P2P No. 23 — Leverage Fresh Starts for Change
Life's intervention is an opportunity for self-improvement
In her book, How to Change, Katy Milkman provides evidence of how meaningful life events, called fresh starts, are more attractive to people to kick-start a pursuit. This can be your birthday or New Year's Eve.
In the chaos of a Ph.D., there will be ample occasions when life interferes with our daily routines. Instead of treating those events as annoyances, we can leverage them to materialize the promises we made then almost forget.
Want to read a book? Start after a conference deadline. Want to learn how to test your code? When you return from a summer school or a lab retreat is perfect. This mental trick might bring contentment by framing the turbulence of the academic lifestyle as a bonus. Turning a disadvantage into an advantage is a useful mental power, though we cannot escape the dichotomy of fresh starts. That is when we are developing a new habit, disruptions will work against us: going to the gym becomes difficult while traveling.
To ease the frustration of the I-need-to-get-used-to-it feeling after a disruption, I follow the advice from The Growth Equation (they formulated it as a coping strategy after a success/failure): if a change happens, give I give myself permission to feel the unease, joy, or anxiety for two days, then shift gears and get back to work.
My strategy is:
Acknowledge the turbulence of life.
Use a fresh start as an opportunity for change.
If frustration arises, give yourself time to recuperate.
Care about showing up, not being perfect.
I am currently doing the same: after an academic exchange and some vacation, I gave myself time to readjust, follow up with friends, and figure out the habits I want to keep, introduce, or discard. Knowing that the initial period will contain hiccups, my advice is to accept the imperfection and most importantly: show up.
Resources
How to Change by Katy Milkman