The Academic Imperfectionist

Be honest. You're here because you think you completely suck at self-control, aren't you? You're constantly disappointing yourself, and it's getting you down. The people around you seem to be able to get on with things - but you find it impossible, for some reason. And, by 'for some reason', you mean 'because I'm a terrible person'. Help is at hand, my beautifully flawed friend. You've been hoodwinked about self-control. It's likely that you're actually much better at it than you think, and that the reason you think you're terrible at it is because you're taking an overly narrow view of what it is and what it's used for. What's more, self-control isn't simply a matter of willpower, and it's not all in the head. It's much bigger than that, and if you struggle with it, it might be for social and political reasons. Here to spill the beans about self-control is Polaris Koi, Assistant Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Turku, Finland. He's spent years working to understand the very human experience of trying and failing to get ourselves to do the things we want to be doing. He's an interdisciplinary research who focuses on human agency, decision-making, and cognitive diversity. He's also the founder of Ronroo, a psychoeducation app that offers easy-to-reach support for people with self-control and executive functioning difficulties.

You know what frailty is, and you definitely want to avoid it. But have you heard of emotional frailty? No, of course not - I've just made it up. But if you've ever felt like you're completely winning at life, and then some tiny little setback knocks you sideways, leaving you wondering what's wrong with you and why you suddenly can't cope, emotional frailty is to blame. Emotional frailty is invisible, it's dangerous - and often, the culture around us encourages us to do exactly the sorts of things that exacerbate it. It's time to fight back. Your Imperfectionist friend is here to show you how. Find the Wheel of Life exercise here.

You're a good person. You try to be a good friend, a good colleague, and a good neighbour. You care about other people, you pull your weight, and you don't let anyone down. But, sometimes, you feel you're not enough. You're exhausted, but taking time for yourself means doing wrong by somebody else. You feel like you need to destroy yourself just to avoid being a bad person. If this sounds familiar, you're not crazy or inadequate. The problem is that you've constructed a moral framework that unfairly burdens you, and you don't even realise, because on the surface it looks like you're following completely plausible moral principles. But don't worry: help is at hand! Your Imperfectionist friend here is going to show you what's gone wrong and how to fix it.

What comes to mind when you think about willpower? Discipline? Self-denial? Overcoming your weak, useless, lazy self? Exhausting, right? Thankfully, there's another way, and this episode's guest is here to take you there. Dr Dana Klisanin is a psychologist and one of Forbes's 50 leading female futurists. She's a researcher, an author, an artist, a TEDx speaker, and the founder of ReWilding: Lab, where she explores the untapped potential of human-nature connection to improve health and wellbeing, and to help us live more sustainably. She sat down with me to talk about how a fulfilling life needn't involve fighting and winning against our natural inclinations, and why thinking of ourselves as part of the natural world can make us happier, stronger, and more resilient. Read Dana's article in Psychology Today, 'What if we've misunderstood willpower all along?' Pre-order Dana's latest book, The Art of Wild Willpower: Nature-Based Invitations for Ritual, Reflection, and Reconnection. Dana's recent TEDx talk, 'Rewilding the mind: The most endangered habitat is inside us', will soon be published here.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your willingness to say nice things about yourself? How about your willingness to point out your own failures and shortcomings? If the first number you came up with is higher than the second, then move along, my friend - this episode can do nothing for you. Gather round, the rest of you. You've been taught all your life that modesty and humility are virtues. But, would you know if your self-deprecation had gone too far? Could your toxic humility be holding you back? And if it is, so what? Better that than being arrogant, right?! Oh dear, friend. What a mess. But don't worry. Your Imperfectionist friend is here to show how you can do some healthy cheerleading for yourself without turning into a boasty monster. Settle down for the final episode of 2025, and prepare to end it with a smile on your face! Contact The Academic Imperfectionist here, or via Bluesky, Facebook, or Medium. Read Emma Beddington's article about toxic humility here.

Do you get up every day and tear around trying to get stuff done, and yet still end up feeling overwhelmed and frustrated at your lack of progress? There's something very simple - so simple, in fact, that you're going to feel cheated and frankly furious as soon as I tell you what it is - that you can do to get more done and feel less frantic. Now, I know you don't have time to listen to this episode because YOU SHOULD BE WRITING, but trust me on this one. Get the kettle on, take a break, and have a listen. You'll be glad you did.

I know how committed you are to self-improvement. Self-improvement is a good thing, right? Well, it depends. If you're motivated to improve yourself because you don't like yourself as you are, then perhaps it's not as wholesome as you thought. But how do you tell whether you're doing the wholesome sort of self-improvement or the unwholesome sort? What even is the right sort of self-improvement? Step off your upward trajectory for a moment, friend, and let your Imperfectionist friend here decipher all this for you. Find the 5 whys exercise here.

