• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

  • Home
  • Courses & Events
    • How To …
    • The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
    • The Art of the Article
    • Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
    • On Demand Courses
    • Upcoming Live Webinars
    • Free Productivity Webinars
    • Gift Certificates
  • Personalized Job Help
    • Document Editing
    • Quick Reviews
    • Specials
    • Interview Prep
    • Personal Negotiating Assistance
    • One on One Career Consults
    • Testimonials
    • Interview Testimonials
    • Graduate School Application Assistance
  • Productivity
  • Coaching
    • Productivity Coaching
    • Private Coaching
    • Leaving Academia Coaching Group
  • The Professor Is Out
    • It’s OK to Quit
    • Our Art of Leaving Program
    • Prof Is OUT Services
    • Our Prof Is OUT Team
    • Prof is OUT Client Testimonials
    • Ex-Academics: A TPIO Support Community
  • Workshops
  • Blog

Productivity: The Stories We Tell

By Kel Weinhold | July 11, 2017

Kellee Weinhold

By Kellee Weinhold, TPII Productivity Coach

Welcome to the Productivity Post and Podcast!  Each Tuesday, I will be posting a short blog post plus a recorded coaching session!

Keep reading and then click on the podcast link below!

~~~~~~~

The topic this week? The Stories We Tell

Writing the stories of our lives is so natural to humans that we rarely if ever notice their construction. We take in our experiences and over time translate them into a narrative (Typically based on patterns that we have experienced over and over again.) Eventually we simply catalogue new experiences as “just like that time” and decree what will occur as a result.

Unfortunately, our brains LOVE to grab onto the bad experiences, velcroing the negative outcomes front and center.

That negative bias in story writing is a valuable tool when we are learning not to put our hand on the stove. It is not so valuable when we have had a hard time doing something and that something shows up again. (writing!). We write the ending before we have begun.

If you have been struggling to write, it is very likely that you have cast yourself as the tragic character of your writing story. “I am too slow.” “I don’t know what I am talking about.” “Everyone else is better at this.”

And perhaps you have become very attached to that story, bringing it out at every new experience as evidence of the failure to come. “I never finish things.” “I can’t <fill in the blank>. Not surprisingly, by constantly re-upping our failure narratives, we hang on to the bumps and bruises of the past rather than letting them disappear in the rearview mirror.

We also cause ourselves untold misery with stories about things that have not happened. Except we get ourselves convinced that it will happen! “It will never get published.” “My advisor will hate it.” “I missed something and will be humiliated.” In embracing the pain of a fictional future (every story we tell about the future is fiction) we miss our chance to engage in the present and WRITE.

Sound familiar?

Trust me. You are not alone. I work with hundreds of academics and each of them struggles with some version of these limiting beliefs.

The first step to intervening? Begin to acknowledge that the things you tell yourself about your writing are not truth. They are stories.

And the wonderful thing about stories, is that you can rewrite them.

So just for today, keep an eye out for the stories you are telling to allow yourself to avoid writing and take the risk of rewriting them.

  • I write as fast as I write.
  • I know what I am talking about and when I don’t, I write my way into knowing.
  • Everyone else is not my problem. I am doing me.
  • I will finish this.
  • The only way to know if it will be published is to submit it.
  • Of course, I will miss something. I am not trying to be perfect. I am trying to be published.

What are your writing stories? What can you learn from them?

Check out these coaching tips for rewriting your story.  (Spoiler Alert: There is nothing wrong with you.)

http://theprofessorisin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Productivity-7-11-17.mp3

Similar Posts:

  • Just One Thing: Rewrite Your Stories
  • Productivity: False Beliefs (with coaching podcast!)
  • Productivity – Where To Find It?
  • Productivity: Of Wagons, Paths and Cliffs
  • Productivity: You Need a Refueling Stop

Filed Under: Productivity

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Buy My Book!

4.8 stars on Amazon!

The_Professor_Is_In.indd

Get Immediate Help

In addition to our blog and book, we have upcoming live webinars, pre-recorded webinars and other programs that you can get started on right away:

The Art of the Academic Cover Letter
The Art of the Article
Unstuck: The Art of Productivity
Quick Reviews
Free Productivity Webinars

Categories

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Academic Job Search
    • How To Choose and Manage Recommenders
    • How to Interview
    • How To Write Academic Job Cover Letters
    • How To Write CVs
    • Landing Your Tenure Track Job
    • Major Job Market Mistakes
    • Negotiating Offers
  • Adjunct Issues
  • Advising Advice
  • Alt-University Critique
  • Black Lives Matter
  • COVID19
  • Dispatches
  • Goodbye Ivory Towers
  • Graduate Student Concerns
    • Bad Advisors and Good Mentors
  • How To Do Conferences
  • How to Get Grants and Fellowships
  • International Perspectives
  • Intersectional Analyses
  • Makeup
  • Marginalized Voices
  • Mental Health and Academia
  • Ph.D. Poverty
  • Podcast
  • Post-Ac Free-Lancing and Small Business
  • Post-Ac Job Search
    • Careers Outside
  • Postdoc Issues
  • Productivity
    • Book Proposals and Contracts
    • Publishing Issues
    • Writing
  • Promote Yourself!
  • Quitting–An Excellent Option
  • Racism in the Academy
  • Rearview Mirror
  • Resumes & Postac Docs
  • Sexual Harassment in the Academy
  • Shame
  • Stop.Acting.Like.A.Grad.Student
  • Strategizing Your Success in Academia
  • Teaching and Research Statements
  • Teaching Demos
  • Teaching Portfolios
  • Tenure–How To Get It
    • How To Build Your Tenure File
    • Surviving Assistant Professorhood
  • The Campus Visit
  • Unstuck
  • Webinars
  • What Not To Wear
  • Women of Color in Academia
  • Work/Life Balance in Academia
  • Yes, You Can: Women in Academia
  • Your Second and Third Jobs

Footer

About Us

  • Who Is Dr. Karen?
  • Who Is On the TPII Team?
  • In The News
  • Contact Me
  • FAQs
    • Why Trust Me?
  • Testimonials

Community

  • #MeTooPhD
  • Peer Editing
  • PhD Debt Survey
  • Support Fund
  • I Help With Custody Cases for Academics

Copyright © 2023 The Professor Is In·

We Are Redefining Academic Community

That’s why we upgraded our private
Mighty Network.

We are committed to building a community with a focus on productivity support. Every day, in a dedicated space, we offer free coaching advice and encouragement. And the couple thousand people who have already joined are steadily building a supportive and interactive community devoted to that elusive idea of work-life balance.

Learn More

Get on Dr. Karen's Schedule

Get on my schedule to work on your tenure track job cover letter, CV, grant applications, book proposals, interview preparation, and more.  [si-contact-form form=’2′]