4.45 Some common misconceptions about self improvement - and what to do instead

We often assume that the route to achieving our goals is to “improve” ourselves in some way and so we search podcasts (like mine!), YouTube, or wherever for advice and tips. The trouble is, there’s a lot of misconceptions about what self-improvement should actually look like and even more misunderstandings about the specific tool of timeblocking. In this episode, I share five things you may well be misunderstanding and what I think you should do instead. 

If you liked this episode, you might also like this episode on seven mistakes academics make and how to avoid them.

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I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464

I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Transcript

Speaker: Hello, and welcome to the PhD Life Coach Podcast. This week, I am gonna be thinking about some misconceptions, misconceptions that I suspect you guys might have, misconceptions that I certainly have had, and I'll share some stories about that as we go through. And these misconceptions are all about kind of the purpose of self-improvement, the purpose particularly of time blocking, which is something we talk about in the PhD Life Coach membership quite a lot.

Speaker: And I think this is super important because you're people who clearly listen to podcasts like this, clearly listen to people talking about ways to be more effective, to be more efficient, to do more stuff potentially, do the stuff you want to do. You clearly have some sort of intention that you want things to change, and you clearly have some sort of belief that the answers are out there somewhere.

Speaker: So some of you may only listen to me, some of you may also read self-help books, listen to other podcasts, look stuff up on YouTube, et cetera, et cetera. And that's why I think this is gonna be such an important episode for people like you so that we can make sure that this stuff you're listening to doesn't become an end in its own right and instead helps you get where you want to get.

Speaker: And in line with that, I have quite a big announcement at the end of this episode, so make sure you listen all the way through to find out what I'm talking about, 'cause I'm not gonna tell you anything more than that now 

Speaker: Okay, so let's start on these misconceptions. I have got five, I think. Who knows? Sometimes I add stuff as I go along, as you know. But at the moment, I have five misconceptions that I think lots of people have, that lots of my members have, um, until they join the membership at least, and that I see as being real problems.

Speaker: The first is that the goal of any of this stuff, the listening to me, reading other self-help books, whatever, the goal is to be more organized, to be more productive, to be more tidy, to be more on top of things, whatever that means. And it might surprise you to say I don't actually believe that's true.

Speaker: I don't think those things are end goals in and of themselves. I used to believe that was the point, that the end goal was to be more organized and so on, and that's why I spent so much time looking for the perfect system, looking for the perfect planner, and also beating myself up for not being more organized, not being more on top of things. And I thought if I could just be more productive and be more organized, then I wouldn't beat myself up, and it would all feel so much better.

Speaker: And that sounds kinda logical, right? And I'm sure a lot of you feel like that too. But what I realized over time, and what I hope to convince you of today, is that the end goal actually isn't being more organized or being more tidy or even being more productive. That's not actually the end goal. I've realized over time that what we really want usually are the byproducts of being more organized, being more tidy, being more productive, or byproducts that we expect to come from those things.

Speaker: And the two kinda categories of byproducts that I think are useful to consider are how we wanna feel and how we wanna spend our time. Because what I realized was that my end goal wasn't being more organized. I just wanted to feel less crap all the time. Okay? And don't get me wrong. Whenever I say that, it makes it sound like I was super miserable.

Speaker: I wasn't super miserable. I did some really fun stuff. I still do some really fun stuff. I did some really successful things. I was highly productive. I just had a kinda layer of chaos and self-judgment that meant I didn't always enjoy it as much as I could have done, looking back. And I realize now that I thought if I was more organized, if I was more tidy, if I was more productive, then I would feel less judgmental of myself.

Speaker: I would feel less harassed, less sort of behind, less all of these things. And that was the bit I wanted, and I thought the solution was the perfect system. I'm not convinced it is anymore The reason for that is you can feel all those things even with your current state of organization, even with your current level of productivity.

