The Academic Imperfectionist

No, not like that. I'm not talking about how to achieve the ultimate happiness, eudaimonia, or enlightenment. I'm simply talking about how to enjoy your down-time without feeling like you're doing it wrong. If you've ever looked forward to a well-deserved day off and then settled down for some serious relaxation only to find yourself consumed by anxiety about whether you're enjoying yourself enough, this episode is for you.

References:

Diener, E., Sandvik, E., and Pavot, W. 2009: 'Happiness is the frequency, not the intensity, of positive versus negative affect', in Diener, E. (ed.) Assessing Well-Being: The Collected Works of Ed Diener, Social Indicators Research Series 39: 213-231.

Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L., and Savino, N. S. 2011: 'Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness', Emotion 11/4: 767.

How well do you know yourself? Are there feelings that you have, or things that you care about, that you're in complete denial about? Trust me, there probably are - you just haven't noticed. And it's a problem, because until you can acknowledge the things that make you happy (or unhappy) and the things you care about, you can't even begin to build the life you want. Get the kettle on and join your Imperfectionist chum for some self-policing troubleshooting.

Are you hesitant to make certain changes in your life, like changing careers or ending a relationship, because you don't want the time and energy you've invested in your life so far to be wasted? If so, you're not alone - but you're wrong. Recognising that aspects of your life aren't working for you doesn't mean your efforts have been wasted. Your life isn't an essay draft, where bad choices and wrong turns get cut from the final draft. You're holding yourself back, and your imperfect friend is here to put a stop to it.

When you're procrastinating, reluctant to knuckle down and get on with your work, taking way too long to do what ought to be a straightforward task, do you respond with self-compassion and non-judgmental curiosity as you try to work out what the problem is? Thought not. Instead, you tell yourself that you're lazy and disorganised and shouldn't even have been allowed to graduate from primary school, don't you? There's a problem with that, though. You might think you're holding yourself to account and pushing yourself to aim high, but in fact you're standing in the way of your own progress. Here's what to do instead!

Check out the brand new What Am I Afraid Of? exercise.

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).

Do you ever try to read philosophy (or some other stodgy not-designed-for-entertainment text) and find yourself struggling to understand ... well, any of it? Do you finish reading a paragraph and find that you have absolutely no idea what it was about? Does it take you an entire day just to read one chapter? Of course not - you'd never admit to any of it, anyway. Even five-year-olds can read, so there's no way anyone's blowing the lid off your shameful reading troubles.  But don't worry. Here's your Imperfectionist friend to lay it all bare and help make reading less of a time-consuming headache. (Spoiler: perfectionism is to blame, again.)

If you won't accept anything less than perfection from yourself, I have some disappointing news from Ancient Greece. Back in the 4th (ish) century BC, Plato was telling anyone who would listen that perfection doesn't even exist in the material world - so, save your energy and lower your standards. Get the kettle on and then gather round to learn what this means for you, from Plato, Socrates, and ... erm, the Barbie movie.

Here's the monologue by American Ferrera (as Gloria) in Barbie:

'It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.

'You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.

'You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

'I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.'

I get it: you want to be less of a perfectionist, more confident and assertive, less of a procrastinator, and all the rest of it. These, after all, are things that hold us back - or so we often think. As it happens, though, things are more complicated than that. Those same traits that stand in your way are the same ones that have enabled you to achieve awesome things. Is there a way to get the 'awesome things' bit without the 'stand in your way' bit? Well, put up a chair, chum - the Academic Imperfectionist has some thoughts.

We all love a bit of productivity porn. What could be wrong with learning about how to get better at getting things done? Well, quite a few things, as it happens. Seeking out the latest productivity tools and techniques can be a way to mask the anxieties you have around your work. To avoid the pitfalls, you need to look inward and think about how you go about getting stuff done. Gather round, friends, and let's dive in.

We all hate failure. We're terrified of it. And so, when I chalked up a big fat failure a few days ago, I knew immediately that I needed to dissect it for you lot. The key lesson here? Our unwillingness to look failure square in the face is holding us back.

Read Costica Bradatan's Psycheessay about Emil Cioran here.

We're constantly encouraged to strive for work/life balance. But it's a horrible, victim-blaming, damaging metaphor, and it tricks us into thinking we should take on more than we're able to cope with. And, besides, who wants to spend their entire career balancing stuff?! Your Imperfectionist friend is here with some truth bombs about how you ought to be thinking about how to manage all that stuff you have going on, and how you can view it all in a way that makes it easier to find and enforce healthy boundaries.

