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Episode 8

EPISODE 8: YEAR 1 REVIEW

EPISODE 8: YEAR 1 REVIEW

In this episode of 'A Postdoc's Journal', I read out a personal journal entry from December 2012—close to the end of my first year of my postdoc. I give a very harsh review of my own academic performance and share my attitudes to work and work-life balance. I also try to make some goals for the next year.

It is pretty clear that I was brainwashed into the academic system, evidenced by the way I judge my achievements using academic metrics of success only. I discuss some really interesting points about how philosophy to work and work-life balance has evolved over 12 years. I also reflect on how my goal-making skills have improved significantly today.

Timestamps:

[00:00] Introduction and welcome to a Postdoc's Journal

[02:58] Journal entry from December 2012

[04:29] My perspective on many things has changed so much

[05:16] Underestimating my achievements

[06:04] Judging my success on academia's value system

[07:42] How my attitude to work and work-life balance has changed

[11:33] How to make good goals

[17:03] Outro

For more information about the podcast and for my contact information, please visit https://a-postdocs-journal.captivate.fm/

Please leave a review on Apple podcasts or Podchaser

Follow me on Instagram and/or LinkedIn and/or BlueSky

Simit Patel Copy Editing Services

Transcript
Simit:

Hello and welcome to a Postdocs Journal, the show that

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takes you through my journey into

and eventually out of academia as

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a postdoctoral research scientist.

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My name is Simit Patel.

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Hello, thank you very much for joining me.

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For those of you who may be new

to the show, a very warm welcome.

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And if you've listened before,

thank you so much for watching

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this episode and coming back.

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And a special shout out to

my new listener in Ghana.

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I saw that you recently

downloaded all of my episodes.

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I see you and I appreciate you.

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Thank you so much.

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Um, please reach out to me.

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I'd love to connect with you.

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Please let me know what your story is.

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I'd love to know what you think of the

podcast and how you came across it.

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If you don't already know, this podcast

is based on my own personal journal.

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In each episode, I read out a journal

entry from my own personal journal

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from about 12 years ago, back when

I was working in academia as a

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postdoc, as a research scientist.

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And then I reflect on it, I analyze

it, I try to make sense of it.

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and share my thoughts with you today with

the benefits of 12 years of hindsight.

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Each journal entry tells a small piece

of my story going through my postdoc

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and detailing all the toughest moments

and the very occasional success.

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If you are a student or a postdoc or if

you're just someone struggling in academia

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or even if you're just someone who can

relate to things like imposter syndrome,

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loneliness, mental health issues in the

workplace, I hope that by sharing my own

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personal experience with you that helps

you to feel a little bit less alone.

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In today's episode we jump to

December:

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of my first year as a postdoc.

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This is another journal

entry I did at the airport.

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I was flying back home for

Christmas back to the UK.

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It looks like I didn't have a

lot of time so it's actually a

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relatively short journal entry.

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My general memory of Christmases

in that period of my life are

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generally not very positive.

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There was It's something about Christmas

that just seemed to amplify all the things

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that made me unhappy in my life back then.

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Loneliness, uh, not feeling like I

fit in, social anxiety in some cases.

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Uh, but Christmas has always been

a time of the year for me where I

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become very introspective, and in

this journal entry I give a review

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of my academic performance in 2012.

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So please have a listen to the reading

now, and I'll be back at the end, uh,

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to share some thoughts with you today.

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after 12 years of hindsight.

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Enjoy.

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18th December, 2012.

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At the airport, heading

home for Christmas.

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The biggest thing on my mind in

the last week or so has been how

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little I've produced at work.

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No publications, no data,

no grant proposals, no

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presentations, no conferences.

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Not even a poster presentation.

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On paper, as usual, I have

really underperformed.

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I feel disappointed in that.

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I suppose I have been taking

my foot off the gas recently.

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Certainly recently, I can be confident

in saying that I've not really been

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majorly overworked or stressed, and

my mental state has been pretty good,

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mainly because of music and improv.

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But I guess the cost of reaching a

work life balance is the compromise one

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makes on the work half of the equation.

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The more one focuses on the life

half of the equation to achieve

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a healthy mental state, the less

productive one would be at work.

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I guess I need to do something

extra special next year.

