3.10: Getting a Handle on Success

Successful academics know that they can’t do it all – or at least not all at once. 

So a key step in getting a grip on your overwhelm is to decide what success looks & feels like for you. 

The answer to the question: what does success look like for me is NOT, however, a list of check-offable goals. A book, an R1 grant, this much $$, this many citations, this many articles, etc. NOPE. 

I will feel successful when . .  .
I will love my work when . . . 
Success to me has always meant . . . 

Please allow yourself to be honest, to dream, to even be wildly unrealistic here – because you neeeeeed to tap into your desires and dreams and values when it comes to thinking about success, because NOT being in touch with your values and your dreams miiight be how you got to discontent and frustration in the first place. 

Knowing what is at stake for you in moving in the direction of your success will make it more likely that you complete the goals and tasks you end up putting on your to-do list. Nothing is worse than feeling pulled in a hundred different directions and not being sure why or how any of them matter. 

So – get clear on how you want to feeeeeeel. What will be different when you feel more successful than you do now? What will your life feel like when you don't feel overwhelmed? When you know that your time is being spent wisely? When you know you are doing good work with good people for a good cause? How will you know you’ve gotten there? 

Connected to your own deeply felt sense of success, capture & write down what is going on that makes it so. 

And again, be honest even if you don’t immediately like what pops up for you. 

For me, I know one of the things that I need in order to feel successful is external recognition. Just that small bit of insight points me in several directions and invites me to get specific about what that means for me. What form does recognition come in? Which of those do I feel the desire for most, etc. 

Instead of external recognition, you might thrive on solo efforts, on working alone. Success might feel like hands-on work with your subject matter; or it may feel like a room of people following your lead – clarity on what success feels like is so so important. 

If figuring this out seems like a tall order because you’ve always been told what success is and haven’t developed the habit of deciding for yourself, asking a trusted friend what they think about you when you are at your happiest and most professionally fulfilled can give you some insights. There are assessments on workplace style, like DISC or Belbin team roles, that give insights as to your natural workplace behaviours and can be a launching point for discussions around what success feels like for you. Along with those assessments, my coaching clients do a narrative debrief with me that focuses on turning points and highlights in their careers – all of this information is data you can use to intentionally design the next stage of your career. 

Because once you know the feeling of success you want to work for, you can make plans and decisions that move you in the direction of that. 

What does your flavour of success mean for: 

- Research – types, collaborations, sources, methods, venues? 
- Teaching – design, assessment, structure of mentoring
- Service & leadership – what committees, organizations, and roles put you in closest proximity to the kind of success you want to feel? 

In each of these areas, you can think about being in front or behind the scenes, being solo or with a group; working towards a shared vision or being the one who sets the vision. 

One of the hardest things about figuring out your success recipe is the realization that you can’t, really, do it all. It is impossible to give 100% effort to every potential goa