To find the 'Identify your core values' exercise and the 'Wheel of life' exercise mentioned in the episode, go to The Academic Imperfectionist Resources page.

You know that remaining in your comfort zone is basically a psychic crime, right? Like, only losers do that. Successful people are out there pushing boundaries and loving life. Bummer that, by definition, they have to spend their entire time in discomfort, but whatever. Who needs comfort when you've got self-actualisation?

Sorry pals, but this is all daft nonsense. Join your Imperfectionist friend for some truth bombs about comfort zones and a guilt-free pass to tossing that stick that you've been using to beat yourself.

Whatever it is that you're doing and however it is that you're doing it, you're telling yourself that you're doing it wrong and anyway you ought to be doing something else instead. Right? You feel guilty even when you know you're doing the right thing. You feel guilty even before you've decided what you have to feel guilty about. Your entire mind is an immersive, surround-sound, interactive theatre of turbo-charged guilt. Take a break from your hectic schedule of self-flagellation and let your Imperfectionist friend rein that shit in for you.

You know better than to vow, after chomping your way through your fifth slice of chocolate cake, that starting tomorrow you're only ever going to eat salad and you're going to run 10 miles before breakfast every single day, forever. After all, nobody could keep that up, right? Be realistic! But plenty of you are setting your sights on productivity goals that are just as unrealistic. Come for a chat with your imperfectionist friend and have some sense lovingly knocked into you.

Self-acceptance is overrated, right? I mean, sure, you might feel more at peace if you could manage to accept yourself - but there's so much wrong with you, and accepting yourself would involve giving up on trying to fix all that and accepting that you're never going to be any more assertive, successful, skilled, and confident than you are now. Self-acceptance is just a fancy term for quitting. Right??

Oh dear. What if I were to tell you that if you don't already have self-acceptance, you're not going to get it through self-improvement? And that not only can self-acceptance and self-improvement happily coexist, but self-improvement is much easier when it comes from a place of self-acceptance? Get the kettle on and the earbuds in, and let your Imperfectionist friend talk some sense into you.

It would be great if we never felt insecure or anxious or scared when we had to do things like ask for money or refuse a request or even just get on with writing what we're supposed to be writing. But this sort of discomfort can be really hard to shift, no matter how much we work on our confidence and how many affirmations we scribble on post-it notes and stick to our monitor. It can be tempting, then, to think that we need to put off doing the hard things until we've got a few more years of therapy under our belts. But - and hear me out here - what if we just did them, even though they're horrible? What if you could ignore your discomfort and just get on with life? If you're game, friend, your Imperfectionist cheerleader has some words of advice to help you get started.

Here's an (admittedly quite old) article summarising research on affective forecasting and the like: We don't know our own strength

Reference:

Wilson, T. D. and Gilbert, D. T. 2005: 'Affective forecasting: knowing what to want', Current Directions in Psychological Science 14/3: 131-134.

You're trying to hold down your job/studies while raising your child/pet/houseplants and maybe also doing a couple of part-time jobs but also volunteering for a handful of committees/projects/whatever. There aren't enough hours in the day to do all this well, or even adequately. How do you avoid feeling like a complete failure? Well, friends, obviously you need to drop the committee and stuff. And then you need to rethink what the problem is here (spoiler: it's not you) and what really matters (spoiler: it's not the stuff you're worrying about).

Rachel Aviv's profile of Martha Nussbaum in The New Yorker is here.

References:

Brooks, D. 2016: The Road to Character(Penguin).
Harmon, J. L. (ed.) 2007: Take My Advice (Simon & Schuster).
Palmer, P. J. 2009: A Hidden Wholeness (Jossey-Bass).

It's bad enough that you're nowhere near as productive as you ought to be (according to you) - but, to make things worse, you can't ever get any help with this problem, because that would involve fessing up to the shameful truth that you are a terrible human being who doesn't work as hard as they ought to work and therefore deserves to be shunned from civilised society forever. Is there any way out of this hellish situation without revealing your villainous nature? Don't worry, friend. You're in safe, non-judgmental hands. The Academic Imperfectionist is here to help you understand and overcome that shame you're dealing with.