If you thought you knew everything about procrastination, prepare to be humbled. Professor Wendelien van Eerde is a psychologist who has spent her entire career understanding procrastination, motivation, and time management, and helping people work more effectively. She swung by Imperfectionist Towers to share her knowledge and help troubleshoot your productivity woes. You're going to hear all about how your tendency to procrastinate depends on your personality traits, your age, how nice you are to yourself, the sort of task you're trying to do, whether anyone knows what you're doing, and more. You'll also pick up some tips about how to stop procrastination, and you'll learn that what works best for one person might not work so well for another. It's a good 'un, so get yourself a cuppa and settle in for a listen! Wendelien van Eerde is an associate professor at the Amsterdam Business School of the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on motivation, procrastination and other time-related behaviours at work. Her publications include several meta-analyses on these topics. You can read 'How to stop procrastinating', her article for Psyche, here.

What's coaching, what's the difference between coaching and therapy, is a coach going to tell me what to do, what happens in a coaching session, how many coaching sessions should I have, how often should I have them, how do I choose a coach ... I get asked these questions (and more) a lot by new coaching clients. So, here I am, putting all my answers in one place. Hit play, and find out everything you never realised you needed to know about what goes on behind closed (online) doors at Academic Imperfectionist Towers! Book a coaching session here. If you're a new client, it's free!

Ever wondered how your Imperfectionist friend here got from academic philosophy to coaching? Lots of coaching clients have asked this over the years, so here I am, with an episode to bring you up to speed. I'll tell you all about how it's thanks to COVID that I ended up coaching, how the podcast was born because I realised I was incapable of uttering sentences like 'Would you allow me to offer you a powerful and transformative coaching experience?', and how I came to see that philosophical ideas don't need to be true to be effective weapons against your inner critic. If you're curious about coaching and want to try it for free, go here to sign up for a session.

Do you massively over-estimate how much you can accomplish in any period of time? Do you struggle to work out how long it's going to take you to complete a particular project? Friend, same. Don't worry, though, because there are some well-recognised psychological reasons for that, and plenty of advice too. There's just one problem: when it comes to projects that are linked to your sense of self-worth, time management is even trickier, and the usual strategies might not cut it. Luckily for you, your imperfect buddy is here to throw you a lifeline. Here's a helpful article with some tips about how to get better at planning your time. References: Buehler, R., Griffin, D., and Ross, M. 1994: 'Exploring the "Planning Fallacy": Why People Underestimate Their Task Completion Times', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67/3: 366-381. Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. 1977: 'Intuitive Prediction: Biases and Corrective Procedures', Technical Report PTR-1042-7746, Defense Advanced Research ProjectsAgency - Advanced Decision Technology, Decision Research, Eugene, OR.

If only you spent more time working and less time procrastinating, your life would be so much better. Right? Friend, I know how you feel, but it's not that simple. Some forms of procrastination actually help us get our work done, while some forms of work are just a waste of your time. In fact, I've come to realise that the very idea of procrastination is pretty unhelpful, and it can stand in the way of understanding why we struggle to make progress, and how to fix it. In this episode, I'm going to share with you a more empowering way to think about how to get things done. Brand new download! Click here for the 'Comfort vs relevance: resist the work/procrastination binary!' worksheet, or find it on the Resources page of The Academic Imperfectionist website. References Grant, Adam. 2016: 'Why I taught myself to procrastinate', New York Times. Jensen, Joli. 2017: Write No Matter What (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Do you ever feel that, unless you achieve the things you think you should be achieving, you'll cease to exist? That you'll fade away, become invisible, fail to be a fully-realised human? If so, you're in good company. For many of us, living a fulfilling life is inextricably linked with achievement, striving, productivity, winning. I'm not here to tell you not to care about achievement. But I am going to tell you that you're wrong if you think that the only life worth living is a life that prioritises achievement. And not only do I have Aristotle in my corner to back me up, but there's some fascinating recent research on what Gen Z care about that ought to be a wake-up call for anyone who thinks that if they're not achieving, they're failing. Do the Values Bridge survey here (registration required to view summary of results, payment required to view full results). Find my Core Values exercise here (no sign-up or payment required - I'm not that fancy) References: Suzy Welch, 'CEO: One stunning data point explains the "Gen Z stare"—and why it's going to backfire on them', CBNC, 17 July 2025. Melissa De Witte, 'What to know about Gen Z' (interview with Dr Roberta Katz), Stanford Report, 3 January 2022. André Dua et al., 'What is Gen Z?', McKinsey & Company, 28 August 2024.