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I need proper targets

and endpoints in mind.

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Get one paper out.

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Get a grant proposal submitted.

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Get some data together for a new analysis.

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Do two conferences.

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My biggest worry right now is

that my boss regrets hiring me.

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I hope he doesn't feel like

he's made a big mistake.

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Okay, thank you very much

for listening to that.

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As usual, I've written down

some thoughts after reading

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that back and hearing that back.

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I've got a few interesting points that

I want to reflect on, including the

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very damning assessment I gave of how

little I achieved in that first year, my

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philosophy on work life balance and how

that's changed today, and I want to talk

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a little bit about how I was making goals

back then and how that's different today.

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What stood out to me the most when I

revisited this journal entry was how

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my perspective on many of these topics

has just completely changed, uh, today.

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And to some extent I think I disagree

with almost every single point I wrote

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in this journal entry 12 years ago.

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So let's get into it.

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I gave a pretty damning assessment of

what I actually achieved in my first year.

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In that journal entry, I gave a

very long, very sad list of things

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that I just hadn't achieved.

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Most of that is actually true, but

I was, I think, underestimating what

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I actually did achieve academically.

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And I was kind of

exaggerating how bad I did.

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I did actually publish a paper in that

first year, but I didn't consider it

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a real achievement because I was the

second author on that paper, and it

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wasn't really based on my work, it was

based on some other student's work.

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I was just doing the write up.

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I did most of the work for the paper,

but I didn't consider it my work.

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I think generally underestimating

my achievements is another symptom

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of that low self esteem and that

chasing of perfection that we've

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talked about in previous episodes.

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It is interesting to note the types

of things I listed in my long list

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of what I thought were epic failures.

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I talked about publications, grant

applications, data, conferences, etc.

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Back in episode six, I think, we talked

a little bit about value systems and how

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dangerous it can be to measure your own.

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Value based on your environment's value

system, not your internal value system,

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the academic value system, the value

system in the environment I was in at

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the time tells you that your value is

measured by things like publications,

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grant applications, data conferences.

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So in this journal entry, that's

actually exactly what I was doing.

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I was judging how much I actually

achieved using academia's

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bullshit metrics of success.

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When I reflect on that today with

the benefit of hindsight, what I

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couldn't see was all the amazing

things that I had achieved that year.

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You know, I had moved to a new country

with Two bags and a small envelope of cash

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I didn't know anyone I didn't know the

language and I was still able to build a

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foundation for a life Using nothing but

my bravery and my intelligence and i've

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got to say my bravery and my intelligence

have and continue to be Way more valuable

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to me They're my publication record.

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They matter so much more and

they've carried me so much further

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in my career and my life than

a research paper ever could.

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But again, academia doesn't

care about any of that.

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The academic system doesn't reward or

value things like bravery or intelligence.

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It rewards.

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Publications and grants

in this journal entry.

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I was trying to make sense of my lack

of academic success in the context of

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work life balance I was seeing work

life balance as a trade off The more

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work you do the less of a life you have

and the more you try to have a life

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the less Effective you'll be at work.

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That's how I was seeing it It sounds

like I was relatively happy with the

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the life side of things I you know,

I had made friends at this point.

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I was doing lots of music lots of

improv I actually said my mental

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state was quite good at that

point in time as a result of that.

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In a way, I was almost blaming

that positive mental state for

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my lack of productivity at work.

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But what do I think about that

now, this trade off model?

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I'm not sure I agree with it.

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Firstly, I don't believe in that

division of work and life anymore.

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Work is very much part of

life, not separate from it.

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I think that trade off model also

implies that a good mental state can

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only come from the life outside of work.

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Not from work itself and that's 100

percent not true work can absolutely

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affect your mental state And I think

that a positive mental state should

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actually help you be more productive

at work And stay more motivated at work

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not just something that happens as a

consequence of not working too much

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Looking back on it.

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I think this trade off model stems from I

think a very outdated perspective I had on

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how I viewed work, I saw work as something

that is hard, and it should be hard.

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On some level, it's something that

you really don't want to do, but

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you have to force yourself to do it.

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It's something that takes

away from your happiness.

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That's just what work is.

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And that's why you should work on

something that you really love, that

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you have a real passion for, because

if you really love it, you can push

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through all that, that difficulty of it.