Your weakness of will is one of your inner critic's favourite topics. She can go on for days about how weak-willed you are. But, did you know that, over the centuries, philosophers have had a tough time making any coherent sense of the idea of weakness of will - and that, according to some philosophical heavy-hitters like Socrates and R. M. Hare, there is no such thing? You don't hit the snooze button or use your writing time to watch cat videos because you're weak, on this view. You do it because your values are glitching. And framing it this way opens the door to finding solutions that don't involve piling shame and guilt on yourself. 

That positive change you need to make, which you're not making. It's because of your perfectionist anxieties, right? It's because of the intimidating hugeness of the task, because of your lack of confidence in your abilities to deal with problems along the way, because of your daddy issues and your need to maintain a work-life balance and your conscientious reluctance to commit to something you might not see through. 

Sorry, pal, but that's all bollocks. Your amazing brain, which is the very reason you shine like the brilliant star you are, is tying you up in overthinking knots here. Stop wringing your hands and STFU for a second. Just make a start, and see (a lot of) your problems melt away.

Sometimes, there is such a massive gap between how things are now and how we'd like them to be that there's no point even trying to make changes because any change we make would be so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that it's too depressing even to think about. Better just to ignore the problem, because who has the energy for that shit, right? But also: how the hell are you going to get anywhere with this attitude?

Glad you asked, because there is a way. You don't have to give up on your big goals, and your efforts to reach them aren't doomed to insignificance either. You just need to change the way you think about them. It's painless, I promise.

We all know to expect less of people who are dealing with something difficult like bereavement or job loss or a divorce. But what about when something great happens to us? What if we can't focus because we've just landed the job of our dreams and we're ecstatic about it? Truth bomb, friends: you might not feel entitled to take it easy when everything is going well, but happiness can make it just as hard to focus as misery.

The 'Optimize your workspace' episode of the Huberman Lab podcast mentioned in this episode is here.

Are you supportive and compassionate and generally nice to yourself on those days when you've disappointed yourself? So many of us aren't. We have no idea whether it's even possible. We tell ourselves that either we're flawlessly successful or we're embarrassing failures, and since none of us is flawlessly successful, we all spend far too much time beating ourselves up for being embarrassing failures, which is an incredible waste because there's actually a lot of space between success and failure, and it's where we all hang out pretty much all the time. What if you could inhabit this space comfortably, and work towards your goals imperfectly and fearlessly? Wouldn't you get more out of yourself if you could do that instead of that 'I'm a failure' thing you usually do? Snuggle up and listen, and your imperfect friend here will tell you how.

You've had 50 episodes of this podcast so far (well, 51 including this one). That's 50 bits of advice for you to absorb, think about, and implement to make yourself feel better about stuff. We've looked at what to do about procrastination, how to feel less anxious about productivity, how to deal with impostor syndrome, FOMO, your inner critic, goalpost-moving, and more. Does all this advice leave you wondering, 'Where do I even start?!'? Do you beat yourself up about not managing to implement it all, and how to fit implementing it around all those other wholesome things you're supposed to be doing like exercising and getting enough sleep? Don't worry, friend - you're 100% off the hook. Here's the low-down on how to embrace imperfectionism about looking after yourself.

Reference:
Duhigg, C. 2012: The Power of Habit (Random House).

Have you noticed how much time your inner critic spends looking over your shoulder and telling you how you're doing everything wrong? No, I bet you haven't - instead you're just completely mystified about why you've grown to dread your writing or your reading or your teaching or whatever else it is that you used to enjoy but now don't. It's not doing the thing that's the problem here. It's what you're telling yourself about how you're doing the thing. 

You know, in theory, that you have too much on your plate and that you really should stop taking on even more - but, seriously, have you seen how great this new opportunity is? It's a once in a lifetime thing! There's no way anyone could turn it down!

Friend, you need to end your FOMO before it ends you. The good news is that it's easy to do - you just need to reframe your choices a little. You need to think about not just what you'll miss out on if you don't take this opportunity, but also what you'll miss out on if you do.  Hit the download button and gather round.

Here's the core values exercise mentioned in the episode.

Do you end every day feeling guilty and ashamed because you haven't done enough? It wouldn't have killed you to send just one more email, or spend just 30 more minutes on your writing, right? Well, sure, you could go flat out. But you wouldn't last long if you did. You need to pace yourself, which means you definitely shouldn't be dialling the effort up to 11 on a daily basis. Your mistake is expecting yourself to sprint for the whole marathon - and that's just bonkers. Crack out the headphones and let your imperfect friend here talk some sense into you.

