3 ways to protect your emotional bandwidth

Do you find yourself exhausted at the end of the day? Sometimes not physically, but emotionally? It’s like your emotional bandwidth, and you just feel done. Or maybe you’ve stretched yourself too far, and don't quite know how you got there? Well, you're not alone.

Our emotional bandwidth is really important to keep in mind. Especially when we schedule things, and think about our time. There are three crucial things to remember about your emotional bandwidth, and what to do about it. These are the three steps I use, and I have found them extremely useful.

First, I check in with myself throughout the day.

Maybe it’s lunchtime, so I ask myself, “How am I doing?” Or take a moment to see do I have any voices in my head? Or am I starting to complain or get a little cranky? This is the time to check in with yourself.

I do this exercise frequently throughout the day to remind myself how I’m doing and how I’m feeling. Because otherwise at night, I’ve found this from personal experience, a lot of our emotions can bottle up inside us. Then we find ourselves realizing we didn’t even know we felt that way.

Say nice things to ourselves

Then we need to say nice things to ourselves when we check in, and find a way to comfort ourselves. I know this may sound a little crazy out loud, but you'll know what I mean once you do it.

When you find yourself saying, “I don't want to do this” or “I'm tired” you might think you sound like a little kid in your head. But if you can catch it and try using a different voice, you can say something comforting back like, “Oh, hey brain. I know you're tired, and I'm sorry you’re tired right now. But hey! We’re going to do this next task”. Think of it as the language we use with young children. Very sympathetic, sweet, and understanding. This is the type of language we want to use with ourselves.

look at your schedule at the beginning of the week and look for what you have planned.

Often, a lot of my clients don't plan the day in terms of, “Oh, I didn't quite realize that on Thursdays that was going to be an emotionally bandwidth or heavy day. This is going to take a lot out of me on Thursday”. This way I can make sure I don't go out with my friend, or whatever it is on Thursday night. Instead, I need to be on the couch by myself on Thursday night, so I can protect my time because I know I am going to be exhausted some days when it's more difficult to manage. So I'm going to check in on my schedule and make sure I have time to protect my emotional bandwidth.

Those are just three simple steps to protect it. Remember to check in with yourself throughout the day, say kind things back, and make sure you're looking at your schedule at the beginning of each week to manage what's happening and how you're going to take care of yourself. I would love to hear what's working for you with your emotional bandwidth, and what you may need help with. Feel free to share all of your emotional bandwidth thoughts with me! We can figure this out together!

Feeling frustrated at an administrator right now?

Let’s imagine for a second. You're frustrated because an administrator sent an email that says something in administrative speak that you're just instantly frustrated because you're thinking “they don't understand me. I'm already overloaded. Why are they doing this to me?” Pretty common scenario? You start getting this frustration that you don't know what to do with. It starts to build up and you might find yourself:

• Complaining to a colleague.

• Beating yourself up. 

• You're judging yourself.

• Taking frustration out on the people in your life, like your spouse, kids, or friends.

While during the moment of frustration while you were serene or accepting of what was being said on the outside, inside you were boiling. And that's part of why it shows up later in your personal life. 

But there's a much simpler way to handle the frustration.

CATCH YOURSELF WHILE YOU’RE COMPLAINING

When you find yourself complaining, can you catch yourself? Can you catch yourself wanting to explode? Can you catch yourself ruminating or judging yourself in your head? That's the moment to pause and say, “wait, here I am frustrated.” When you can stop and identify that you are frustrated, you are able to then take the next steps to release that frustration.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND RELAX

Usually when you get frustrated you can feel it in your body. You might hunch over, get balled fists, and have a general tightness about you. So when you find yourself in these moments, take a deep breath and relax. Release the tension so that you’re able to approach the situation in a calm manner. You’re not changing the story or change the thoughts you are having, but you do want to get away from the frustration.

RELEASE THE EMOTIONS

Trust me, I know it isn’t easy. I couldn't do this for a really long time. I couldn't feel it or recognize what was going on. But that doesn’t mean that other people in your life can’t see that pattern or be more in tune. But now, if I'm at my desk, I can stop and say “Oh wait, what's going on right now?” Then I can relax and take a deep breath. I’ve built up a story about what's going on right now, and while I’m not trying to change the thought I’m having, I'm trying to get away from frustration.