Speaker: In fact, I look back, and this is gonna sound like I'm blowing smoke up my own ass, but I look back at how much I did as an academic and in my life around my academic-ness, and I'm like, "How? In what world did you think you weren't productive enough?" I did a ridiculous amount of stuff, and it makes me quite sad to think how much I told myself that I wasn't doing enough, and if only I was more organized, I'd be able to do it all.

Speaker: I did loads. I did all sorts of different things. Yet I was obsessed with the fact that if only I could be more organized, then everything else would feel better. I can see now that actually there were a bunch of other routes to feeling less stretched in different directions, to feeling less like a whirlwind, and most importantly, to feeling less judgmental about myself and how I was doing things.

Speaker: The other byproduct that I think we all want from this notion of getting more organized, more tidy, more productive, is to be spending more of our time doing the things that we actually want to do. And again, that is very different than being more organized and productive. If you are more organized and productive, but what that does is allow you to fit in more things that you don't actually want to be doing, but you kind of feel like you should be doing, that doesn't lead to us being happier, to us leading more fulfilling, more fun lives.

Speaker: I want you to think what are the things that are currently not in your life, or not in your life enough, that you want to be in your life, that being more organized or being more productive would allow you to fit? It's not the same thing as just being more organized. Being more organized might be a route to some of that, but it's not the end goal in and of itself.

Speaker: And I get really sad. I spend quite a lot of time in various sort of self-help communities, not only my own, but also as a client as well, and I increasingly get a bit sad at the goals that people are working towards. Because I often feel like the goals are so boring. That's terrible, but the goals are often so boring.

Speaker: Like, the actual goal being I want a tidier house, and it's like- No, that's... A tidier house enables you potentially to have a more calm and fun existence within the house. It enables you to spend less time judging yourself. It enables you to have a safe space perhaps. But none of it, that, that's the end goal.

Speaker: I think the tidiness is just one route to it. It doesn't have to be that route to it. But I think we have to have that bigger picture in mind as to why we want these things. If we're, you know, our goals are to stick to a journaling habit, why? Why? To what end point? I've got no objection to journaling.

Speaker: Happy days, let's go. But why do you want a journaling habit? Is it 'cause some skinny chick on Instagram told you that's what you should be doing and so you're like, "Ooh, that sounds good. That's gonna be the route to my dream." But what are you journaling about? What are the core memories that you wanna recall?

Speaker: What are the interesting mundane little bits and bobs that you think are interesting? What is the fun way you wanna be splattering paint around in order to do that? Why? Why? Why? Why? What do you actually want to be able to do? What do you actually want to be filling your time with? And I think that's the bit we should be spending a lot more time thinking about, and thinking about all the other stuff, the self-improvement stuff, the kind of time blocking, time management stuff, all of that as a means to this greater end.

Speaker: For some of you, that will be about your kind of broader purpose in the world. So making a contribution and all of those things. I try and make my contribution through the work that I do with you guys and bits and pieces that I do in my own community. I aspire to a ludicrous life which I know sounds a little bit strange, but I aspire to a ludicrous life. I want to inject more of that into my life now. Since I got married and became a grown-up, I've become slightly less ludicrous than I used to be. I want to live a life where people are going, "Oh, Christ, what's Vikki doing now?" That's the vibe I want to go for, okay? And being more organized actually helps with that because I can think ahead.

Speaker: You know, I've got much better this year at, kind of looking ahead at weird and wonderful things that we can do when we're on holiday or on random weekends or whatever. Uh, next plan, Steampunk Festival. Very excited. Planning a flying machine costume. Um, things like that. And that does require a degree of organization, but the end point isn't being more organized.

Speaker: The end point is making badass costumes with my husband, stepdaughter, and niece so that we can go off and have a lovely day out dressing up with a bunch of steampunk people. What is the end point? So that is the first misconception.

