It is the first week of a new semester, my first lecture is over, and I just watched the research talk that our departmental IT lead recorded last week in preparation for one of my next classes. And I must admit that I feel pretty depressed.

 

To be fair, not everything gives me reason for disappointment. The student activities, which took up the most part of my first class, went very well, and I also must admit that I explained the science in my research talk clearly.

 

But here comes the depressing part. After all these years, I still struggle to talk engagingly in front of an audience. The problem does not lie with what I am trying to express, but with how I do it. Over the years, I spent so much time to read, think and teach about giving engaging presentations and to help students with improving their presentations. But it did not seem to help me.

 

Of course, in order to be a good running coach, one does not have to be a fast runner. The same is true for helping students with their presentations. And hence even though I am not a great public speaker myself, I have been able to help my students quite effectively in giving good presentations, to the effect that none of my undergraduate research students has received a grade lower than A- for their presentation and project as long as I can remember. But it did not seem to make much of a difference for me.

 

The reason is of course quite obvious. Coaching others does not really help me in improving myself because by coaching others I do not focus on what are my weaknesses. In fact, I have never actively worked on improving my own presentation skills (except for trying to stop using excessive amounts of filler words), not to mention getting others to help me.

 

Truth be said, I have given presentations in the past that I was happy with and proud of. But if I had to say what I did differently in my good and my bad presentations, I would not be able to put my finger on it.

 

The good news is that it is never too late to take steps to improve ourselves. As such, I am going to add another goal to my list for the coming year, to finally work on my own presentation skills, in addition to trying to help others to present well. The first thing I’ll have to figure out is how to do it.

 

 

It is high time to think about my goals for this year. After spending much of my efforts over the past years on soft personal goals, I feel that I am ready and motivated to finally tackle some more concrete goals.

 

Specifically, there are three main things on my mind. Firstly, I would like to actually complete things, in other words, have something to show for all the things that I have been learning and improving. In fact, my original goal for this year was to accomplish one major achievement that I can add to my CV every month. Secondly, I want to increase the visibility of what I have been doing. Finally, I want to make progress towards my long term goals, coaching in athletics, health or pedagogy and making an impact in society, for instance through outreach.

Why are these things important to me?

 

With regards to achievements, adding things to my CV can give personal satisfaction. But ultimately the main purpose of achievements is that they benefit someone. What is the purpose of publishing a paper that does not provide others with actionable information or that nobody reads. What is the point of organising a conference that does not have some unique value for participants.

 

This brings me to the second point, why visibility is important. Visibility is important not to feel good about myself, but to let others benefit from my achievements. Likewise, the only way I am able to learn from other is because of the visibility of their output.

 

As such, I was considering this week what would be a good platform to learn from others and share my own insights and achievements. And I realised that one of the best options is LinkedIn. It is a platform that people visit to learn things. Hence, I would like to invest time this year to establish my presence in LinkedIn (although not right now (!), but after the end of this semester).

 

Finally, there are my long term goals. They are personal challenges that I want to master, but more importantly that provide meaning and opportunity for self-improvement in the future. Being long term goals, they do not necessarily determine my daily task list, but function more as a focus and direction into which I want to progress.

 

When considering goals, one aspect that one has to consider is the time factor, which to a large extent determines what I can achieve. The time factor is of particular significance for me because I do not want to pursue achieving things at the expense of doing my work well and spending time to help students. This highlights the importance of limiting my tasks.

 

However, there is a second reason why the time factor is so critical. It also affects how I experience the process of pursuing my goals.

 

There are various ways in which I do not want to experience pursuing my goals and doing my work. I do not want to be in a constant fight with my time to get all the things done I set out for myself. I do not want to feel pressured to finish all the work and worry that I may not. I do not want to feel I lost control over all the tasks that I have to do. I do not want to feel that I need to have managed to complete a long list of things in order to call the day a good day.

 

Instead, I want to do things because I enjoy them.

 

As much as we want to have control over the things that we have to do, for instance by using all kinds of productivity hacks, the truth is that it is impossible to gain complete control. Firstly, there is no end. There is no finish line. Many tasks take a long time, and we often cannot even predict how long they will take. Even after completing a task, there will be a new one. And many unpredictable things may happen on top of our task list.

 

I believe that there are only two things that are in our control. One is the amount of things that we try to accomplish in our day. The other is our mindset. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could look at the things we have to do as things that we want to do? And if we do not get to do them, then it is fine!

 

While based on the nature of their work many people may not be able to do look at their work as a joy, I realised that I can. Instead of telling myself I need to read two papers, check the literature and write something every morning, I can say to myself that I want to do these things, and if I don’t, it is okay. And this is actually true.

 

Hence, what I have been trying for the last couple of days is to treat a new day as a holiday or a special day, even though it may be an ordinary work day. When I go into work on a holiday, it usually feels special, partly because of the feeling that I have the freedom to do whatever I want and everything I do is something “extra”, something I want to do. Why not adopt this mindset to every ordinary day.

 

But there are of course things that I have to do, for instance marking an assignment or report or preparing a quiz with a certain deadline. The good news is that I also enjoy these things for the most part (mainly because I get to decide how I want to design them). Nonetheless, I still feel the pressure to complete them on time.

 

When considering where this pressure is coming from, I realise that the main pressure comes from trying to achieve perfection. Hence, one shift I started to make is to not always expect perfection, but to accept imperfection. I will do my best, but if the outcome is not as good as it can possibly be, then that is okay.

 

What is more important than these small details is that my life is happy. After all, I am not responsible for creating a perfect experience for others. It is enough to provide opportunities for others to achieve a great experience for themselves, whether it is my students in the lab, my students in class or the runners in my running group. For instance, if my students do not want to submit a meaningful assignment, it is their choice and I do not need to try to provide meaningful feedback. What is more important is to continue to come up with new ideas and to strive for perfection where it is necessary, such as in assessments and things that I want to publish (not including this blog!).

 

Hence, in the new year I firstly want to focus on a limited set of tasks, so that the things I do become more enjoyable. Secondly, I want to focus on enjoying the process of creating and doing things, without worrying about the achievement of perfection.

 

How is this compatible with wanting achievements? I think that wanting achievements helps me to direct my focus into a certain direction. Hence, I still stick to the exciting goal that I set for myself initially, to complete one achievement every month this year, but I add to it that I want to accomplish it while experiencing joy and no pressure.