Do you struggle to make sense of the jumble of attitudes you have towards your career? Perhaps you feel overlooked despite the fact that you've just been given a job. Perhaps you're striving to do well and hoping to get noticed while at the same time feeling resentful of the whole process, and critical of yourself for engaging in it. And, if you do feel these things, do you also attack yourself by telling yourself that you've got nothing to complain about, or that you're imagining things, or that you're irrational? Friend, I've heard it all before, and despite what you might think, it all makes complete sense. Put your feet up and your headphones on, and prepare for the Academic Imperfectionist low-down on why you feel this way.

'Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement', James Clear tells us in Atomic Habits. But what if you don't have the right habits - or at least, not yet? And how do you motivate yourself to do the thing for the 21 days that, according to legend, are required in order to establish a habit unless you already have the habit? With all this talk of the importance of habits, you'd be forgiven for thinking that without the habits, there's no hope for you. But, in fact, motivation without habits is easier than you might think. You just need to be able to see past the psychological smoke and mirrors that you're unwittingly putting in your own way. Reference: Timothy D. Wilson and Daniel T. Gilbert (2003): 'Affective forecasting', Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 35: 345-411.

You've done the coaching and the therapy, you've read the books, you've listened to the podcasts - and finally, you can accept that you're just as worthy as the next person! You belong here! You can stand up, take up space, and be proud! You can stop carrying all that anxiety, fear, and shame! Except ... nobody told your anxiety, fear, and shame. You feel just as uncertain as you ever did. And, to make things worse, you now also feel like an irrational mess, because if all those insights you've made about yourself haven't made any difference, perhaps you're beyond help? Don't worry, friend. We've all been there. Your imperfect friend here is throwing you a lifeline in the shape of the 18th-century Scottish philosopher, David Hume. Weird image, but still: you're normal, you're still moving forward, and all you need is a primer on what's going on when what you believe clashes with what you feel. Reference: Hume, David. 1739: A Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, Section III.

You know all the advice about ignoring your inner critic, avoiding comparisons, and giving yourself credit for your achievements. But you can't shake the sense that the real you is something shameful, something you need to keep hidden at all costs, and that those people who say nice things about you would be horrified if they knew what you were really like. Friend, you've got Real You all wrong. The fact that there are parts of you that you'd hate to share with others doesn't make you wrong, or an impostor, or shameful. According to the sociologist Erving Goffman, you're completely normal. Your Imperfectionist Godmother is here to help you make friends with your secret self - and to see that everyone else has one too. Reference: Goffman, Erving. 1956: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre).

Ah, the sabbatical. Getting one is like hitting the jackpot, right? All your problems would melt away if you had one. You'd go into it a frazzled, anxious, burnt out mess, and emerge serene, rested, and with a few dazzling additions to your CV. In fact, you'd be so sorted if you got a sabbatical that it's probably never occurred to you that you might need some hand-holding through the process. Enter our guest for this episode, Bethany Wilinski, Associate Professor at Michigan State University, sabbatical coach, and host of the Sabbatical 101 podcast. Bethany's own sabbatical experience taught her that, if you're not careful, a sabbatical can make you feel more burnt out and depleted, not less. She now works with academics to help them use their sabbaticals to rest, recharge, reconnect with what excites them, and relate to their work in a healthier way. Bethany is here to ensure that, if and when you're lucky enough to get a sabbatical, you can make it work for you. You can find Bethany's website, including a link to her podcast, here.

What's your reaction when your inner critic tells you that what you're doing is not good enough? If you think she's right, and that it's only thanks to her that you're getting anything done at all, you're not alone. But while you're busy listening to your inner critic, you're overlooking the fact that she's not helping you. In fact, she's making things worse. She's so greedy and impatient to get more from you that she's hurting your ability to get things done. She's killing your productivity, just like the farmer killed the goose that laid the golden eggs in Aesop's fable. Join your imperfect friend for an important fairytale lesson on the importance of self-acceptance.

Do you know how writing is supposed to feel when it's going well? If you're anything like I was a few years ago, you have some pretty bizarre ideas here, involving things like hours on end of laser-sharp flow, iron-clad willpower to resist distractions, and a mind that is drawn towards lofty ideas instead of flighty nonsense. The fact that my actual experiences with writing didn't remotely resemble this fantasy was, in my mind, due to my many shameful shortcomings. I'm not like that now, and my writing goes a lot better as a result. In large part, that's because I better understand what writing is really like. And in this episode I want to talk about an aspect of that: the writing warm-up. When you're done with this episode, why not go and listen to Bethany Wilinski interview me on her podcast, Sabbatical 101?