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I guess that's the way work was

modelled to me when I was young.

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I never really witnessed

either of my parents get joy

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or pleasure from their work.

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It was just something you had

to do to survive and it was,

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it was hard, it was difficult.

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It was just, uh, not something

that gives you a good mental state.

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And I think to some extent the education

system teaches you the same thing.

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It's always about trying harder, working

harder, challenging yourself, striving

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to do more complicated difficult things.

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The path to high academic achievement

is paved with frustration and putting

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a lot of effort in, pushing yourself

beyond what you're actually capable of

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doing, and just being more stressed.

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And that inherently means pushing

you further and further away

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from a positive mental state.

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More recently, probably in the last

year or so, I've started to really

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change my view on work entirely.

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I'm making a real effort right now in

my life to have a different relationship

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with work that's a lot more positive.

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I'm trying to get away from the idea

that work is something that should

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be hard, and it's there to make you

unhappy, and I'm trying to reposition,

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uh, where work is in my life.

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Back in 2012, It sounded like I was

positioning work at one end of a scale.

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In the years that I left

academia, I was putting work very

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much at the center of my life.

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So, I repositioned work in my life.

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Now, I'm seeing my life, my whole

life a little bit differently.

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I'm looking at it a bit more holistically.

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I see my life as a whole, and the purpose

of that life is to be happy, living

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authentically according to my values.

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The various components of that life,

activities, relationships, etc, should

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be in service of that higher purpose.

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And one of those components,

of course, is work.

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I'm trying to make work a smaller part

of that life than it has been in the

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past, and not so much at the center.

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Or maybe I'm just having a midlife crisis

and I'm ultimately going to regret this.

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Uh, time will tell.

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I do need to call out my atrocious goal

making skills in this journal entry.

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This is a great example of how not

to make goals, and I think it's

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a really important lesson here

for me and for anyone listening.

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I'm a lot better at setting

goals today, uh, for myself.

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Uh, the reason this stands out to me

so much is that goal setting is such

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an integral part of how I approach

work and how I approach my life today.

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I learnt the art of how to make more

effective goals much later on in life.

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These days I tend to make goals either

annually, quarterly, or monthly.

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Or sometimes I make an active choice not

to have goals for a fixed period of time.

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If they don't help me, for example.

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And I usually start by making

categories for my goals.

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So, for example, work and

career stuff, music and creative

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stuff, relationship stuff.

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Family stuff, etc.

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And for each category, I figure out what

I want to achieve for a given period

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of time, and that's like the main goal.

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And then I make sort of sub goals,

which are very specific, actionable,

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quantifiable steps that I can take towards

achieving that main goal in each category.

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For example, a bad goal would be

something vague like, uh, to make progress

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on an e learning course I'm doing.

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That's a bad goal because it's not

specific, it's not quantifiable,

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and it doesn't really detail the

steps in how to achieve that goal.

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A better goal, or sub goal, would be,

I will do two sessions a week on that e

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learning course, uh, for the next month.

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That's different and a lot better

because It's framed as a specific action

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that I can take and it's quantifiable.

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It's specific and there's a

time box around it as well.

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The other good thing about approaching

your goals this way is that it

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forces you to understand what is

in your control and what isn't.

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Sometimes achieving your goals depends on

other people or external circumstances,

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things that are just beyond your control.

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And these are things that you

just can't make these specific

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actionable sub goals for.

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So by thinking about the actionable

steps that you can take, you can feel

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satisfied that you're doing everything

you actually can do to achieve that goal.

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For example, if your goal is to close

a particular sale by the end of the

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month, that's not entirely down to you.

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The potential customer has their

part to play in that goal and

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you can't always control that.

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Framing that as a sub goal would be

something like, in the next month, I will.

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Uh, send one email a week to

that customer and reach out to

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my main contact on LinkedIn once.

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Those are the parts that

are in your control.

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Those are actions that you can take.

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Uh, to help achieve that goal.

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And as long as you've done those actions,

you can feel satisfied that you've done

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all that you can do to achieve that

goal, even if you don't achieve it.

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So goals are not just things that you want

to do, like a 27 year old simmet thought.

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They should be actionable steps

that you can start taking today.