Do you view your life as a narrative? If you do, you might be holding yourself back in ways you don't even realise. From seeing failures where there aren't any, to restricting your choices to those that fit the story, unhelpful views about what shape a successful life should take are happiness-deleting distractions from what's really important. Join your imperfect friend for the lowdown on how you can change the narrative to one that fits you better - or even reject the life-is-a-story thing altogether.

References:
Setiya, K. 2022: Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way (Penguin).
Strawson, G. 2015: 'I am not a story', Aeon (https://aeon.co/essays/let-s-ditch-the-dangerous-idea-that-life-is-a-story)

I've been on more job interview panels over the years than I can remember. I've developed my own insights about what makes for a successful interview, and I've talked to my fellow (often much more experienced) interviewers about their views too. This all comes in helpful when I'm coaching clients who are preparing for an interview - but finally, here I am, offering up the highlights for you to listen to through the comfort of your own headphones! Grab an emotional-support-cuppa and join The Academic Imperfectionist for a job interview masterclass. 

You know you're supposed to be consistent with your writing routine. But how do you manage this, when so much of what goes into writing is so vague and unquantifiable? How do you factor in things like thinking time and discussing time and skim reading the intros of articles you won't end up using? Here's your imperfect friend to help you out. Consistency, believe it or not, looks nothing like you think it looks like. It doesn't involve willpowering through the hard days. It doesn't mean doing the same thing every day. Sometimes it means jacking in the writing and taking a break. Your passport to progress doesn't need to involve blood, sweat, and tears. Gather round the virtual campfire and all will become clear.

Right, that's it - your imperfect friend here can't keep quiet about this any more. This idea of 'quiet quitting' that you've been reading about is bullshit, OK? There we all were, minding our own business and struggling with our usual productivity-related guilt and the idea of a healthy work-life balance, and then along came an avalanche of media articles telling us that unless we're going the extra mile in our jobs (read: doing work for free), we're 'quitting'. It's a perfect storm for mental health. Shut that laptop and join The Academic Imperfectionist for a pep talk about why good enough is good enough.

Here's Zaid Khan's TikTok video that started it all off.

References:

Krueger, A. 2022: 'Who Is Quiet Quitting For?', The New York Times, 23rd August.
Kudhail, P. 2022: 'Quiet quitting: The workplace trend taking over TikTok', BBC News, 1st September.

Do you think that finding out how you're feeling is simply a matter of turning your attention inward? Oh, mate. You're so wrong. Often, we only ever reflect on how we're feeling when we're feeling bad - and when we do reflect on it, we're not genuinely interested in finding out how we feel. Instead, we're standing by ready to pounce on ourselves with nasty judgments if we dare acknowledge that we don't feel that great. We only allow ourselves two possible states: we're either fine, or we're a pathetic snowflake making a big fuss about nothing. Being able to tune in to how you feel isn't a skill that you can take for granted. You need to practise it. Here's what to do.

Have you ever said something like, 'If I don't get promoted this year, I'll feel justified in quitting this job', or 'If my partner cheats on me again, I'll feel justified in ending this relationship'? If so, you're guilty of waiting for permission: waiting for something to happen so that you'll feel justified to do the thing you want to do anyway. It's a way of wasting your own time, holding yourself back, standing in your own way. You don't need permission. The fact that you want to do the thing is all the justification you need. Join your old imperfect friend for a look at what's going on with us when we wait for permission, and how we can move past it. 

Here's Mel Robbins' TED Talk, How To Stop Screwing Yourself Over.

Do you listen to podcasts like this one and think: But this advice is for people who are much nicer than me, who deserve success; it's not for me, who secretly hopes that their more successful colleague steps on a rake at their earliest convenience? Do you simmer with resentment even while you're doing the heart-reaction-thing on your friend's Facebook post about her new job? Is envy your dirty little secret, and yours alone? This episode is for you.

References:

Protasi, S. 2018: 'Love your frenemy', Aeon.
Protasi, S. 2022: 'Beyond envy's dark side', IAI.

I started writing my book, on the philosophy of swearing, in 2015. The original deadline from the publisher was December 2016. I finally submitted it in June 2022, 5-and-a-half years late. Gather round the virtual campfire, friends, and I'll share with you why it took me so long (spoiler: it wasn't because I am lazy, worthless human being) and how I finally got it done (spoiler: it wasn't by being mean to myself).

