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195. The Happy Student - with Dr Heather Frederick

• William Wadsworth • Episode 195

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Happiness isn't just about feeling good – it's about living in alignment with your values and purpose while managing inevitable stress more effectively.

• Stress is the primary barrier to happiness, hijacking your brain and making good decisions difficult
• Toning your vagus nerve through humming, breath work, movement, connection and nature helps reset your nervous system
• Self-care doesn't just take time – it expands time by improving decision-making and clarity
• Colour-code tasks as red (urgent), yellow (needs attention), green (ongoing) or grey (time-wasters) to manage overwhelm
• Create space between receiving feedback and responding to avoid reactive decisions
• When confused or uncertain, ask for clarification rather than guessing
• Focus on enjoying the learning process rather than fixating solely on grades

Visit expandyourhappy.com to learn more about Dr. Heather Frederick's work and resources.

Heather's podcast is at https://happydocstudent.com/


Her 5.0-star rated book is at https://geni.us/happy-student*

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Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills coach. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress.

BOOK 1:1 COACHING to supercharge your exam success: https://examstudyexpert.com/workwithme/

Get a copy of Outsmart Your Exams, my award-winning exam technique book, at https://geni.us/exams*

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*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases on suggested books.

Podcast edited by Kerri Edinburgh


Questions? Comments? Requests? Or just want to say "thanks" - send me a text message (I read them all!).

William Wadsworth:

Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Expert podcast. Today we're continuing our dip into the world of mindset for scholars and talking about what I'm sure you'll agree is a very important subject, namely how to be happy as a student. I'm William Wadsworth, psychologist and your host for the podcast. There are two reasons that I want to talk to you about happiness today. One is that I simply think we deserve to be happy, or more happy than not. Wherever possible it's nicer. And, of course, if you're struggling with mental health and sort of feeling like, the idea of being happy is this sort of feels like a little bit of a tough ask. You know, I hear you and you know, maybe we've reframed this conversation in terms of of it. Maybe it's about finding more of the good days, fewer of the bad ones. You know, wherever we can, you know we might still have some elements of unhappiness in our, in our world, um, but perhaps we get a little bit better at bouncing back when we get a setback. And and, of course, then the other reason I think we want to strive for happiness is is that I think we we fundamentally we do better work if we are more content with our world generally and our progress in our studies. Specifically, we show up more easily. We do our best work. We were able to, as alice miller from the a few episodes back, put it make make it easier to make meaningful contact with our work, especially when the work's a little bit difficult. And it make make it easier to make meaningful contact with our work, especially when the work's a little bit difficult and it's a little bit of a stretch. It's easy to do that when we're kind of emotionally in in a good place. So today's conversation is something of a master class in identifying key barriers to your happiness and finding ways to overcome said barriers so that the effects of whatever has caused you some challenge, so that we make those effects a little bit smaller and a little bit shorter lived, so we bounce back that much faster. Some of our big themes are going to be finding ways to mitigate stress, how to integrate self-care even perhaps, especially when it feels impossible to find time for yourself, how to prioritise and navigate an overwhelming to-do list and how to bounce back from bad feedback or a disappointing result that knocks your confidence. And I've certainly been there I'm sure you have too.

William Wadsworth:

To help us unpack this topic today, I am joined by the wonderful Dr Heather. Frederick Heather is a PhD in psychology with over 20 years experience in academia in a wide range of roles, from teaching roles through to being a grad school dean. Heather is perhaps best known kind of around the world as the host of the very popular Happy Doc Student podcast. I was honoured to be on her show last year. It was a great time and she's had wonderful, many wonderful episodes that you can dig into over the years.

William Wadsworth:

She's also the author of the book of the same name, which has a mightily impressive 5.0 star rating perfect 5.0 star rating on Amazon from reviews around the world, which is not something you see every day.

William Wadsworth:

It's important to stress.

