yourself on both ends of the email-destruction cycle.

1. Never push “send” while you are angry. No matter what. You will be sorry. I promise. Related to this is never say anything in an email that you have to (or should) apologize for saying. If you are unsure, err on the side of not sending.

2. Do not let the “F-word” (feelings) color your emails. Right now, for example, I am dealing with a colleague who continuously sends emails in which he claims that I am intentionally making him feel depressed and demoralized (and communicates this is CAPITAL LETTERS), although the fact is that he is responsible for feeling that way and my actions have, actually, nothing to do with him- I am merely an easy target. Although he often has something important to offer in his emails, that message gets drowned out by the self-pitying whining. Did I mention that he copies our mutual boss on these emails as well?

3. Related to the point above, remember that email is forever. Once you hit “send”, there’s no going back. Once my colleague above, for example, has sent yet another nastygram about me and how I am out to get him, there is no taking that back; it is in the Provost’s mailbox with his name on it forever.

4. Think about whether it’s really worth it. Is it really worth taking someone to task in an email or would it better to either let it go or just have a conversation? Both are options that prevent the immortalization of the bad feelings you are harboring in a snarky email.

5. Remember that not everything requires a response. When I receive a destructive email, I do not respond to it. I either “go dark” if the email is merely a baiting, nasty attempt to make me look bad, or, more typically, I stop the email cycle by actually talking to the person. Not surprisingly, not only can misunderstandings be worked out much more readily in person, but the venom and vinegar that many folks feel comfortable putting into email somehow evaporates when they are actually looking right at the person. The safety of email makes people say things they would never have the guts (or poor judgment) to say in person, and forcing them to talk to you is pretty disarming.

Email can be a great time-saver, and can also be a great distraction and destructor. The final piece of advice I have to offer is one I repeat to myself over and over again, and it is the Golden Rule: “Do (or email) unto others as you would have them do (or email) unto you.”. I never send an email I would not feel okay receiving, which means that there are many, many, emails that I choose to never send.