Speaker: Second misconception fits with that perfectly, which is that time blocking is rigid and leaves no flexibility I believe that the way a lot of people do time blocking, it absolutely feels rigid and no flexibility. And if you have a version of time blocking where you then beat yourself up if you don't stick to all your time blocks, if you've ever listened to anybody going, "What you need to do is you put it in your diary and then do it, and not doing it's a fail," don't listen to those podcasts. Um, if that's how you do time blocking, if you only ever pla- time block boring stuff, you only ever time block work, you only ever time block things that you're procrastinating, then of course it feels rigid and rubbish.

Speaker: If you believe that you're someone who can only get something done when you feel like doing it, then absolutely time blocking's gonna feel rigid and pointless. I believe the central purpose of time blocking is to time block in all the crap you actually wanna do so that we don't accidentally fill up that time with cleaning and scrolling and moaning to people about things that aren't changing, and generally fluff.

Speaker: Let's time block fun stuff. Let's time block good time with your friends and families. Let's time block the hobbies you tell me you haven't got time to do. Let's time block going to steampunk festivals. Everyone should come to the steampunk festival with me. Let's time block fun stuff. And you might say, "Oh, but I don't have time."

Speaker: Well, okay, let's time block a little tiny bit of time. Doesn't have to be much. Let's time block a bit. If you're telling me, "Oh, no, I, I'll do that when the other stuff's done," you won't. You won't, because everything else is just kinda easy and just kinda demanding and just kind of fills to expand the time we give it.

Speaker: And if you tell me, "Oh, well, I just don't, I never know when I'll be able to," decide when it is. We all know if you plan an evening, I don't know, an evening just where you wanna chill at home and not do anything for anybody else, or you plan an evening where you've bought Harry Styles tickets, okay? And then somebody says, "Oh, could you help me with this?" We all know which one you're more likely to go, "Really, mate, sorry, can't. Got train tickets, got Harry Styles tickets. I'm gonna be at Wembley." Rather than, "Yeah, I, I probably can," and your quiet evening chilling out's gone out the window.

Speaker: When we time block things, booking tickets for a Harry Styles concert is time blocking. It's saying, "That Friday night I am not free, 'cause this is what I'm doing, and it's fun and awesome." Time blocking other fun things that don't require tickets is time blocking too, we just don't do it. We only do it when it involves other, like, outside constraints. Time block fun stuff.

Speaker: Time block when you're gonna go and have a break. Time block it from your best head, rather than from the head that tells you ain't got time for breaks. That's why time blocking is so important. And I know we don't stick to it perfectly. I don't stick to it perfectly. But at least when we stick to it to some extent, our life is proportionally made up of more of the stuff we want it to be.

Speaker: So what I want you to get to with time blocking is prioritize the fun stuff first, get that time blocked in, so that during that time when you're hanging out with your kid or whatever, you're not going, "Oh, I should be working on my PhD," or when you're reading a novel, you're not going, "Oh, I should be cleaning the house."

Speaker: No, literally says in my diary, "Read novel." Happy days. Boom, I'm on it. Let's go. Only choice, do I do it in the sofa? Do I do it in the bath? Do I go to the park and lay on a rug? Let's do that. Give yourself flexibility like that. Okay?

Speaker: The point of time blocking is to decide how you want to spend your time, and decide it from a place that you like so that you're spending more of your time doing the stuff you want to, and less of the time that we kinda just make up on the spot when we're not in the greatest of places.

Speaker: If you're going, "Yeah, but I might not feel like writing during my time block," that's okay. You can do things you don't feel like doing. I know it's harder, but you can. And one of the best ways to do that is to decide you're gonna do it anyway. I didn't particularly feel like recording this podcast, not gonna lie.

Speaker: Got other things I need to do for this afternoon, but this is what my job was today. This is what this time I had allocated for. I want it to be done, 'cause I'm going away for the weekend for a circus conference, 'cause obviously. Told you I was planning fun shit. Anyway, apologies for the language, anyone who's got children in the car.