William Wadsworth:

Although her work is kind of the happy doc student, so meaning students pursuing a doctoral program or phd um, though that's in the title of her podcast and her book uh, she really stresses now that you don't have to be pursuing a doctorate program or even in higher education at all, or, frankly, even in education of any form at all, to benefit from heather's ideas.

William Wadsworth:

Much of her work, and certainly uh, the the content we'll be talking about today, is not specific to any level of, you know, any kind of specific part of your kind of academic journey. You know these themes and the ideas she brings to the table are pretty universal to all levels in your academic journey and indeed to all points along your journey of life as a human being, no matter what goals you're pursuing at the time. So I think we'll all find lots of great things to take from today's episode, no matter what it was that inspired you to come along and tune in to the Exam Study Expert podcast. It's wonderful how to have your company today. I hope you enjoy today's conversation. Let's meet Heather and dive in.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Thank you so much. What an honor to be here. My name is Dr Heather Frederick. I've been working in higher education for almost 30 years now. I'm an expert in doctoral education, but what I'm really passionate about is helping people find more joy in their academic journey. So, william, I can't wait to see where our conversation goes today.

William Wadsworth:

Me too, heather, it's wonderful to have your company, so I wanted to just, I guess, dig right into that theme you introduced a second ago. So when we think about kind of, I guess, finding happiness, or finding a calm and peaceful way to pursue our academic pursuits, from your vast experience of thinking about this topic over the years, what are some of the common things that you see causing us problems when it comes to finding happiness? In our pursuit of various academic goals.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Well, interestingly, I think, whether you're a student or not, what I'm going to say will probably resonate. And where I'd love to start is with this word called happiness. That has recently become somewhat charged. To think about happiness Sometimes people say, well, that gets into this movement they're calling positive toxicity right, where everything has to be great all the time. And if it's not good vibes all the time, if you're not always upbeat and finding the silver lining, there's something wrong with you or the way you're looking at life. And so I want to be really clear. When I adopted that word happy for my podcast and my book, the Happy Doc Student, I really was going back to the roots of this word.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Happiness. That, for me and my definition, is a state that you're in when you're living your life in line with your values, when you feel like you're doing things that move you towards your life purpose. So it's not this fleeting feel good that you might get with oh, I don't know a margarita and a bowl of chips and guacamole. It's not this fleeting state, but more of a sustainable way of being, where you're finding joy in your life, where you can and there's always places that you can find joy. That's not to mean there aren't going to be tough seasons, tough parts of a day, right, it's not about being happy all the time. It's about understanding how to navigate life when you're not feeling joyful, navigating life when you are feeling stressful and being better able to bounce back from those episodes. So you can get back to this baseline of yeah, I'm doing things that are in line with how I want to live my life.

William Wadsworth:

Yeah, yeah, so I guess from you know whether from kind of your personal experience or from from those you've you've kind of met and experience, or from those you've kind of met and coached and worked with over the years. If you kind of to come up with a little list, are there any kind of specific patterns or sort of trends that you'd see can often? You know kind of stand between us and your, I think, very excellent and wise definition of what it means to be happy.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Yes, I can distill it down into one basic barrier and that is stress, right? So whether that's stress from a health challenge, stress from a relationship challenge, stress from an academic challenge, a work challenge, when we're feeling stressed and I think if all your listeners just think for a moment, if I think about a time where I was feeling joyful and full of life, was I stressed? You'd say no. And if I ask you, when you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, is joy an easy feeling for you to grasp, to experience? And the question probably yeah, no, when I'm stressed and overwhelmed.