One of my clients described this as kind of going in with a spoon and gathering up the frustration, living it out, and then it's done. Then you’re not lashing out at anyone later or building up all the emotions until the end of the week.

When you do these things when you notice the frustration happening in the moment, you save time because now you're not going to be trying to repair relationships from when you exploded on somebody. You're going to spend less time complaining to a friend or a colleague. You're going to have space to feel other things and get back into your productive, curious, open feelings. That's when you get your work done, not from the frustrated place, not from the bottled up place. 

Frustration is so common in academia and when we don’t deal with it as it is happening it can very easily spill into the other areas of our lives. With these steps you’ll be able to recognize when it’s happening and address the frustration head on.

Don’t Let Social Media Anxiety Hold You Back with Jennifer van Alstyne

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Are you a social media lurker? Most people on social media are lurkers, though it doesn’t always feel like that because the people we see in our home feeds aren’t. The people we see most often tend to be sharing not just once in a while, but often.

There are many reasons people, especially professors, stay more private on social media.

Here are some I’ve come across:

• I don’t think people care about what I have to say.

• What will my students think if they follow me?

• If I say the wrong thing, will I get reported?

• I just like to scroll, but I don’t really engage.

• I don’t know what to say.

• I’m nervous about my supervisor seeing what I post.

• Will my post go viral and get me in trouble?

• What if I don’t want to post about my work?

• I have a general anxiety/fear over social media.

Whether you’re a social media lurker or anxious about putting yourself out there, I hope my story helps you. I’m Jennifer van Alstyne, a communications strategist for academics, researchers, and organizations. I help people share their work in online spaces, like social media.

Fear kept me away from social media

While I’m active on social media now, it might surprise you to learn I was so scared of social media, I deleted all my accounts. When I returned, years later, I kept my accounts very private: just for family and personal friends.

There are a few ways people use to control their privacy

• Staying off social media altogether

• Keeping your accounts private

• Using an anonymous account

• Having a traditional account, but not posting yourself except for the occasional share/retweet

• Use customized Privacy Settings in each social media platform

I’ve used all of these at one point or another.

While I did have a fear of being judged on social media, and kind of general anxiety about friends who had huge followings and tons of likes, that isn’t why I left social media.

I deleted my social media accounts after leaving a physically abusive relationship when I was 18. The idea of being seen by the person I feared most felt paralyzing. At the time, I was scared to sleep. I jumped every time the phone rang. Eventually, I moved on campus where I felt safer.

As I began to heal, I started to recognize how small I’d let my world get. I missed the friendships and larger network I’d stopped communicating with. Staying off social media altogether was no longer right for me. So I started a new Facebook account and sent out friend requests one at a time. Baby steps.

I kept being surprised when people connected. I looked deeper into my past, reaching out to childhood friends. Having so many people connect in a short timeframe made me feel good about myself because they were real people I knew. I started connecting with my professors, visiting writers, or people I met at events. When I presented at my 1st conference in undergrad, I connected with my fellow panelists.

Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash

Social media networking

Later I would learn what that was called: I was networking on social media, one person at a time. Do you groan when you hear the word networking?

As Malisa Kurtz, PhD says on the Beyond the Professoriate blog, “I didn’t realize at the time that networking is just relationship-building—getting to know people I liked, following up with them, and also supporting them when I could.” Dr. Kurtz said networking is about

• Relationship-building

• Getting to know people

• Following-up with them

• Supporting them when possible

And while she wasn’t talking about using social media for networking specifically, these things are all possible there.

Social media is great for relationship-building because it allows you and another person to connect. You can get in touch with that person, and engage with what they share. It’s a great way to get to know them in a more passive way than sometimes ‘networking’ feels.

Following-up may look like a comment or reply. Maybe, it’s a direct message. Social media allows us to support people when it’s possible because we’re more likely to see when we can help. That might look like a Like, or “Congratulations!” It can also be

• Asking for advice

• Help to connect them with someone you know

• Sharing a resource

• Friendship

Networking on social media is really about finding an audience who cares. That’s why moving past your social media anxiety is so important.

