I keep getting asked what my working day looks like. You know, as if I've cracked this whole productivity thing. I definitely haven't, but I have managed to make positive changes over the past few years as a result of making the sorts of changes I talk about on this podcast. Let me tell you about how it's all gone - not so that you can do things the way I do them (please don't!), but so you can see that change really is possible. Oh, and I'm also going to tell you about Simba, our community cat, who has been CATapulted to fame over the past week or so.

Donate to help look after Simba!

Your problem with self-compassion: the one that leads you to be kind and supportive to other people, but nasty and vindictive to yourself. One reason you struggle with the 'self' part of 'self-compassion' is that you view yourself as separate from other people. But what if you aren't? What if the gap between you and others is simply too small and inconsequential to support your difficult-to-shake belief that it's wrong to be nasty to people, unless the person you're being nasty to is yourself? Your imperfectionist friend is lobbing a giant metaphysics truth bomb that is going to blow apart your conviction that compassion is for everyone except you.

Find Kristin Neff's website about self-compassion here.

Reference:

Parfit, D. 1984: Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Here we are, a third of the way through January. Have you slipped up on your new year resolutions yet? Will you be kind to yourself if you do? Or will you tell yourself that you're a failure, you can't do anything right, you should just do everyone a favour and give up now? The thing is, friend, there's a dark side to positive change. Too many of us are motivated to change for the better because we don't think we're acceptable as we are. We don't feel entitled to ease back and enjoy life. We wouldn't know how. The idea of an ordinary, unremarkable life terrifies us. We like to think of our drive and ambition as positive things - but what if they're fuelled by our lack of self-acceptance? Get yourself comfortable, and let's look again at mediocrity.

Find the 5 whys exercise here.

Go here for 'The benefit of breaking your New Year's resolutions', my article for the IAI.

'Overcoming the need to be exceptional' by The School of Life can be read here (paywalled) and listened to (not paywalled) here.

Are you a sucker for self-improvement advice that offers to overhaul your life for the better overnight, even though you know that (unfortunately) it's not that simple? Yeah, same. There's a reason you're attracted to advice like that, and there's a way to get the life you want. It's not instant or magic or even wall-to-wall rewarding, but it is possible, and it is worth doing. Pull up a virtual chair, and let The Academic Imperfectionist explain all.

Yeah, I know you're diligently working towards that big goal, and that you STILL haven't got there yet. But are you stopping to reflect on your progress along the way, and to celebrate small wins? If the answer is no, then you're sabotaging yourself, chipping away at your motivation, and generally making yourself miserable. Progress tunnel vision can keep you stuck in a loop - but here's the Academic Imperfectionist with a lifeline!

For the Progress Temperature Check exercise, go here. Go here for the Goal Contract exercise, and here for the Wheel of Life.

Here's Rick Hanson's Psychology Today article, 'Recognize What Is Improving in Your Life'.

I know. Your life needs an overhaul, but where are you supposed to find the energy to fix it? You're struggling to keep your head above water as it is. The thing is, friend, not all demands on you are equal. The demands that are imposed on you by others exhaust you and send your anxiety skyrocketing - but those that you choose autonomously can energise you. Autonomy is important: just ask Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Isaiah Berlin, and Harry Frankfurt. How do you choose autonomously? I'm glad you asked.

You can find the Identify Your Core Values exercise here, and the 5 Whys exercise here.

Read a sample of For F*ck's Sake: Why Swearing is Shocking, Rude, and Fun here, and buy it in all the usual places!

Reference

Martina Svensson, Philip Rosvall, Antonio Boza-Serrano, Emelie Andersson, Jan Lexell, Tomas Deierborg, 2016: 'Forced treadmill exercise can induce stress and increase neuronal damage in a mouse model of global cerebral ischemia', Neurobiology of Stress, Volume 5, Pages 8-18. 

Look at you there, always striving, always becoming, always hustling. When do you ever get to pause and just ... be? Do you even know how? Plenty of us don't. We had no problem just chilling and enjoying the moment when we were kids, but somewhere along the way, we lost that ability. We don't know how to enjoy life any more. In which case, what's the point of any of this? Put your existential angst on ice, friend, because The Academic Imperfectionist has you covered.

Go here (and thank you!) if you'd like to donate to my fundraising for the brain injury charity, Headway.

Read Laura Vanderkam's short article about savouring here.


Reference:

Bryant, F. B. and Veroff, J. 2007: Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience (Routledge).

Just as trees aren't meant to remain stiff and unyielding in the face of a storm, you aren't meant to remain efficient and relaxed in the face of mounting demands. Bending isn't a weakness; it's what you need to do to survive. But it's only your branches that need to bend - your roots need to stay put. Do you know what your roots are? Snuggle up with a cuppa for some arboreal advice from The Academic Imperfectionist.

For the 'Identify Your Core Values' exercise mentioned in this episode, click here.

To read Julia Butterfly Hill's essay, 'Surviving the Storm: Lessons from Nature', click here.

Do you tell yourself that if only you had a day of uninterrupted time ahead of you (and, of course, the right stationery), you'd finally be able to get some writing done - only to procrastinate your precious writing time away when you do finally get what you need? Thought so. Your problem is that you wouldn't know a good writing opportunity even if it walked up to you and poked you in the eye. Put down that stationery catalogue and let your Imperfectionist friend sort you out.

Writing is why we all do what we do - or at least, a big part of it. But it's also a source of intense anxiety, whether we're new to it or whether we've been at it for years. So, here's another start-of-the-new-academic-year imperfectionist special for you. Your imperfect pal here set out to create a little survival guide for new students who want to get their essay-writing off to a good start - but along the way, it turns out that there are plenty of lessons about writing that are useful to revisit even for those of us who have clocked up thousands of hours of writing (and procrastinating). New pencils at the ready: let's get started!

Here are the books on writing mentioned in the episode:

Jensen, J. 2017: Write No Matter What (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Sword, H. 2017: Air & Light &Time & Space (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).