I really appreciate your writing on the topic of oh, let's call it professional perfectionism. It's a hook that's put in our throat by our own striving to be "special" and by our colleagues competing for that as well. We model it for our students who get hooked too. Institutions reinforce that orientation to squeeze more work from us and keep us quiet. The only real solution is to spit out the hook (not easy to do) and to stay away from the people with the worms. Glad you (and I) relocated to a more pleasant pond Liz! 🌱
I haven’t solved this either, but it’s starting to feel better. And sometimes how it looks to others isn’t at all how we think it looks. Not everyone has the courage to take the leap we did. And even if we are honest about our fears and hangups, I don’t think people whose opinions we care about are judging us as failures. They might be feeling more admiration and respect than we ever got from faking our knowledge of a book we never read.
You are definitely right about having no idea how things look to others. I do wish I cared only about the opinion of folks who wouldn't judge me as a failure, but unfortunately I am invested in the opinion of literally everyone . . . 🫠
I really appreciate your writing on the topic of oh, let's call it professional perfectionism. It's a hook that's put in our throat by our own striving to be "special" and by our colleagues competing for that as well. We model it for our students who get hooked too. Institutions reinforce that orientation to squeeze more work from us and keep us quiet. The only real solution is to spit out the hook (not easy to do) and to stay away from the people with the worms. Glad you (and I) relocated to a more pleasant pond Liz! 🌱
Spit out the hook! I'm trying . . . (thank you for your comment, as always!)
I haven’t solved this either, but it’s starting to feel better. And sometimes how it looks to others isn’t at all how we think it looks. Not everyone has the courage to take the leap we did. And even if we are honest about our fears and hangups, I don’t think people whose opinions we care about are judging us as failures. They might be feeling more admiration and respect than we ever got from faking our knowledge of a book we never read.
You are definitely right about having no idea how things look to others. I do wish I cared only about the opinion of folks who wouldn't judge me as a failure, but unfortunately I am invested in the opinion of literally everyone . . . 🫠
Divest, divest!