We talk about success and failure all the time. You're probably in the habit of telling yourself that you'll never succeed, or that other people are more successful than you are. But do you actually know what you mean when you say things like this? Unless you have a clear conception of who you are and what you care about, you have no idea. Join The Academic Imperfectionist to cut through the bullshit stories we tell ourselves about success and failure, and find out how to write your own rules.

You can find the Wheel of Life and the Core Values exercises on the Resources page of The Academic Imperfectionist website.

There's a free, online version of William James's Principles of Psychology here.

Galen Strawson's Aeon article about life as a narrative (or not) is here.

You've read the inspirational quotes, you've got uplifting affirmations written on post-it notes and stuck to your fridge, you're fully on board with personal growth and empowerment - so why do you still have the inner critic buzzing away inside your head? It must mean you've failed, right? 

Well, no, honey. You're completely normal. You've got the inner critic all wrong, that's all. The bad news is that you're stuck with her. The good news is that she's not in charge of what you think and do - you are.

All that beating yourself up about how lazy you are, and about how you're not achieving the things you need to achieve as fast as you need to achieve them - it's just tough love, right? It's what keeps you going and striving to succeed. Well, actually ... lol no, imperfectionists. Your well-meaning self-criticism and self-shaming are serving no purpose whatsoever. Don't argue. It's science.

Your imperfect friend is back to show you why beating yourself up not only feels bad - it's also holding you back. You can make yourself more productive and efficient by showing yourself some love. Get that kettle on and have a listen for some science-backed ways to feel good and get stuff done.

For the Goal Contract mentioned in this episode, click here.

Do you struggle to cope with uncertainty - about the effects of the pandemic, about your career, about your income, your relationship, and God knows what else? The Academic Imperfectionist is here to break it all down for you. You're going to learn:

1. That it's completely normal to feel stressed and anxious in the face of uncertainty;
2. That the reason uncertainty is stressful is due not only to the possibility of some nasty outcome that you fear, but also to how anticipating it makes you feel;
3. That coping effectively with uncertainty requires two separate strategies: one to try to avert the nasty outcome that you fear, and another to address the stress that anticipating that outcome causes you;
4. How to start implementing both those strategies right now.

Here are the publications mentioned in the episode:

Anderson, E. C., Carleton, R. N., Diefenbach, M., and Han, P. K. J. 2019: ‘The relationship between uncertainty and affect’, Frontiers in Psychology 10.

Loewenstein, G. 1987: ‘Anticipation and the valuation of delayed consumption’, The Economic Journal 97/387: 666–84.

Lovallo, D. and Kahneman, D. 2000: ‘Living with uncertainty: attractiveness and resolution timing’, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 13/2: 179–90. 

And here's Harvard Law School's guide to BATNAs.

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Would you rather boil your head than start the day by making a task list? Does the idea of identifying your core values make you feel faint? Are you terrified to make plans because - what if you get them wrong? You're not alone. Your anxiety about writing down what you need to do and what's important to you is understandable, but misplaced. Join The Academic Imperfectionist for the low-down on all the things you have to gain from embracing imperfect planning.

Find the 'Identify Your Core Values' exercise on the Resources page of The Academic Imperfectionist website.

Here are a some other list-based resources I find useful:

The One Thing website has some really useful exercises for long-term planning and prioritisation - I especially like the 411 and the GPS.

Try the bullet journal method for making effective task lists. You don't need a special journal to do it (although if you really want one, you can buy one). Find instructions about it here.

And of course, for getting clear about exactly what sort of life you want to be living, and working out how to get there, go listen to #5: Bitch, do you even dream? and #6: Live the dream! You can find the exercises mentioned in those episodes - the Wheel of Life and the Ideal Life Instruction Manual - on the Resources page.

So, you heard the last episode, and you're completely on board with not writing being an essential part of writing. But what sort of not-writing is best? Some not-writing activities allow our best ideas to ferment away in the background, growing in goodness like a good batch of sauerkraut. Other not-writing activities, however, grind the whole mental fermentation process to a halt.

