I’ve talked about building credibility with yourself, and sometimes people will ask really great questions about that so I’m going to try to answer them. Let’s start with this one cause it got me for a minute:

“How do we not lose our credibility when there inevitably comes a time when we set a goal and don’t meet it.”

This is a really important question because this will happen for everyone. ‘Inevitable’ is the key point here, and so it’s important to build an idea of credibility that makes room for failure. The best I can offer is this - instead of thinking of credibility as a binary thing, think of it as a relationship. So it’s not about a 1 - 0 value where you either have credibility or you don’t; it’s more like a friendship where sometimes you miss something but it doesn’t alter the actual strength of the relationship. Like, if your friend accidentally forgets to text you on your birthday, you don’t stop being their friend. Maybe they text you the next day, or when they remember. They’re still just as good of a friend, and you wouldn’t hesitate to go to them when you need someone to talk to. Your credibility with yourself is much more like that - it won’t disappear because you miss a goal that you set. The relationship you build with yourself is much stronger than you think it is. Practice recognizing that a few missed goals don’t change what you’ve already made - the foundation of credibility is there, and no one (including yourself) can come back and undo the work you’ve already done. Each new success adds a new floor to the building, and missed goals don’t take away floors. That building is still standing tall and waiting for you when you’re reading to come back and build another level

to begin with, the sweet grass by mary oliver, from “devotions”

16.11.22 I hope I am always learning to become better

one of my favourite techniques (for studying or just for life) is to just start it with no expectations beyond that. read two pages of the reading, write a single paragraph. Heck, just open the document. The next time you come back to it, it’s already opened and you don’t have to go through all those little preparatory steps that can stand in the way. As someone who has struggled with a psychological block about beginning tasks, doing the beginning steps without expecting myself to complete the work has been a major shift. You also get the bonus of saying thank you to your past self when you return to the task, because past you gave future you a little boost to get through the door

uni is great, sometimes I’m a hot girl with a water bottle and sometimes I’m a bug stuck on its back

my post about building credibility seemed to resonate with folks, so I figured I’d share some tips on what’s worked for me to do that:

1. Set achievable goals. Rather than saying ‘I’m going to write my essay today’, try ‘today I’ll make my outline’. I usually go for two, three goals max per day, and I actually number them in priority order on my to-do list so I can separate them from all the little things that I’d like to do but aren’t essential.

(*note on achievability: I’m coming at this from an academic focus, but these goals can be literally anything that’s important for you to achieve. Goal 1. could be ‘wash my hair’. It’s not about how big the goal is relative to the world, it’s about whether it’s important for you)

2. Take note when you achieve your goals. A big part of building credibility is acknowledging and celebrating your process, so even if it’s just for a moment at the end of the day, try to thank yourself for what you’ve achieved.

3. Don’t punish yourself for not achieving everything. If you set three goals and achieve one, you still achieved one goal. Notice and appreciate that, and try to take note of what stood in the way of the others. Maybe tomorrow you’ll choose to set two instead, and you might be able to make both of them.

I’ll share more tips as they come to me, but hopefully these can help folks get started on the process. Remember that building credibility with yourself is an individual experience so it’ll look different for everyone - you might find these work, or maybe they’re just a jumping-off point for building your own strategy

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

Sunflowers, c. 1982. Andrew Wyeth. Watercolor and pencil on paper

not to be overflowing with love, but I mentioned offhand to my friends once that flashing lights give me a really bad headache and now when we go into places they’ll just sit down and say ‘I’ll face this direction because there’s a light over there that you won’t like’ and actually you are seen, you are loved, and friends really do make it all worth it

when you’ve gotten back all the grades you were expecting and there’s no more short-term validation in your immediate future

'All theoretical constructs are inherently unobservable, and all measures are imperfect' (David Lake)

New year, new notebook

Patiently waiting for exactly the right moment to knock all the pieces onto the floor. Source.

From The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare.

the experience of tragedy in plays specifically because ‘maybe it will end differently this time’ feels possible. This isn’t pre-recorded. This isn’t set down in time and film. This is live, this is now, these people are real and maybe this time when they open the letter it won’t say ‘kill the messenger’. Maybe this time they get to live