Speaker: So I'm doing it, and I... Now I'm doing it, now I'm talking to you guys, it's actually fine, right? I'm wittering on, as usual. All good. Now, what you can do if you don't feel much like it, you can say, "Okay, I am doing the thing I intended, but I'm gonna do it a bit more gently. I'm gonna do it a bit more slowly."

Speaker: Time blocking doesn't dictate the pace at which you have to hit it. You know, if you time block exercise into your diary and you're like, "You know what? I didn't sleep very well last night," "I'm premenstrual" or "I'm a bit achy from the workout the other day," you can still exercise, just do a bit less. I still am a bit of a CrossFit obsessive at the moment. I still go to CrossFit if I feel like that. I just use lower weights and do less reps and don't try and get as many done in the time. ? You can still time block, just do less. So time blocking is not about rigidity and making your life structured and boring. It's about planning in more of the stuff that you want to be doing

Speaker: Third misconception is that there's a perfect system out there that will fix all your woes if only you can find it. And that's why you keep listening to my podcast, you keep listening to other people's podcasts, you keep reading self-help books, you keep going on YouTube, you keep finding productive people on Instagram who tell you a new system, and you try that one.

Speaker: Because you believe the solution is out there. The problem is you, and the solution is out there. Neither of those things are true. You are not the problem. The solution is not out there. Now, there's good advice for things that might help you a little bit here and there, but we don't solve it by searching for a perfect system.

Speaker: There is not one perfect system that will work for everybody, and there is not one perfect system that will work for you forever. What we can do is pick roughly something that sounds about right and keep doing it, and notice when we don't do it and wonder why we don't do it, and maybe tweak and modify or even just return to.

Speaker: You know, those of you who've heard me talk about this with a tightroping analogy before, if every time we fell off a system, like falling off a tightrope, we went, "Ah, okay, think I wobbled a bit there," and got back on again, we'd be a damn sight better at tightrope walking than if we decide the problem's the tightrope and I need to get a different one.

Speaker: Don't need to find new systems, doesn't have to be a perfect system. We need to learn to get back on it more often 

Speaker: And that leads to misconception four, again, one that I used to fall for massively and I'm proud to say have now completely disregarded, which is that you should go from zero to consistent in one go.

Speaker: So you decide there's some new system you want to do, some new behavior you want to introduce or whatever, and you somehow think that you should go from, "I don't have a system by which I do this thing," to, "I use that system." So, "I don't exercise," to, "I exercise regularly." To, "I don't have a writing routine," to, "I'm gonna write for half an hour every day."

Speaker: No. Any of you who are watching YouTube will have just seen a face that my husband finds highly entertaining. So if you're not watching this on YouTube, you should go and find it on YouTube and scroll to this point and find the face I just pulled. Um, it was my what are you talking about face. Apparently it comes out quite a lot.

Speaker: Anyway, This shouldn't be. Let's throw out any expectation that we're gonna go from not really doing a thing or having a system for it to finding a system that works consistently first time. We're gonna get ourselves to a place instead where we find a system that kind of works when we kind of use it a little bit and then we don't, and then we find ourselves using it less and then we use it a little bit more, and then we try again, and we keep going.

Speaker: And that returning to it is part of it. Because if you have this misconception that if it was the right system or if it worked, then you would be using it consistently and perfectly immediately, continually, forever, then as soon as it falls apart a little bit and you stop using it so much, you're gonna go and look for a new system. Whereas if you believe, "You know what? I think this is roughly the one that's gonna work for me." Okay?