Dr Heather Frederick:

And when you think about it and I'm sure you've had people on talking about this you know we're in a human body. It's hardwired a certain way. If we feel a threat, our body kind of takes over right, fight, flight and flow, these different states that we can go into. And physiologically what happens is when you're stressed, your amygdala kicks in right and it basically hijacks your brain so that you lose access to your prefrontal cortex, the part that helps you make good decisions. So everyone out there listening think about a time you did something that you're like oh man, why did I do that? Oh, that wasn't me. Or shoot, if only I could hit the rewind button and do that over that action that you took, those words that you said probably happened during a time of stress, because when you're stressed you don't think clearly, right. So I think it's beautiful If we can just think of things simply right, like what's what's the simplest way out of this, this mess of overwhelm that, by the way, most people the the burnout rates among academicians, whether you're a student or a faculty or off the charts.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Everyone's saying I'm burnt out, I'm tired, I'm tired of life. If we go, okay, hang on. If the root causes stress, it really becomes very simple. I'm not going to say it's easy. It's not easy, but the solution is fairly fairly simple. What can I do to manage my stress? How can I better manage my stress? And when I do that, I make more space for moments of joy.

William Wadsworth:

I'd love to ask that question of you in a moment. What can I do to manage stress? But I think before that I'm just curious. You know you kind of referenced that epidemic of stress and overwhelm in the world of academia. Why do you think that is? I mean, why do you think it is that kind of people in different levels of academia kind of have this experience? What is it about pursuing academic goals? That kind of means this is such a common experience for so many people pursuing academic goals, that kind of means.

Dr Heather Frederick:

This is such a common experience for so many people.

Dr Heather Frederick:

You know, anecdotally, it feels like the colleagues that I interact with from all over the world feel like they're being asked to do more with less.

Dr Heather Frederick:

And if you're a student in a class with a faculty member who's stretched, you're probably going to be experiencing that feeling through them, right, if they don't have time to hang out during office hours or hang out after class and make that connection, they don't have time to give you all the feedback they would really love to give you on your assignments.

Dr Heather Frederick:

But, interestingly, burnout used to be reserved. For you know quote unquote the caring professions, people who are interacting with. For you know quote unquote the caring professions people who are interacting with other people and helping them nurses, healthcare professionals. You know, academicians you're in a class, you've got students that you're caring for truly, but post pandemic, there's really this shift where everyone's reporting it. Now, whether this is a measurement issue, whether this is a cultural thing, but it really comes down to feeling like you have a lack of resources and, whether you're in academia or not, a lot of at least in my network people are feeling like they've got more to do than they have the time to complete the tasks in, and that makes you feel burnt out.

William Wadsworth:

Yeah, I think that sensation is a very lots of our listeners kind of feel that in different ways. You know, if you're a professional preparing for exams or a difficult exam, juggling your demanding day job with the kind of intense study schedule you want to do, and maybe you've got a family and responsibilities at home as well, you know you feel pulled in those different directions. You don't feel you know. You put it, but you talked about not having enough resources. You don't have the resource of time, energy, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think that's that's a nice way of nice way of putting it. So I mean, I guess that was the, I guess that was the easy bit, heather, what do we do about it?

Dr Heather Frederick:

Right. Understanding that we're in a situation is one thing, right, but getting out of it is entirely another. So one of the things I love to talk about and interestingly I hardly scratch on this directly in my podcast episodes, but personally I love to talk about the vagus nerve and I'm wondering are you familiar with the vagus nerve, william, or have you had?

William Wadsworth:

any previous guests talk about the vagus nerve. Tell us about the vagus nerve, Heather. That'd be great to learn about.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Okay, I'm hoping people will Google this after to get more in-depth information because it's really fascinating. So it's our longest cranial nerve. It starts at the base of our neck, runs through essentially our entire body and it's really responsible for how it is that we feel and we experience the world. And what ends up happening when you're under chronic stress is that your ventral vagus nerve so there's different pathways has a hard time coming online, has a hard time firing, and so there is a movement out there. And I'd like to give a shout out to the polyvagal instituteorg.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Stephen porges was the original person who came up with the theory behind this, but at polyvagal instituteorg you can see videos, you can lots of free resources, but essentially, when your vagus nerve isn't toned, it's difficult for you to manage stress. When you're feeling it and look, we're all. We're not trying to delete stress from our life, because that's not possible. Right, like, life will be stressful good stress and bad stress. By the way, life will be stressful, so we're not saying I need to wipe all the stress out of my life. I need to get rid of this relationship. I need to quit this job, right, I need to stop this program because it's stressing me out. No, stress is already always going to be there, guys. The answer is, if there's going to be stress in my life, how can I better navigate it? And toning your vagus nerve is my number one go-to. Lots of research behind it and you're probably wondering how do I tone my vagus nerve? The activities, again, are simple. That doesn't mean it's easy to always adopt them into your schedule, but things like humming breath, work, movement, connecting with others, being in nature If I were to have asked you before we even talked about the vagus nerve hey, everyone out there, write a list of things that make you feel good. Chances are, the majority of things on that list, again, adaptive things, not scrolling on Tik TOK or things that make you or binge watching Netflix. Things that make you feel good are likely ventral, vagal toning exercises. So the trick here is where can I naturally weave these into my life so that they become part of my lifestyle?

Dr Heather Frederick:

When you tone your vagus nerve, it's like a reset button. You tell your nervous system hey, it's okay. Now there's times where things aren't okay. Right, there's a dangerous situation that you're in. Well, your, your body will take over. You'll fight or flight. You'll you'll know that part of your nervous system will be activated.

Dr Heather Frederick:

But for most of the day, when we're sitting at our desk doing our work whether that's academic or not when we're feeling stressed and our nervous system is being stressed, that's our time to acknowledge. Wait, hang on. Is there something I could do here that can reset me so that I can think clearly, make good decisions and not feel this way? That I can think clearly, make good decisions and not feel this way? And so the task at hand is really for people to get curious and experiment with things that would fit for them, would work for them and that they enjoy. Certainly, don't do things that you do. If you hate yoga, you hate hiking, don't do it just because it might right Come into it with a wow, this sounds interesting, this sounds fun. I'd like to go for a walk with my loved one or my dog without my cell phone. That's going to tone my vagus nerve, and my recommendation really is to challenge yourself to prioritize your self-care right.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Everyone out there has probably heard statements like you can't pour from an empty cup. You can't. You're not going to be a great student, you're not going to be a great employee, you're not going to be a great fill in the blank. You know, sister, mother, daughter if you're stressed and overwhelmed and burnt out. So what could you do for five minutes a day? That would be an investment in your, in your self care, and it doesn't have to be, doesn't have to cost you money, right? Youtube, tons of free resources, a couple of deep breaths here and there, some stretching, turning off your phone for periods of time. What can you do to show that you care about your health and well being? What are some simple steps you could take? I always recommend find someone to do it with you, to hold each other accountable. Right, simple, but not necessarily easy. When we're in patterns of being stressed out and that's our normal Our normal is being stressed out. Now we need to break that pattern.

William Wadsworth:

Yeah, no, and thank you for that. Lots of, lots of great advice, uh, advice in that.

William Wadsworth:

So I guess I guess there's there's an idea of kind of adding to our schedule and kind of incorporating a little bit, you know and I'm emphasizing the word adding, but, but you know you you're emphasizing, of course, like it doesn't have to be a great big, enormous sort of time commitment. Like you know, even just a few things here and there you sort of weave into our day-to-day. We, we um interviewed a kind of a meditation expert a couple of weeks ago, uh on the show, ann swanson, um, and and she was really really interesting on kind of how to, how to weave these little moments uh into your life, so you can always it's not like you're making, it's not even like you're making time for the task, they just sort of happen in the little moments when you're kind of not really doing anything else.

