Do you generally have a positive outlook on things? How do you bring yourself back to a state of equanimity if you catch yourself being negative?
‘Negative’, me?
Actually, I suspect that sometimes what other people construe as negative, I see as merely an abundance of caution. I know that my responses of, ‘But what if ….?’ tend to be met with a sigh and cries of, ‘Oh, don’t be so NEGATIVE!’ My tendency to circle round an issue, looking for inconsistencies or identifying what could go wrong, is so often interpreted as pouring cold water on things, whereas actually, I’m intending to be constructively helpful!
Self-Inflicted ‘Injury’
But I inflict these criticisms on myself as well – when I focus on what I have not done, or not been, rather than on what I have actually achieved.
Beware the Making of Comparisons
I have not been a full-time academic in the normal interpretation of things – I’ve been an academic librarian who did a mid-career PhD part-time, in her own time, at her own expense (and subsequently qualified with a PGCert teaching certificate). I’ve engaged in plenty of research activity since then, and I’ve been seconded as a 0.3 researcher for over a decade now. But I’m not a full-time academic, and it follows that my output of publications and presentations – impressive enough for a 0.3 scholar – will never equate to what I might have done if I had been a full-time one for my entire career. Often enough, I catch myself beating myself up about what I’m NOT.
Daft, really, considering I’m qualified as a librarian, a musicologist, AND have the teaching certificate. Which isn’t a bad profile to have.
The Solution
Now, I know that it’s a good idea to challenge negative thinking, if it’s bringing you down. However, I don’t keep a happiness diary or anything similar.
But for a number of years, I’ve devised a simple trick – I have an email folder in which I keep messages recognising contributions that other people acknowledge I’ve made. Vanity? Maybe, but at least when I’m on a downward spiral, there’s somewhere I can go to give myself a kick into a more positive attitude! I got the loveliest and most unexpected email yesterday, which completely transformed my evening. Into the folder it goes. Unsolicited appreciation is such a tonic!
I also make sure my list of publications (on another page of this blog), and my institutional repository are kept up-to-date. That way, any personal mutterings about ‘I haven’t done enough’ can be challenged straight away!
Just the way we are
However, I’d like to say to anyone not quite as far along in their career as I am (I haven’t scaled any lofty heights, but I am undeniably growing older!) – we do need to find a way of bolstering our self-belief. For some of us, it’s not easy to ‘look on the bright side’ all the time. Being brutally honest about oneself might seem like false modesty to the outsider, but from the inside, it feels like being realistic. My own upbringing has memories of being compared with others whenever a school report or exam result came out; and the importance of not being boastful or blowing one’s own trumpet. Indeed, the very letters after my name have been considered ostentatious – and that was recently!
In light of all that, I don’t think it’s remotely unreasonable to devise strategies for looking on the bright side when an attack of insecurity strikes!
What do you do?
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 