Here's a link to the Goal Contract mentioned in the episode.

Everything's a judgment with your inner critic, isn't it? It's never 'I'm having trouble focusing today'; instead, it's 'I'm lazy'. And it's never 'I'm prioritising my own goals this morning'; it's 'I'm selfish'. Has it ever occurred to you that not every unhelpful character trait, choice, or behaviour is a moral flaw? You probably haven't noticed this, but your inner critic likes to sneak moral judgment into everything she says to you. Not only is that hurtful, but it also holds you back by distracting you from thinking strategically about how to work towards your goals. The Academic Imperfectionist is here to neutralise that shit and help you cut through the judgment and get to where you want to be.

You're totally on board in theory with the idea of being kinder to yourself - it's just that your self-criticism helps you succeed, right? And while you recognise that overwork is a problem, you can't make time for rest, because then you'd fall behind, wouldn't you? Friend, don't take this the wrong way, but you have no idea what you're on about. The habits and thoughts that you think are helping you aren't doing that at all. They're making you miserable. You need to get rid of them - it's just that it's so hard to think clearly about them and what's wrong with them, and decide what to do instead. Your Academic Imperfectionist godmother is going Freudian in this episode - we're going to whip your unconscious into shape.

Do you tell yourself that, in order to be a strong, successful, productive human, you need to have zero tolerance for anxiety? I thought so. You think that if you ignore it, it will go away. The problem is, that doesn't work. Ignoring it makes it worse. To stop anxiety holding you back, you need to hit the pause button - yes, including on that thing that you really should have finished last week - and take a long, hard look at your anxiety. Here's your guide on how to do that.

Here's some useful info and resources at cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Are you one of those people who thinks that if a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing painfully? Who feels like they must be doing something wrong if it feels too effortless? Me too, friend. There are good reasons why you feel like progress needs to be difficult - but that doesn't mean you're right. Find out how to dial down your anxiety so you can work more peacefully on the stuff you care about.

‘How To Achieve Your Goals Effortlessly’: interview with Greg McKeown on Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s Feel Better Live Morepodcast.

Meet Kiwi!

Emails that will take 10 seconds to answer. That little pile of stuff in the corner of the kitchen that you need to take a couple of minutes to sort through. Taking 30 seconds to fill in a form that you're going to have to fill in at some point. You could just do these things, get them out of your head, and make your life a lot easier. Instead, you hide from them and devote far more mental effort to notdoing them than it would ever take you to do them. What's going on? Well, friend - it's not the tasks at all. It's the emotion you attach to them. Instead of beating yourself up for all the things that you're failing to do, you need to lift the lid on your reluctance and ask what it means about your priorities, your values, and your stress levels. The Academic Imperfectionist is here to mop your brow while you face your fears.

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

If you want something, you need to put in 110% to get it, right? Well, sure, if what you want is to turn yourself into an anxious mess. If you really want to achieve your goals, you need to take a smarter approach. You need to relax, stop trying so hard, and aim for just 'good enough'.

For the 'good enough' exercise mentioned in the episode, go here.

Reference:

Haugen, T., Seiler, S., Sandbakk, Ø. et al. The Training and Development of Elite Sprint Performance: an Integration of Scientific and Best Practice Literature. Sports Med - Open 5,44 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-019-0221-0

Lucky you: you get to spend your time researching that thing you find more interesting than anything else in the whole world! So, why is it that you can't bring yourself to do it these days? Why does the thought of it make you feel anxious and overwhelmed rather than excited and energised?

Friend, you've fallen out of love with your research. It happens. And it's not just you. Unfortunately, academia (and, come to think of it, the world in general) is geared to trying to motivate you in ways that actually kill your interest in what you do. But there's a way out of this muddle, and your imperfect friend is here to tell you all about it.

For the 5 whys analysis template mentioned in the episode, click here.

References:

Greene, D., & Lepper, M. R. 1974: 'Effects of extrinsic rewards on children's subsequent intrinsic interest', Child Development 45, 1141-1145.

Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. 1973: 'Undermining children's intrinsic interest with extrinsic rewards: a test of the overjustification hypothesis', Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 28: 129-137.

Loveland, K. K., & Olley, J. G. 1979: 'The Effect of External Reward on Interest and Quality of Task Performance in Children of High and Low Intrinsic Motivation',Child Development50/4:1207.