Transcript

Episode 3.10 Getting a Handle on Success

And thank you for lending me your ears today while I talk about success. In the last episode, we talked about the four flavors of faculty discontent. And then today, in today's episode, I want to dig a little bit deeper into the notion of success. And what happens when you feel like success is sort of out of your reach, or you're not quite hitting the bar, or whatever it is that your inner critic might be telling you. So the first thing I want to talk about when it comes to success is something that comes from mindfulness, which is the notion that wherever you go, there you are. So this is a concept that gave name to a very popular book by Jon Kabat Zinn, title wherever you go, there you are. And what it means to me anyway, in this context, and the overall message of that sentiment is when we rely on external factors, external validation, for achievement, to bolster and reinforce our sense of self worth. We're not only giving away our power, but it's never enough, right? So if you are you feeling right now that oh, man, I will be happy when I get the job, get tenure, get the book, get the grant, get the contract, whatever it is. Chances are that on the other side of tenure, or the book or the grant, you will have checked a box, but the fundamental need to feel a certain way about yourself won't have changed. Because what you're looking for is permission or validation, or some sign from the universe that you are worthy. And when you get into the habit of assigning that worthiness metric to an external force, it's a really hard habit to get out of. So the first thing to think about when it comes to success is how are you fine, just as you are right now. Now, for me, I practice this through a mindfulness practice, right, a daily practice of having my head and my heart and my body in the same place, and checking in with my body and my breath and my emotions, and knowing sort of viscerally in that moment that I'm okay. And from that moment of knowing you're okay, in the moment, you have choice, right? And you're more resourced to make valid choices. Other people may practice that feeling of okayness through daily gratitude, or prayer or something else that reminds you that, yes, you can be ambitious, you could want good things. But that is not what makes you a worthy human being. So decoupling your notion of success professionally from your notion of worthiness as a human being is, in my eyes really important for long term fulfillment at work, right? If your identity is completely wrapped up in your job, then as the conditions of that job, fluctuate, good days, bad days, right, you're on the long end of the whip, they're just being hurled around the skating rink. I hope you can picture what I'm picturing in my mind. And it's the skating rink game that we played as a kid, where the person on the end sort of got tossed by a ring of skaters down the rink, and it was potentially very, very dangerous, but it felt like fun. And yeah, we don't want to be at the mercy of external circumstances when it comes to our essential okayness. Right. So that's the first thing in thinking about success, decoupling professional success from worthiness. The second thing though, and this is a more, a more actual note, mindfulness is quite actionable. So I don't want to say that. This is maybe more of a step by step process that I'll outline next, which is to get a grip on what success looks and feels like for you. Okay, so if you're answering the question for yourself, what does success look like for me? I don't want you to come up with a list of sort of check off double goals, the book the job tenure promotion, a grant this many citations, this much money, this many articles, etc. No. What I'm inviting here is for you To articulate for yourself, I will feel successful when, right? I will feel successful when I have this much white space in my calendar, when I have a certain reputation, right? I will love my work when success to me has always meant this, right. And those things aren't going to be checked off about goals, they might not even be things over which you have total control. And that's okay. Because at this point I want you to be be honest with yourself and dream. You can even be wildly unrealistic, because just like decoupling your sense of self worth, from external success. You also want to tap into your desires and your dreams and your values, when it comes to defining your success. Again, this is claiming the territory of success for yourself and not just handing it off to external authorities. So getting in touch with your desires, and your dreams and your values as you define success for yourself. So knowing what's at stake for you, in moving towards success, right? Oh, I'm gonna feel like this. Oh, that's so good. That boosts our motivation, right. So if you are going to work hard, knowing why you're going to work hard, that's important. So get clear on how you want to feel, what kind of feeling is successful for you? And then ask yourself, what will be different? When you feel more successful than you do now? What will your life look like? And feel like if you're not overwhelmed? What how will you know? When will you know that your time is being spent wisely? Do you have markers for those things? Indicators? How will you know when will you know that you're doing good work with good people for a good cause? How will you know you've gotten there? Right? The danger, I think in academia and probably in lots of other industries, but academia is the one I know, right? Is nobody will ever tell you, Oh, you've done enough. Right? So this leads to checking things off of a list. And instantaneously having a new list, right? Every time you check something off, you add a new thing on. So the notion of sufficient sufficient for Success doesn't ever even enter the picture. Right? So if you're thinking about, okay, I want to feel this way. This is what success feels like for me. For me, for example, success feels pretty spacious. Right? I don't feel like everything is uncertain. I feel like I have a plan. Those are some of the things that I associated with success. So how will I know that's going on? What am I looking for? Okay, well, I'm looking at what does my calendar look like? What does my planning system look like? When do I sit down and plan with myself? What do I allow to interrupt my plan? What am I certain about? What's still up in the air? Right? So if I can answer those questions, well, I know I'm moving in my direction of success. So you have your deeply felt sense and feeling of success, and then capture and write down what's going on around you, that makes you feel that way. And again, even if you don't really know or you don't love what immediately pops up, just start writing, right? Just invite, what might this look like? Right? Maybe one of the things you need in order to feel successful is external recognition. That's important to note. Just that small bit of insight. I feel successful when I get kudos, that can point you in several different directions, and invites you to get specific about what that means. What form does recognition come in? What kinds of recognition do I crave the most from what sorts of people or entities right? Get specific about that? Or maybe you thrive on solo efforts on working alone. And so success might feel like time to yourself to get hands on work with your subject matter. Success might feel like a room full of people following your lead. So success on what clarity feels like and how you're going to recognize it when it's goes up.

