How to be more strategic and ambitious
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Sometimes in academia being “strategic” and “ambitious” can feel like criticisms - like we’re building our career at the expense of others or being too “corporate” for a university setting. In reality, being strategic and ambitious is just about deciding what contribution you want to make to the world and why. If you often underestimate yourself, or feel like however hard you work other people are progressing more quickly, then this is the perfect episode for you. It’s another in my Be Your Own Best Boss series, helping you to be the exact boss to yourself that you need. We’ll think about the circumstances in which it’s useful to be strategic and ambitious, what thoughts and feelings will help you, what actions you need to take and what results you will get. This will help with goal setting, prioritisation and decision making - there’s even some inspiring motivation for you at the end!
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I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. My weekly podcast, The PhD Life Coach covers the most common issues experienced in universities, including procrastination, imposter syndrome, and having too much to do. I give inspiring and actionable advice and often have fun expert guests join me on the show. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.
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Excellent advice! At 74 and not a phd. but a working artist my experiences back up what you say. I also felt encouraged to be more bloody bold and resolute instead of complacent.😂 A kick in the pants is always helpful whatever yoyr ambitions or your stage in life. The struggle to find out who you are and fulfill your potential never ceases😊 Thanks!
I'm so glad you found it useful! I think there's a lot that PhD students and artists (or entrepreneurs, or anyone that needs to have faith in themselves and be a good boss to themselves!) Make sure you find the rest of the series - they're all in a playlist on my channel :) Thanks for commenting
Too Good !!
How to deal with self doubt and overcome all obstacles especially in career.. any books suggestions
So glad you found it useful! I liked The Gap and The Gain which encourages us to focus on how far we've come as well as on what we still need to overcome. I'm also going to be taking to the author of The Emotional Overdraft on my podcast soon so make sure you keep an eye out for that :)
This is bang on time for me. I do have a question, though. I have my second year progression tomorrow, which i'm looking forward to. I've discussed with my supervisor that i want to do a postdoc, and she said she'd think about who might want to work with me.
Is it appropriate or pushy to mention it tomorrow?
I love this question! The best thing about it is that there is no right answer - some supervisors might think it's pushy, others might be really impressed. Your job is to decide what YOU think is reasonable to do. The worst options are to a) not mention it and beat yourself up for not saying anything and b) mentioning it and then flapping about whether it was rude. The other "worst" option is to base your opinion on whether it was reasonable to ask or not on how your supervisor reacts (ie if she was ok about it then it was ok, and if she wasn't happy, then it wasn't). This just puts all the power in someone else's court. You get to decide if it's reasonable to ask, and if it is, how you want to come across when asking - do you want to be apologetic? polite? relaxed? demanding? etc - then you get to do what you decide. Please also now commit that if you do ask, and your supervisor doesn't take it well, that you will be kind to yourself - remind yourself that you decided it was reasonable to ask and you stand by that. Hope that helps! It's based on my "how to make decisions" podcast episode. (for what it's worth, I think it's totally reasonable to follow up, but you don't need my approval ;) )
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