You know 'Believe in Yourself' is an important message - why else would it be emblazoned across so many t-shirts for pre-teen girls?  But do you really understand why it's so important, and just how far thinking the right thoughts about who you are and what you do can take you towards where you want to be? Your imperfect pal here just discovered the astonishing work on mindsets by the Stanford psychologist, Professor Alia Crum. Get the kettle on and let's have a chat about what it all means for you and your academic (and non-academic) struggles. 

Click here for Professor Andrew Huberman's interview with Professor Alia Crum on the Huberman Lab podcast.

References:

Crum, A. J., Corbin, W. R., Brownell, K. D., Salovey, P. 2011: 'Mind over milkshakes: mindsets, not just nutrients, determine ghrelin response', Health Psychology 30/4: 424-29.

Crum, A. J. and Langer, E. J. 2007: "Mindset matters: exercise and the placebo effect', Psychological Science18/2: 165-71. 

Zahrt, O. H. and Crum, A. J. 2020: 'Effects of physical activity recommendations on mindset, behavior and perceived health', Preventative Medicine Reports 17: 101027

According to the 19th century philosopher Henry Sidgwick, ‘The impulse towards pleasure can be self-defeating. We fail to attain pleasures if we deliberately seek them’. 

Happiness isn't the only good thing that will elude you if you set out to achieve it. Relaxation, avoiding stress, being more productive - all these things slide further away from you the harder you try to reach them. What's going on? 

The problem, friends, is that it matters how you formulate your goals. Some goals are self-defeating because they interfere with what the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has called 'flow'. They require you to both be in flow and not be in flow. Ugh, right? 

That doesn't mean that you can't be happy, or relaxed, or productive. But it does mean that you don't have to try so hard. Settle down with the Academic Imperfectionist to find out how.

Rejection stings - literally (kind of). But you can make it sting a bit less. Part of what makes it so hard is that we're so keen on kicking ourselves when we're down. We don't even realise we're doing it, let alone how to stop. Your imperfect friend is here to sort that shit out.

You're going to learn:

What makes rejection so hardHow we make it even harder for ourselvesWhy toddlers are your new rejection-resistant role modelsA simple mental hack to help stop your inner critic going into overdrive when rejection strikes

References:

Eisenberger NI, Lieberman MD, Williams KD. Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion. Science. 2003 Oct 10;302(5643):290-2. doi: 10.1126/science.1089134. PMID: 14551436.

Guy Winch's TED talk on emotional first aid: https://youtu.be/F2hc2FLOdhI

Choosing a career is a serious business, right? It's something we do only after a lot of sombre reflection, when we're absolutely certain that we've found the thing we want to do forever. It's certainly not a place for fun, experimentation, curiosity, and frivolity.

Except ... no. Deciding that you shouldn't pursue a career unless you're really serious about it and want to do it forever is like deciding that you shouldn't date someone unless you want to marry them. Doing things that way is no fun, and it's bad for you. Your imperfect friend wants you to lighten up.

For the Core Values exercise mentioned in this episode, go here.  And for the MoSCoW analysis template, go here. 

Do you ever have thoughts like, 'It's ok to take breaks, but I don't believe it's ok to take breaks'? Or, 'Nobody will think less of me if my writing isn't great, but I don't believe nobody will think less of me if my writing isn't great'? If so, what on earth can you do about it? There's no point telling yourself that what you believe isn't true - you already know that. If your mental life is this sort of hot mess, then maybe there's no hope for you. You may as well give it up, go to bed, and wait for the next series of Tiger King to drop.

Except, not so fast. Dig down a bit and you'll find that your limiting beliefs about yourself are not as crazy as they seem. They're probably not even beliefs at all. They're feelings, and there's plenty you can do about them. Let The Academic Imperfectionist point you in the right direction, with a little help from those renowned self-help gurus, G. E. Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and David Hume.

Is the new year a good time to make some positive changes in your life? Or are new year resolutions a bit ... you know, cliched? And if you do decide to make some resolutions, how do you choose them? Your imperfect friend is here to hold your hand and guide you through it all. We're going to look at why, psychologically, new year is a pretty good time to make some changes, and why cynicism about new year resolutions is understandable, but overblown. We're also going to look at how you can dig down into any resolutions you've been toying with and get to the heart of what you really care about, so that you can focus your new year efforts in the right place.

