Reading through other people’s achievements makes it too easy to fall into despair and self-doubt. Our own failures seem numerous and successes not as significant. That’s why a Princeton professor shared his CV of Failures (PDF) with this intro:
Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible. I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me. As a result, they are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days. This CV of Failures is an attempt to balance the record and provide some perspective.