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In this journal entry, I had very

badly defined goals for the next year.

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No wonder I didn't actually

achieve what I wanted.

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It was something like, I'll quote it

here, Get one paper out, get a grant

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proposal submitted, get some data together

for a new analysis, do two conferences.

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Those are really vague,

just really bad goals.

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What is surprising to me is that

reflecting on it now, even with

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my relatively advanced goal making

skills today, I'm still not sure how

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to define those goals any better.

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My experience of working in

research, is that the steps

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are just very vague by nature.

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There is no clear set of steps that

you need to take to get from where

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you are to where you want to be.

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I'm not sure if this is just the

nature of research in general or

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just my experience of research.

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I was never really taught how to approach

research in a goal orientated way.

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None of my mentors ever seemed to

approach things that way themselves.

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Their behavior was never

really modeled to me.

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The approach has always been just, uh,

try this thing, hope it works, if it

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doesn't work, uh, work harder to try

to get it to work, and if it still

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doesn't work, you're basically stuck.

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In my field at least, which is

not so experimental, it was more

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exploratory and like observational

research, there are no clearly defined

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milestones that you need to go through

to get from the start to finish.

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And most of the time you don't really have

the full knowledge of the full process.

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The approach is just to kind of try

and collect as much data as you can

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as quickly as possible, then figure

out everything else like statistics,

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data analysis, and in some cases

the actual goal of the study.

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And the research question

you figure out later on.

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So if you don't know the specific

actionable steps that you're supposed to

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take, and the approach is really woolly

and ill defined, it's basically impossible

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to make these sub goals to achieve

the bigger goal of publishing a paper.

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I guess more generally I prefer

to work on things where it's clear

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what the steps are to go from where

you are to where you want to be.

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Or at least possible to figure them out.

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So that's just another thing that I think

makes me sort of unsuitable for a research

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career, and certainly a career in academic

research where you have to be a bit more

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comfortable with those sort of ill defined

steps where you just collect a bunch

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of data and then figure out the point

of the study later on and then try to

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rehash and resell what you've collected.

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So there you have it.

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My reflection on this journal entry

really forced me to think about how much

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my philosophy on a lot of topics, like

how I view work, work life balance, and

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the role goal making plays in my life

today, has really changed over time.

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A lot of these things I'm still

trying to figure out right now,

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and so it's very topical for me.

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But it is still really great

to have a written record of

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my thoughts from 12 years ago.

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It's a real privilege to be able to make

those comparisons between my thoughts

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today and my thoughts 12 years ago.

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It really helps me to

understand myself a lot better.

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That was my last journal entry for 2012.

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Over the next few episodes, we're

gonna jump into:

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my second year of my postdoc.

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This was an extremely important and

extremely difficult year for me.

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In the next few episodes, we're

going to see what happened to

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make me take the first steps

towards actually leaving academia.

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Make sure you subscribe on whichever

podcast app you're listening on.

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And thank you so much for joining me.

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I hope that was valuable

for you in some way.

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If it was valuable for

you, please let me know.

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Please reach out to me.

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All my contact info is in the show notes.

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I'd love to hear from you.

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I have no idea how well these episodes

are being received, so please, please

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let me know, please talk to me.

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Until next time, please

be kind to yourself.

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Thanks again for listening to a Postdocs

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Journal.

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I've been your host, Simit Patel.

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If you've enjoyed this episode and you'd

like to help support the podcast, please

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share it with others who you think

might find it helpful and interesting.

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You could also leave a review over

at Podchaser or on Apple Podcasts.

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If you can relate to anything in

this episode, or if you have your

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own take on this journal entry,

I would love to hear from you.

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Please feel free to reach out to me

on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Blue Sky.

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Links to all my social

media are in the show notes.

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Thanks again.

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About the Podcast

Show artwork for A Postdoc's Journal
A Postdoc's Journal
The podcast for disillusioned academics. An honest, personal memoir of my time as a postdoc; detailing the emotional roller coaster I went through.

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About your host

Profile picture for Simit Patel

Simit Patel

Simit Patel, PhD, cares deeply about mental health, self improvement, and positive masculinity.

He is a biologist and former postdoc. He left academia in 2015. He's originally from the UK and is now living in Berlin, Germany.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/simit-patel-063388ab/