As noted previously, you can respond to your wilderness experience negatively or positively. Your choice will determine how you survive or thrive and how you will leave the island.
POSSIBLE NEGATIVE, DESTRUCTIVE RESPONSES:
Are you exhibiting any of the following behaviors or have you noticed them in your colleagues?
1. Negative attitude expressed in constant grumbling, murmuring, belly-aching, and complaining
2. Blaming your colleagues, administration, staff, or students (i.e., the “blame game”)
3. Shouting, harsh words, rudeness, insults, put-downs, or mean and nasty comments directed at colleagues, staff, or students
4. Shirking responsibilities by not attending meetings or appointments, disappearing for hours at a time, not being available to students and colleagues, and/or being late for class
5. Becoming hardened and bitter about what’s happening
These behaviors are self-destructive, plus they can make everybody around you miserable. You will drive people away. Further, it is total waste of an opportunity to improve yourself as a professional, as you tackle each challenge.
POSSIBLE POSITIVE, CONSTRUCTIVE RESPONSES:
Alternatively, do any of these behaviors ring a bell?
1. Positive attitude to see this experience as an opportunity to grow and mature, and, just maybe, become wiser and stronger
2. Perceive this experience as: “This is only a test. If this had been an actual emergency, it wouldn’t be taking so long!” It’s just another trial on your professional journey.
3. Persevere and move forward in spite of limitations, barriers, and set-backs
4. Release your creative juices to seek solutions with fewer resources, kinda like that classic scene from Apollo 13
5. Reassess your time management or take a time-management seminar so you can become more efficient at handling the increased number of tasks in less time
6. Be grateful you have a job where you still can do something you love, such as teach or write, or do research or clinical practice, or drive people nuts, or any combination of the preceding
This experience will test what you are really made of (“Yo, preposition boy! Stop ending sentences with you know what!” Sorry.). Your true character will reveal itself, perhaps to the surprise of you and the people with whom you work. Which self is that going to be? How will you exit this wilderness?
Let me know your reactions and any suggestions that can help others survive. We’re all in this academic metaphor together!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
2ND BLOG FROM TAIWAN:The final blog in this series on journal publishing comes to you from Taichung, Taiwan, home of Chung Shan Medical University. Traveling outside of the U.S. to another country and culture always puts my life into perspective. This trip has been no different than my previous trips. This experience has been incredible and the people I have met on this journey have been so gracious. It is with the deepest humility as a professional, that I present this blog.
TOP 3 TIPS
This blog series and the comments in the discussions on the LinkedIn Higher Education Teaching & Learning group have been larded with advice, tips, and insights. I wish I had known all of this when I started publishing.
To end this series, I thought I’d list the 3 most valuable tips I could offer to improve your success in journal publishing:
1. DO YOUR JOURNAL HOMEWORK: Study the journals thoroughly for what they publish, writing style, readership, theory or practice, and special issues past and future to which you might contribute. Write your article for a specific journal in the pub style they require. Don’t shotgun your article to any random journal in hopes that it will hit the target.
2. REQUEST COLLEAGUES FOR PRE-SUBMISSION REVIEWS: Send your manuscript to trusted experts on your topic who can provide input on everything about your manuscript before submitting to a journal. They can greatly improve the accuracy of the content, style of writing, and quality of writing that can markedly improve your chances of success, plus suggest appropriate journals.
3. PERSEVERE: Never give up no matter how stinging the editor’s or reviewers’ comments may be. After you get off your knees, bounce right back and hit every criticism in your revision or cover letter. KEEP MOVING FORWARD and have several manuscripts in review and in progress at all times.
POSTMORTUM
I’ve learned sooo much from reviewers’ comments over my 35 years of writing articles for journals. I can’t do it alone. Further, a regular diet of editors’ and reviewers’ comments can sustain a spirit of humility throughout your writing career, plus it may even result in a few worthwhile contributions to the published literature.
BEST WISHES IN ALL OF YOUR PUBLISHING EFFORTS!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
“Are you kidding me? Bending over to pick up the newspaper in the driveway is a major athletic event for me. I’m so glad it’s not timed.” I’m not referring to athletic conditioning. Consider the athletes’ preparation and performance as a professional. Do you share any characteristics in common with those super-athletes? Can you learn anything from their work ethic and practices?
OLYMPIC JOB REQUIREMENTS
Their journey to the Olympics involves the following dozen attributes. These are the job requirements of an Olympian:
• major work commitment and ethic
• commitment to excellence (aka “to be the BEST”)
• unwavering focus on the prize
• ability to overcome obstacles and setbacks
• ability to deal with pressure and stress
• ability to persevere in spite of physical pain and injury
• engaging in your quest because you love doing it
• positive attitude toward attaining the ultimate outcome
• commitment to years of rigorous training
• serving as a role model for the next generation
• willingness to make significant sacrifices
• obtaining financial support for training and preparation
YOUR JOB REQUIREMENTS
Although the Olympians get to march in the opening ceremonies and you don’t, think of the above list as your job requirements. Do you possess any of those attributes as a professional in academia, business, or a semi-illegal activity on 24? Let me ask this another way: Which of those requirements DO NOT apply to you? They seem relevant to faculty and administrators. If some of them don’t apply, you might need to carefully examine what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
What are the differences between Olympians and YOU? The next blog will answer that.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