The bad news is that, at the moment we decide to take a break from writing, we're especially vulnerable to plumping for the wrong sort of not-writing activities. The good news is that The Academic Imperfectionist is on hand to shut that shit down.

Here are the readings mentioned in this episode:

Kethledge, R. M. and Erwin, M. S. 2019: Lead Yourself First (Bloomsbury).
Newport, C. 2020: Digital Minimalism (Penguin).
Schroder, H. 2021: 'Set yourself free by developing a growth mindset toward anxiety', Psyche.

Yeah, I know - you should be writing. Same here. Not writing enough is one of the worst sins a researcher can commit - and we're all committing it almost all of the time. But what if we've got 'not writing' all wrong? What if those procrastinating hours you spent trying to decide which font to use and what colour to paint your bedroom were actually important parts of your writing process? What if, without plenty of time spent not writing, you wouldn't be a writer at all - at least, not one that anyone would want to read? Shut that laptop and let your imperfect fairy godmother blow your writing guilt out of the water.

Here are a couple of summaries of the research on the role of day-dreaming and mind-wandering in creativity:

Kaufman, S. B. and Singer, J. L. 2011: ‘The origins of positive-constructive daydreaming’, Scientific American, 22nd December.

Kaufman, S. B. and Singer, J. L. 2012: ‘The creativity of dual process “system 1” thinking’, Scientific American, 17th January.

And here's the Adam Grant article mentioned in the episode:

Grant, A. 2016: 'Why I taught myself to procrastinate', New York Times, 16th January.

Do you have a battle going on inside every time you try to achieve something important - a battle between the part of you that's trying to do well and your inner saboteur, who is determined to mess things up for you? Have you ever wondered why you work against yourself in this way? I mean, it's exhausting, right?

The answer, my imperfect friends, is that your inner saboteur isn't a saboteur at all - at least, not intentionally. She wants you to do well. It's just that she's afraid of what might happen if you do. If you want to go places, doing battle with her isn't the answer. You need to tune in to your inner saboteur, work out what makes her tick, and then get her on side. I'm going to show you how.

Download your Self-Sabotage Worksheet here.

That productivity you care so much about: what's it for? For too many of us, it's not for anything. It's the ultimate end. Unless we're being productive, we feel like we're wasting our time, like we're being lazy, selfish, immoral, a loser. We can only bear to take a break because we think that not taking a break might harm our productivity.

That's not what we tell ourselves, of course. We tell ourselves that being productive is a means to attaining our goals: finishing a thesis, getting a job, getting promoted. Except we're pathological goalpost-movers who never attain our goals. Too often, our goals are just the excuses we need to keep on keeping on. We're wasting our lives with our pointless productivity.

The antidote? Make peace with wasting time. Yeah, I know it's uncomfortable. I know sitting around doing nothing makes you feel more evil than the devil. Embrace it. Get good at it. It's worth it, I promise.

Here are the readings mentioned in this episode:

Camus, A. 1942: 'The Myth of Sisyphus' (a nice person has made it available here).
Headlee, C. 2020: Do Nothing (Piatkus).
Keller, G. and Papasan, J. 2013: The ONE Thing (Bard Press).   
McKeown, G. 2014: Essentialism (Random House).  
McKeown, G. 2021: Effortless (Random House).
Russell, B. 1932: 'In Praise of Idleness', in In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (George Allen & Unwin, 1935).


 

You know what I’m talking about. You set out to achieve something important, you manage to achieve it (because you’re awesome and of course you did) - but instead of celebrating, you tell yourself it was no big deal and that you probably weren’t aiming high enough anyway and omg how are you ever going to get anywhere if you keep chasing such tiny, piddling little goals? Goalpost-moving is one of the main perfectionist weapons we use against ourselves. Doing it means that, by definition, we can never succeed. But there’s a way you can stop. In this episode, I’m going to:

1. Explain how you’re harming yourself when you move your goalposts
2. Talk you through how to set goals in a way that makes later goalpost-shifting more difficult
3. Show you how to set goals in a way that helps you become the sort of person you want to be
4. Explain why celebrating your successes is important

To download the Goal Contract template mentioned in the episode, go here.