William Wadsworth:

So that was kind of quite an interesting take which I think complements nicely what you're hearing here, the kind of follow-up thoughts on my mind is whether there's also approaches we could take that involve maybe taking things away or taking away, you know, perhaps they're not going to happen anyway, but we're kind of kidding ourselves that they are and we're going to try and do it all. And that's why we're so stressed and like the early we make that kind of painful decision that okay, well, there's no way I'm going to get all this, it's just, there's just no way the scope of all this fits into the budget of time available. You know, in the early we can kind of make that painful realization and potentially painful prioritization process and make peace with what we're not going to do. The sooner we can we can again start to bring those stress levels under control a little bit. Yeah, I wondered. I wondered if you had any thoughts on that idea.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Absolutely. First, I'd love to say Anne Swanson is awesome, Lover book meditation, clearly a ventral, vagal toning exercise. But I love that you brought up this idea of adding to a schedule, because people will often say well, Heather, of course, if I had time to take care of myself I would, but I don't right. So there's this thought of it's going to be another thing to do and my experience is that when I take care of myself, I expand time because I make better decisions. It's easier for me to clearly see, like you're saying, I'm going to say no to this request because I can see the ways it's not in line with my current goals. I'm going to set this boundary and I know you interviewed Alison Miller who has great, great advice about setting boundaries. So again, it feels like you're having to put things in, even if it's just weaving it in very naturally, while you're waiting for your coffee to brew or whatnot, when you're at a stoplight. But again, I challenge your listeners when you start taking care of yourself, do you see that time seems to expand, that you get more done on your to-do list because you're discerning, you're better able to discern what should be on that list, what should be on that list. So the saying no, the prioritizing, all those things are absolutely important and along those lines of taking away, sometimes there's things we do that deplete us.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Like, I'm going to say it, social media, things like Netflix, Are there things that you're participating in, and this takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage to be consciously aware of how you're engaging with things like technology and how it's impacting you, not just in terms of productivity but in terms of your emotional state. So there are. If you just keep a journal for a week, 10 days, what are the things that I'm doing that are depleting me and can I either reduce it or completely take it out of my life is a huge win in terms of self-care. So there's this thought of what can I add? But the flip side of that coin that you so brilliantly brought up, William, was and what can I take away? They're equally important.

William Wadsworth:

Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting question to reflect on and I think sometimes we're often quite surprised. You know, there's the exercise which has often surprised me when you go into the settings section of your smartphone and look at the screen usage stats, which are there as standard on most smartphones that are shipped these days, there as standard on on most smartphones that ship these days, and you know you, you look at the, the daily screen time and the breakdown by app and you think, oh goodness sake, goodness me, like how did I spend?

Dr Heather Frederick:

how did that happen?

William Wadsworth:

right an hour a day, like I thought it was no time at all, like an hour a day on youtube or tiktok or whatever it was. You know I'm not going to do that and you know so. You know quite can be really illuminating One of your tips that I remember reading about for sort of time management and maybe helping kind of audit that's how you're using your time. You talk about colouring your task choices and having sort of you know, red, green, yellow, grey tasks, tasks. I wonder if you could maybe just talk a little bit about that, that exercise yeah.

Dr Heather Frederick:

So this is, um, something I learned through mark woods. He authored a book called attack your day before it attacks you and again, these are exercises where they're really exercises in awareness, being being aware. So, asking yourself when your emails are coming through, do I need to stop? I'm in the middle of a task. I just got an email. Am I stopping and reading that email, right? Or can I chunk my email and check my email a certain time a day, certain times each day, versus getting distracted? And then, when I do check the email, can I color it or my my task list so red? Those are the things.