That's what I want you to capture for yourself. So figuring this out seems like a tall order, because you've always been told what success is. And you haven't developed the habit of deciding for yourself what success is. Maybe ask a friend what they think about you, when you are your happiest and most professionally fulfilled. Maybe they see like, oh, man, you shine when? Okay, and listen, what do they when did they see you shining. There are also assessments that you can take on your workplace style, like the DISC assessment, or the Belbin team roles assessment. These give you some insights about some of your preferred or natural workplace behaviors. And they can be a launching pad for discussions around what success feels like for you. Along with those assessments, my clients do a narrative debrief with me that focuses on turning points and highlights and watersheds in their careers. And all of that information is data that you can use to show like, Okay, this is what I'm doing. When I'm following my, my compass. This is what I'm doing when I'm working with my own definition of success. Can we use that then to intentionally design the next stage of your career? Because once you know the feeling of success you want to work for, you can make plans and decisions that move you in the direction of that. So what does your flavor of success mean for your research? The type of research, the type of collaborations, the sources, the methods, the venues for sharing? What does your flavor of success mean for teaching, design assessment structure, mentoring relationships, right? You can customize these so that they they fill your cup so that they fill in your that's not the word I'm looking for, so that they they mesh with your definition of success, you're sort of doubling down on the things that feel good. What does your flavor of success mean for service and leadership? What committees or organizations do you volunteer for? What roles put you in closest proximity to the kind of success you want to feel? And in each of those areas, research, teaching, service and leadership, you can think do I want to be in front? Do I want to be behind the scenes? Do I want to be solo? Do I want to be with a group? Do I want to be working towards a share have a shared vision? Or do I want to be the one who sets the vision? And that we're just building self awareness here so that as things come at you, you can decide, oh, is this part of my success recipe? Yes or no? Is this aligned with what makes me feel successful? Yes, or No. Because as things come at you this is really important. One of the hardest things about figuring out your success recipe is the realization is that you cannot really do it all. It is impossible to give 100% effort to every potential goal or project that sounds juicy. Optimizing and planning for your success means that you're developing an awareness of how to allocate effort, right? What to do with good brain hours what to do with dull brain hours, what to do when you're feeling creative. And you'll need to set limits on time vampires so that you open up space for the things that really contribute to your feelings of success. This process of prioritizing and focusing and managing your plans and expectations for yourself so that you can feel successful and not feel like you're always missing the mark. You want to be able to reach the goals that you set for yourself. This process turns out to be quite challenging. So having a system to keep you on track is doubly important, in my estimation, okay. And this is what happens inside of coaching. It's why I have a coach, right? I do this better when I have an external thought partner as well. Because I need to work on mastering myself following through on the commitments I've made to myself to move in my direction of success, right? So we work on mastering ourselves so that we can be the most effective versions of ourselves. So if you know what success feels like, and you know some of the signs that you'll recognize when you're there or getting close And then you plan goals and events and decisions that head you in that direction. The last step is staying on top of it. If you make a deal with yourself, hey, this is the vision of success that I'm working towards, how are you going to stay on top of that commitment. Because if you're anything like me, and like a lot of my clients, you can have a great plan. And then a week, or two or a month or two down the road, something shows up that is perhaps juicy and delicious. And so you grab at it, but you don't want to let go of your plan. And so all of a sudden, you're over committed. And that keeps happening and keeps happening and keeps happening. So having a system of check ins with yourself, compass readings, if you will, that says, Am I still on the right track? And if I'm on the right track, Am I doing the things I've committed to doing? And if this new opportunity comes up? Do I want it more than one of the things I've already said yes to? Right? Does it move me closer? Does it move me further away? Am I making trade offs? Is that okay? Because it might be. So recognizing that doing the big picture thinking is the first step. And then following through is it doesn't happen automatically. It is a practice. So when it comes to overwhelm, and not feeling successful, it really is an inside job to quote unquote, fix that. And it is something that I want for all of us, right, I want us all to feel like success on our terms is within our grasp. So thank you so much for joining me. I would love to hear your feedback at Jennifer at Jennifer askey.com Or on LinkedIn where this episode will be shared. I think I'm going to share it on Instagram to let me know you've heard it and let me know what you think.