Find the '5 whys' exercise here.

Reference:
Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, Jason Riis. 2014: 'The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior', Management Science 60/10:2563-2582.

Not an obvious comparison, I'll admit. But, trust me, you're way better at knowing how to draw boundaries around your sleep (even if you don't always put that into practice) than you are at knowing how to draw boundaries around your writing. Do you schedule meetings in the middle of the night, knowing that you'll need to interrupt your sleep to attend them? Thought not. But I bet you're guilty of scheduling meetings during time that you'd planned to spend writing. You probably even blame yourself when you find it impossible to get back to writing afterwards. It needs to stop. Now.

Dr Rhonda Patrick's interview with Dr Matthew Walker on her Found My Fitness podcast is here.

Here are the books and articles mentioned in the episode:

Newport, C. 2016: Deep Work(London: Piatkus)
Schulte, B. 2019: 'A woman's greatest enemy? A lack of time to herself', The Guardian, 21st July.
Sword, H. 2017: Air & Light & Time & Space(Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press)
Walker, M. 2018: Why We Sleep(London: Penguin)
 

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:

That it's completely normal to feel stressed and anxious in the face of uncertainty;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;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;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 Psychology10.

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 Making13/2: 179–90. 

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

Click here to support the show via Patreon!

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 foranything. 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:

Explain how you’re harming yourself when you move your goalpostsTalk you through how to set goals in a way that makes later goalpost-shifting more difficultShow you how to set goals in a way that helps you become the sort of person you want to beExplain why celebrating your successes is important

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

Last week, you were storming it. Hitting your writing targets. Keeping up with emails. Getting everything done (well, more or less). So, why is everything suddenly such a struggle? Why is it that you can barely remember your own name, let alone find anything intelligent to say about ... well, anything?

Congratulations, you have brain fog. But also, your reaction to it is probably causing you some problems too. Don't worry, though - The Academic Imperfectionist has fought through her own brain fog to pull you out of your mental swamp.

In this episode, you're going to learn:

Here are the references mentioned in the episode:

How many times have people told you that you should believe in yourself, and how many times have you responded by thinking, 'Pfft,  how can I believe in myself when I see evidence of my inadequacy everywhere I look?'? 

Sorry, friend, but you see no such thing. Not only are your negative beliefs about yourself doing a great job at holding you back, they're also doing a great job at their own PR - by filtering the way you experience the world so that you think you see evidence for them where there is none.  The truth is - as Kant taught us - you don't see the world as it really is. You see a filtered version. The good news is that you can change the filters so that instead of seeing evidence of your inadequacy, you see evidence of your worth. Your imperfect fairy godmother is here to show you how.

Q: Why is it that you manage to find all the focus, enthusiasm, and dedication you need when it comes to explaining why some dude on Reddit is NTA, but you can't bring yourself even to make a start on what you're actually supposed to be doing?

A: It's because the way you think about what you're supposed to be doing is not the same as the way you think about what you're doing instead.

In this episode, we'll take a look at why your attitude to work is making it difficult for you to work and why your attitude to procrastination makes procrastination so easy - and at how approaching work in the way you approach procrastination can help you worry less and get more done.

HURRY! Listen now! This episode will expire in 13 hours, 49 minutes, and 37 seconds! You know that’s nonsense, right? Okay, but do you also realise that it’s nonsense that those other opportunities you’re considering - that not-quite-right project, that far-from-ideal job - are scarce resources that you’d better grab before they’re gone, or regret it forever? Join the Academic Imperfectionist to find out why it’s okay to hold out for what you really want, and for the lowdown on how to tell when your scarcity mindset is standing in your way.

Your desk is covered with self-affirmations on Post-It notes, you spend 5 minutes every morning visualising yourself as Queen of the Universe, and you try not to stick your fingers in your ears whenever people say nice things about you. So why is it that you still struggle to believe that you're good enough?

It's commonly thought that people with impostor syndrome ignore evidence of how great they are. But that's not always true. Katherine Hawley argued that people often have good reasons to believe that they're not good enough, even when they're wrong. Join the Academic Imperfectionist for a quick skate through Hawley's argument and round-up of how you can apply her insights to manage your own impostor syndrome.

Katherine Hawley, professor of philosophy at the University of St Andrews, passed away in April 2021. Her intellect, kindness, and all-round awesomeness are fondly remembered and much missed.