Dr Heather Frederick:

You have to get them done today and really, pending the tasks unless they're easy, simple things, you really don't want to have too many reds in one day because you're just going to feel like you failed and you didn't get everything done that you write. So there's this again this awareness, this realistic, this realistic approach to how many hours are there really in a day? And what Mark Woods would recommend is actually block out your day in hours. Well, if I'm going to do yoga for 20 minutes and I'm going to do check my emails and that usually takes me two hours, I and then suddenly you'll see wow, I only have six hours to get 50 things done. What was I thinking? And you try to put them in the slots and you so, right away, you reduce your, your daily to-do list, and that reduces overwhelm because you're more realistic. But when you color, you don't. You know the red ones need to get done and you prioritize them, and so sometimes that may be communicating to someone. I got your email. I'm going to give you a thoughtful response. Please give me three business days. Versus feeling because it wasn't an urgent email. It was someone who had a question. You absolutely want to get back to them, but with this idea you can't do everything at once.

Dr Heather Frederick:

If you ask yourself what color is this task? Is this something where you know it's a yellow? So I need to pay attention, I need to set a deadline. I'm telling them it'll get done in three days. Is it a green? Is it some of this ongoing stuff? Tasks that you do that are ongoing, that whether you get it done this week or next week, isn't really a big deal.

Dr Heather Frederick:

The gray tasks are really the ones that tend to revolutionize how productive we are when we notice them, and those are the things like scrolling on social media, binge watching things, participating in gossip at work, right? Things that don't bring you towards the execution of your goals. That don't bring you towards the execution of your goals. So really, it comes down to paying attention. Yes, you've got your to-do list, but look at it realistically. What can you actually get done today and which ones really are the reds that need to get done today? Movement needs to be done today because your boss is waiting for that report and they need to submit it to the to the board tomorrow, right? So it has to get done. And how can you take some of that stress off yourself? By communicating with the other colors, with realistic deadlines.

Dr Heather Frederick:

You know, I think if you're in a position where you're giving out tasks, make it clear to your team members I'm asking you to do these 10 things, but I certainly don't expect them to be done this week.

Dr Heather Frederick:

If you can prioritize these two and then we'll meet about the other eight next week, because often, when you're in a position where a boss or someone of authority is asking you to do something, they all feel like reds. So I always like to encourage people who are in a position where they're doling out the tasks to help your employees, your team members, color them so they're not feeling overwhelmed. If you're in a situation where you're all the tasks are being dumped on you, particularly if they're coming from different sources, then that's where I say find your voice and ask for clarity. No problem, what's the expectation here? Are we talking tomorrow? Are we talking the first of next month? Again, so that you can prioritize and manage your time. There's only 24 hours a day and I hope everyone listening to this is spending a significant amount, you know, six or more hours resting each of those days.

William Wadsworth:

Absolutely, absolutely. So we're kind of starting to take back a little bit of control of our schedule. There may be still other things that come up and cause stress. I think one of the really interesting things I remember reading in your book, to quote, I think you talk about using ego shattering feedback to your advantage and certainly speaking from personal experience, feedback definitely has the tendency to be ego shattering and can turn an otherwise very productive week into a week full of disappointment and spinning around in your head and not getting an awful lot done and being fairly unhappy in the process. So I'd love it if you might be able to share any wisdom for us. When we do get those disappointing results, that feedback from others that makes us feel pretty lousy, how can we move forward?

Dr Heather Frederick:

It's hard not to take feedback personal right, whether it's how you're folding the laundry, how you're driving or an essay that you that you turned in, it's that's natural. So know that it's natural to have that response and then again have that awareness. Wait, that just put my body in a state of stress, which means I may not be thinking clearly. So some of the tips I like to give when you get feedback like that is what can you do to reset your nervous system so that you can engage with this feedback in a meaningful way? One of my favorite quotes is from Viktor Frankl and I hope I get it right. But it's something like this Between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space is our power to choose our response, and in our response lies our growth, right? So stimulus, feedback Now, before you react, react reflexively, can you stop, take a deep breath, maybe need to go for a run, take a shower, journal before you respond to that feedback? It's a huge time saver. It's a huge time saver not just because you'll be thinking more clearly if you need to fix something in an assignment or a paper, right, if you need to redo something, but it's a huge time saver because think about those reactive things that happen when you get feedback, that create disasters you have to clean up later.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Right, you were. You were rude to a coworker, you said terrible things to your, to your partner. You shot off an email that, oh my goodness, you would give anything to get back now. So now you're doing damage control because you reacted to the feedback instead of giving yourself space so that you could respond to it appropriately and to the best that you can and I know I get it, it's difficult, but the best that you can approach feedback with curiosity. Right, this, this attitude isn't this interesting. Hmm, I wonder what I might be learning by this. Hmm, right, to just again giving yourself that space so that you can engage with it in a way that um doesn't create more problems for you.

