“I did not think I was an atrocious writer,” my friend Ashani texted me a few months ago, “until a prestigious journal told me in two rounds of reviews that my writing is unclear. Argghh!”
The next day, I got an urgent message from a former coaching client that began, “I know you’re busy but…” When I got him on the phone later that afternoon, he said he’d just gotten some discouraging feedback about an article he’d thought was ready to send out for review. By the time we spoke, he was thinking of giving up on the piece entirely. A few hours later, I talked with a current client, a junior faculty member who was presenting and publishing at a steady rate, but nevertheless felt worried about her tenure file. An article she thought was a perfect fit for a special issue had been rejected and she was pretty disappointed. After talking about it for a while, she finally voiced the fear that lay beneath her disappointment: “Maybe,” she said slowly, “I’m just not cut out for this job.” |