Speaker: I have this with walking, right? I believe that in terms of my kind of just baseline aerobic fitness health jazz, walking is really good for me. When I walk more, I feel better. When I walk more, I find it easier to maintain my weight and things like that. I generally just find it good when I walk more. Um, I don't always walk more. I sometimes have excuses around it being too busy, around it being too hot. These are all excuses that I could work around if I stopped and thought about it a little bit more. But I end up, my step count drops a bit. And if I didn't believe now that consistency is a kind of goal-ish, then I would be going, "Oh, walking doesn't really work for me. Maybe I should think about dancing. Maybe I should think about rebounder. Maybe I should be doing reformer Pilates," whatever it is. I know walking works for me. It's easy. It's straightforward. I don't have to get changed for it. I don't have to pay any money for it. I can fit it in whenever. And when I do it, it feels better. It works fine. I'm just not super, super consistent. Thankfully, I do just come back to it. So when I note it now these days where I don't make a massive drama about it, I just notice, oh, I'm not walking as much now. Might start walking some more and crack back on again. Okay? Because I don't expect myself to be 100% perfect at any of these things.

Speaker: Same's true for writing practices. Same's true for reading practices, all these different things. Don't expect yourself to have 100% adherence and decide it's a fail or decide it's the wrong system if you don't.

Speaker: Then the fifth one, and it's gonna sound a little ... It connects to all of those, and it's gonna sound a little, um, what's the word? Uh, strange, let's say, for a podcast host to say this. More content isn't the solution here. Some of you are searching for perfect systems by consuming content, but some of you are also generating a sense of productivity by listening to things that sound productive. And I'm really sorry if that's calling you out, but I suspect it will be quite a lot of you.

Speaker: Listening to somebody talk about how to be productive is quite a sort of productivity feeling thing to do. It kind of creates a sense in your head that you're being organized, 'cause you're listening to things about how to be more organized. It's not the same thing as being more organized. It's not the same thing as getting your writing done. Listening to me witter on is not the same thing as progressing the draft of your chapter. I'm sorry. It's why I actually ... I go two ... round and round about YouTube, what I'm gonna do about YouTube, because, and in a minute I'm gonna tell you what I'm doing. Because I don't actually like the idea of you sitting at your desk watching me witter on about productivity.

Speaker: I actually don't think that's a great use of your time. I love the podcast, because I think the podcast is relatively short, and you can do it when you're doing other things. You can listen to it while you're driving. You can listen to it while you're walking. You can listen to it while you're doing the washing up or whatever.

Speaker: So I like that. I also don't want you listening to 20 different podcasts a week. I don't want you to have 100 of us. You know, I don't want you to be on all these different productivity podcasts and never giving your brain an opportunity to either think about things for itself, i.e. with no headphones in, or just to listen to interesting stuff. If we ... Imagine how much more interesting our lives would be that instead of reading books about how to make habits stick or whatever, you were reading books about witches in Nova Scotia. I don't know why I said Nova Scotia. Go with it. Is there a book about witches in Nova Scotia? Somebody let me know.

Speaker: If not, we should write one. I do have another novel in my head, by the way. Uh, anyway, don't have time to write that right now. But it's brewing. And it is about, it's actually relevant, it is about academics needing having more fun in their life. Anyway, and it's not a self-help book, it's a novel.

Speaker: I want you to be listening to fun stuff. I want you to be blasting tunes and having a dance. I want you to be using that consumption in a way that actually feels fun, rather than in a way that makes you feel like you're working on yourself. Now, does that mean I don't want you to listen to my podcast? No. I want you to listen to my podcast. But if you are somebody who also listens to 47 others, let's maybe trim it down a little bit.

Speaker: Let's think more about how we can use the things that we listen to, and actually, if you're going to listen to a podcast, I want you to do something different in that week. That's why if you're not on my emails yet, you listen to my podcast but you're not on my emails, I want you to go to my website, thephdlifecoach.com, and sign up for my emails, because my emails will give you a specific action inspired by the podcast.

Speaker: So I want you to make sure that you're actually doing something, because there's a lot of good stuff in my podcast, but if you just listen to them, never apply them, it's not gonna make the change that you want it to make. It's gonna kinda feel like you're being productive, 'cause you're listening to me and you're feeling a bit more motivated, but let's actually do it.