William Wadsworth:

A friend of mine talks about. When you get those emails and you get that result, when you get that bit of in-person feedback, you know, okay, what was this designed to teach me? What was this designed to teach me Just what you're saying there about, okay, how can I learn from this? This is curious. I like that idea of bringing curiosity. So we've talked a bit about managing schedules and kind of a very significant challenge there for many of us. We talked a little bit about navigating the feedback. I guess are there kind of any other big sources of stress that we haven't touched on yet? We've always talked about the importance of the self-care and managing that. Are there any other sort of little ideas around kind of managing stress that you think would be particularly helpful to surface to people listening today?

Dr Heather Frederick:

You know, I think the one thing that we haven't really touched on, but that I see a lot, is simply related to communication. Sometimes you're under stress because you've misunderstood something. It could be the feedback that you just got, it could be the expectations that you believe people have for you, but they may or may not. So I know my twins now are in college and when I visit them and I see them in moments of stress and I ask them what's going on, often I'm saying why don't you just ask, why don't you reach out to your professor and say you know what? I'm reading it this way. Is this right? What exactly is due next Tuesday?

Dr Heather Frederick:

And my experience is that people are afraid to ask questions because they think it will look, you know it'll be a dumb question and people are going to go. Really, you're asking that. So I actually have a pot, a very short podcast it's like less than 10 minutes on called something like how to not ask a dumb question and basically that is do your work. You know, spend a few minutes trying to find the answer, but my goodness, once you've attempted to find the answer, when you don't have the answer, you still don't have the clarity. By all means, please ask. This goes beyond just asking your faculty member.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Can I get some clarity on what you said here or how this rubric is read? It really goes to every part of life. Someone says something to you that rubs you the wrong way. I'm sorry, can you? What did you just say to me? Can I ask what you meant by that? Because, wow, when you said that to me, it made me feel really yucky. It made me feel really yucky inside. Am I interpreting this correctly? So asking for clarification, opening up those lines of communication, I think, is another way to reduce stress and find more joy. Often it's misunderstanding. There's a lot of misunderstanding I see happening out there.

William Wadsworth:

I think that's a great point. Yeah, you don't need to guess you, you can ask, you can ask yes so I mean so many interesting things.

William Wadsworth:

I I wonder, as we sort of work towards bringing the conversation to a close time, as always is is against us? Uh, when we're, as so often happens, are we having a great conversation? Conversation? But I was curious, reflecting back on your own time as a student yourself. I'm just curious, looking back with the benefit of hindsight. What are some of the things you think you did well, and are there any particular messages you wish you yourself? Maybe learned a little bit sooner to help you on the journey.

Dr Heather Frederick:

I would say that my type A personality worked for me in the sense that I'd read the syllabus line by line, right. I'd ask for clarification when it wasn't there because, my goodness, I wanted to perform, I wanted to perform, and so having that diligence worked for me. At the same time, I'm going to say if I had to go back and talk to my younger self as a student, I would have said hey, you know, there's times that that part of your personality, the wanting to be hyper vigilant, is a great trait as a student. But, my goodness, you need to chill out sometimes. You need to chill out.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Sometimes my mom actually tells a story. I don't remember it, but she said I came home from kindergarten crying because I had missed an item on a spelling test or something. So that kind of gives you a sense of the type of student I was. I really had to do well or my feelings got hurt. And so, going back, I think I would say to myself you know, this is a journey, feedback, grades, it's all part of the process. It's an adventure where you're going to learn what you're good at, what you like, what you're not so good at, what you don't like. And take it as that Don't just be focused on that grade. I think that's how I would sum it up. I wish I wasn't so focused on getting the grade. I wish I had been more focused on enjoying the experience of learning, and I hope all your listeners out there go. Hmm, what would my day look like? How would my experience be different If I thought about that, if I thought about enjoying the process of learning something new, learning something about myself?