Read Katherine Hawley's 2019 article, 'What is impostor syndrome?' (Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume93/1: 203–226), here.

And here's The Onion's alarmingly vivid portrayal of what impostor syndrome feels like.

Does writing make you anxious? Is having any original idea immediately followed by a nagging voice in your head telling you that it's probably rubbish? That's your inner reviewer 2. Here's how to deal with her.

In this episode, you're going to learn 4 useful strategies for responding to your inner reviewer 2:

Acknowledge that she's there and that she's making things hard for youRecognise that she's actually trying to help - it's just that she's not very good at itRethink the relationship between your inner reviewer 2 and your motivation and growthSchedule her criticism: tell her to come back later, when she won't cause so much chaos

We get into a vicious circle when we’re anxious about our productivity. We get anxious about falling behind, our anxiety interferes with our work, and then we worry about falling even further behind. We tell ourselves we’d feel better if only we could work a bit faster - but instead we end up watching cat videos on YouTube. It doesn’t have to be like this. Your wise, imperfect friend is here to tell you how to break the cycle.

The blog posts mentioned in the episode, which summarise some of the research on the role of daydreaming in writing, are:

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.

Here’s my Twitter thread describing the first steps I took towards cracking my own productivity anxiety.

Do you ever find yourself caught up in nostalgia, reliving the past, convinced that nothing the future holds can possibly live up to the good times you've already experienced? There are reasons why it's easy to think fondly about the past and to be fearful about the future. The good news is that it's all an illusion - and it's one you can ditch. Here's how.  

No amount of coaching is going to turn a sexist, racist, ableist society into a just and fair one. So, there's no point in even trying to flourish, right? Wrong, actually. Flourishing is a marathon - an unfair one - in which some of us are carrying heavier burdens than others. You can't make the competition fair, but you can lighten your load.

Click here for the Wheel of Life exercise mentioned in this episode.

Read Ephrat Livni's Quartz article, 'All career advice for women is a form of gaslighting', here.

The research mentioned in the episode is Rigoni, D., Kühn, S., Sartori, G., and Brass, M. 2011: 'Inducing disbelief in free will alters brain correlates of preconscious motor preparation',Psychological Science22/5: 613–18.

So, you've dreamed up your ideal life. What now? You go and get it, that's what now. There's just one problem: there's only one person who knows how to get it, and that person is not talking. Also, that person is you. Here's the strategy you need to get yourself to spill the beans.

For the Ideal Life Instruction Manual mentioned in the episode, click here.

The research mentioned in the episode is Riis, J., Simmons, J.P., and Goodwin, G.P. 2008: ‘Preferences for psychological enhancements: the reluctance to enhance fundamental traits’, Journal of Consumer Research 35: 495–508.

For the Wheel of Life exercise mentioned in the episode, click here.

You know you need to say no more, right? And you know that, in theory, there must be a way to do it without coming across as the world's most arrogant, selfish, and uncooperative person - but you just don't know how to get there from where you are now. Well, actually, you doknow. You prove it every time you think wistfully about how that confident, fearless colleague of yours would never have agreed to that daft commitment that you just said yes to. Assertiveness is easier than you think. To find out more, let's go back a couple of thousand years and try Aristotle's bitch boots on for size.

Turn that frown upside down! Don't be a Moaning Minnie! Nobody likes a Debbie Downer! Oh, give yourselves a break, my emo friends. All that positivity can be exhausting. You have negative feelings - deal with it. Being in touch with your negative side is an important part of taking care of yourself. And moaning, done right, can help you connect with others and even build motivation to get the life you want. Join The Academic Imperfectionist for some Heaven-Knows-I'm-Miserable-Now insights into the positive side of negativity.

What do you do when you're ready to collapse but you haven't done enough to earn a rest? Answer: you take a rest, and while you're doing it you have a long, hard think about the crazy idea that rest is something that needs to be earned. Rest is a physiological need - you no more have to earn it than you have to earn the oxygen you breathe. Get the kettle on, put your feet up, and spend your next 16 minutes chilling with The Academic Imperfectionist.

It's good to be grateful, right? Well, maybe ... but maybe not. Sometimes our gratitude is toxic: we use it to suppress and ignore negative feelings like anger, resentment, frustration, and dissatisfaction. Those negative feelings can hold the key to making important changes in our lives. You're as entitled to your negative feelings as you are to your gratitude. Put that gratitude journal down, and listen to your anger!