Speaker: Now, those are my five misconceptions. The goal is not to be more organized, the goal is to be doing more of the things you want to be doing and feeling the way you wanna feel more often. 

Speaker: Time blocking is not about being more rigid and more flexible, it's about creating space for the things you want to spend time doing There's not a perfect system out there that's gonna work for everyone or that's going to work for you all the time perfectly, and spending time looking for it is not the vibe

Speaker: You shouldn't expect yourself to go from zero implementation to perfect implementation. In fact, let's never expect perfect implementation of absolutely anything for ourselves. Returning to a system is the key that it's working

Speaker: And five, the solution is not consuming more things. Stop buying self-help books all the time. Read some other stuff.

Speaker: So those are my five misconceptions, which leads to, there's a reason I'm talking about this this week, which leads to my announcement about the podcast. So as you know, my podcast has been running for four years. Don't worry, it's not stopping. You're all good. It is coming up to the end of its fourth year at the end of this academic year, and I've realized there is so much good content, and so much good content that right now I don't think over the summer generating more content for you is what you need. So do not fear. I'm not just disappearing for a while.

Speaker: What I am gonna do instead, I have selected my 24 favorite episodes, the episodes that either have been the most popular in terms of downloads or have been, I think, chronically unrecognized that make the biggest difference, and I've clustered them into 12 themes. So themes around writing more effectively, themes around procrastination, themes around imposter syndrome, all the good stuff that you guys struggle with. So it's 24 favorite episodes around 12 different themes. And so you guys are all invited to the PhD Life Coach Summer School.

Speaker: What I am gonna do is every week there's gonna be two podcast episodes released, one on a Monday, one on a Wednesday. They are gonna be a introduction from me about why I selected this particular episode, how it's impacted me, and why I think that you should be trying to really implement things from this podcast now You'll then get a repeat of that podcast. So I'm pulling things out the archives for you, the ones that I really want you to pay attention to. And then they'll finish again with a little overview from me about what I want you to try and implement in your life. It is gonna be action-focused. You don't have to listen to all of them. You might say, "You know what?

Speaker: Not writing at the moment, not a big deal, don't need to listen to that one." Or you can listen to all of them, but the promise I want from you is that you will listen and you will attempt to implement some stuff. The email will still only be weekly, not, twice a week, but you will get information about both episodes in that email.

Speaker: So do still join the newsletter to get all the stuff that kind of backs up behind this. And one of the things that they are gonna point towards is I am creating some more study with me videos for YouTube. I've decided I don't want you just watching YouTube, sitting at your desk watching YouTube, me telling you how to be more productive.

Speaker: If you're watching me on YouTube, I want you to be actually doing something. So I want them to be more ... These are gonna be structured study alongs. They're not just gonna be a Pomodoro situation, although there will be some elements of that. They'll be structured. They'll be me giving you tasks, you cracking on with it.

Speaker: Okay? So they are designed for different common scenarios. I'll announce what they are as we go along. They're gonna map to some extent with the summer school content. So you will have more opportunities when you're just like, "I can't get started," to go to YouTube, pick one of those, and I will take you through a work session.

Speaker: I hope you're excited. I am super excited. I've picked out some absolute crackers. I wonder which ones you want to be involved. I wonder if I will pick the ones that you love too. It's a brilliant opportunity to tell your friends about the PhD Life Coach Podcast, 'cause it will be a really good sort of introduction to all the key ideas.

Speaker: So if you're new around here, there will be episodes that you have not come across because they were came out before you were listening. If you've been around for ages, there's gonna be ones that you have not listened to for two years, and that you've forgotten about and that weren't relevant to you or that were differently relevant to you when you listened to them and now you're at a different stage.

Speaker: So no matter what stage of listening you're at, this is gonna be an opportunity for greatest hits essentially. I hope you're all as excited as I am. If you have any questions, make sure you're on my newsletter. You can always reply to the email. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next week