William Wadsworth:

Definitely important for us all to think about. I think Not always easy, not always easy, but that makes it sometimes almost. I think sometimes the best and most important advice of all is the kind of harder stuff to think about and to take. So, heather, thank you so much. It's been such an interesting conversation. We've touched on so many really interesting things. I'm just curious if anybody's interested to learn more about you and your work. You mentioned a couple of things. Where might they want to go next?

Dr Heather Frederick:

Sure, everything is on my website and hopefully it's easy to remember. It's expandyourhappycom, so you can hop over there and see if anything resonates.

William Wadsworth:

Fantastic. Well, we'll pop that link in the show notes, along with a couple of other things you've mentioned along the way today. And, heather, thank you so much once again. It's been such fun to catch up and looking forward to talking again soon.

Dr Heather Frederick:

Yeah, William. Thank you so much for the invite and thanks for all the great work that you're doing as well.

William Wadsworth:

Well, heather, thank you once again for your time today and sharing your wisdom. Thank you for coming on the show. I've linked your podcast and your book in the show notes for anyone who wants to check those resources out, especially relevant if you're pursuing a doctoral program of some kind. But really, as you've seen today, has an awful lot that's relevant for lots of us. And, as I say, the book, that 5.0 star rating definitely not something you see every day, so well worth checking out. Remember, if you use the links in the show notes on a huge number of the episodes of the Example Today Expert podcast where we've suggested particular books, if you use those links to go on and purchase a book, then we are able to earn a small referral fee which comes at no cost to you, which is a great little way to support some of the costs of making the show for you. And if you've been a long time listener and we've been able to help you through the podcast, then I'd warmly invite you to take the step to join our VIP supporters club over on Patreon.

William Wadsworth:

We have a range of price points to support at Really. That's there to reflect the wide range of financial circumstances that I know our listener base have. You know I know some of you have more limited resources as students yourselves. You know I know some of you have more limited resources as students yourselves. Others are now on a more stable footing financially, as perhaps parents, or you're kind of getting established in your career, so you might be able to support at a level that makes sense to you. I've kept the main benefits the same across all different levels of support, so it's sort of a pay, what you can kind of model. You can kind of choose the support level that makes sense to you, that feels appropriate to your financial situation. But I've kept the kind of core benefits that you get in terms of lots of juicy, extra sort of video lessons, downloadables, a selection of high impact goodies that I know you'll love, that is available just the same for everybody, no matter what price point you're supporting at.

William Wadsworth:

To suggest a particular resource that ties in well to this episode and the self-care theme in particular, I'd suggest checking out the Deep Dress for Students meditation, which was recorded especially for the exam study expert community by Camilla Walker, a really nice way to set down your burden, for a time to unwind and deeply rest and refresh yourself. That's just one of the many nice goodies you'll find in the vip supporters club over on patreon. You can get all of that at uh head at examstudyexpertscom forward slash patreon, where you can learn more and join us today. That that's examstudyexpertcom forward slash Patreon. P-a-t-r-e-o-n. For now, I just wanted to say thank you, as always, for listening today. It's been such a joy to have your company and I want to wish you every success and happiness in your studies.

Speaker 3:

Just before you go. Did you know you can hire William as your very own coach and mentor to show you the stress-free way to ace your exams? By studying smarter, not harder. Find out how, at examstudyexpertcom, slash coaching.