Adapting to Changed Circumstances

07/06/2025 10 min Temporada 2 Episodio 31
Adapting to Changed Circumstances

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Episode Synopsis

๐Ÿ• Free leftover food in the kitchen โ€“ first come, first served!As a PhD student, those emails were great - Iโ€™d drop everything and sprint to the tea room. Free food - what's not to love!Two decades later, I still have that instinctive reaction - despite the circumstances (and need for) free food being very different.Itโ€™s a somewhat frivolous example, but it captures something that happens a lot in academia: we don't always consciously change our behaviour, activities and priorities when our circumstances change.In this Hacking Academia episode, I look at what happens when we forget to adapt โ€“ after a big win or during a tough stretch.Say youโ€™ve just landed a major fellowship, a big promotion, or secured a long runway of funding. Itโ€™s easy to celebrate ๐ŸŽ‰ (as you should), thank ๐Ÿ™ your supporters and collaborators... but then often ๐ ๐จ ๐›๐š๐œ๐ค ๐ญ๐จ ๐›๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐ž๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐š๐ฌ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ฎ๐š๐ฅ.ย But that ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ž๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐ฆ๐จ๐ฆ๐ž๐ง๐ญ, which is often your best shot to step back, reassess, and ask:๐Ÿ’ก What *can* I do now that wasnโ€™t possible before?๐Ÿ’ก What should I be having a crack at that I didn't have the time, the resources or the career breathing space to do before? What risks should I be deliberately taking?๐Ÿ’ก What should I be changing about my priorities and behaviour now, so when I look back at the end of this opportunity, I'm unlikely to ๐ซ๐ž๐ ๐ซ๐ž๐ญ that ๐ˆ ๐๐ข๐๐ง'๐ญ ๐ญ๐š๐ค๐ž ๐ญ๐ก๐ž ๐œ๐ก๐š๐ง๐œ๐ž ๐ญ๐จ ๐ซ๐ž๐š๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐œ๐ก๐š๐ง๐ ๐ž ๐ฐ๐ก๐š๐ญ ๐ˆ ๐š๐ฆ ๐๐จ๐ข๐ง๐ ?The same goes in reverse.When life gets difficult โ€“ illness, caregiving, personal upheaval โ€“ many people don't think to not keep going at full pace, not realising that hitting pause or slowing down on the non-critical work is okay. In fact, itโ€™s often necessary.This is very understandable of course: sometimes there's legitimately a lot of pressure. But much of the time it's an unnecessarily-self-imposed pressure (high achievers being over-represented in certain careers...) that doesn't actually need to be there. Sometimes a gentle nudge from a colleague, supervisor or mentor - "hey you can drop that for a while" - is all that's needed.ย This video shares a few types of situations where this arises from my own career and from colleagues around the world.ย ๐Ÿ‘‰ Watch the full video on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/dwateatr#HackingAcademia #AcademicLife #CareerDevelopment #PhDLife #Promotion #ResearchCareers #LeadershipInAcademia #Adaptability #RegretMinimization #HigherEd #Mentoring