Maybe your social media anxiety is more about work. Don’t let fear of your university or students hold you back from being present. Be aware of what you’re saying and that it can be shared. But don’t let that keep you from speaking at all.

I’ve come up with these tips to help you move forward.

• Think about how you spend your time on social media and why

• Take it one step at a time while checking your comfort level

• Join conversations

• Practice bragging the right way

1. Think about how you spend your time on social media and why

Why do you lurk on social media? Maybe it’s one of the reasons I listed at the top of this article. Maybe you have a story like mine, and there’s a specific reason you’ve wanted to stay private on social media.

Before you jump in, consider how and why you use social media the way you do now.

2. Take it one step at a time while checking your comfort level

Don’t try to do it all at once and become super active on social media right away. Take things one step at a time, and check-in with yourself to gauge your comfort level.

I went from being off social media to taking my current accounts out of Private mode. I posted some original content there (mostly personal photos or news). Then, I ventured out onto other social media platforms like Twitter. Now, I’m doing live video on YouTube, like my upcoming chat with Dr. Caitlin Faas about Social Media and Procrastination.

I’ve definitely broken out of my comfort zone on social media. It’s okay to try something new, even if you’re a bit uncertain.

3. Join conversations

The best way to start engaging on social media is to join conversations. It’s another effective way to stop scrolling on social media.

By replying to posts that you like or are interested in, you’re practicing meaningful engagement. Leave a comment on a post you like. It might spark a larger conversation. It’s up to you how much you want to engage, or not.

4. Practice bragging the right way

Practice writing a good news social media post, and sharing it with a personal audience like your family and friends. I know it seems easy, but imposter syndrome tends to strike academics hard when sharing good news no matter how accomplished you are.

When you brag, don’t apologize. And, be specific. Help people understand what your good news is, and why it’s important to you. While social comparison can leave us anxious about sharing good news, practicing it just once tends to make people feel good from the response.

Academic vs. Public Writing on Social Media

“I should be writing” is a common sentiment of academics on the #AcWri hashtag on Twitter. And that sentiment, the idea of academic vs. public writing, holds many professors back from social media. They’re not sure if it’s supposed to be academic or personal. How public does public writing have to be?

Social media is like having a microphone. You can turn it on when you want to reach people. You also have a lot of control over the settings. Some social media platforms help you reach a lot of people at once, like Twitter. Whereas others help you reach the people you’ve already connected with like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Being present on social media allows you to share your academic work and life when you want to. It allows you to connect with a larger audience to share your academic writing with all your audiences

• Academic

• Personal

• Public

Good luck on your social media journey, and remember it’s okay if things change over time.

To take the first steps to manage your online presence as an academic, join my free course The Internet for Academics.

Bio

Jennifer van Alstyne is a communications strategist for faculty and researchers. At The Academic Designer LLC, Jennifer helps people and organizations share their work with the world in online spaces. Her blog/podcast, The Social Academic shares advice articles and interviews twice a month. She is a Peruvian-American poet and independent scholar with a focus on representations of nature in poetry. Connect with Jennifer on Twitter @HigherEdPR.

Why We Self-Sabotage as Academics

Photo by Monika Kozub on Unsplash

We’re a successful group of people, we academics are. We have climbed school and career ladders that other people only dream about but rarely accomplish. We know how to gather our gold stars and make things happen within our universities and higher education institutions.

Yet, many of us struggle with aspects of our lives outside of academia. We overeat. We overdrink. We procrastinate on a big project we really want. We struggle with finances. Or in our relationships with other people. We walk around with the myth that “we can’t have it all,” and we very often tend to get in our own way. 

Dr. Gay Hendricks provides vocabulary around these ideas in his book, The Big Leap. In his book, Dr. Hendricks describes what he refers to as the “upper limit problem” which is often experienced by us in academia. 

Wondering what this looks like? Well, this often happens when we publish something amazing or when we win the grant money, but then we can’t seem to relish it. Instead, we snap ourselves back to reality and find a way to sabotage our success. We downplay it with others and move on to the next goal.

But we don’t have to do that! Instead, we can discover our giftings and live out of the places where we excel most. 

Four Zones of the Big Leap

Dr. Hendricks writes about the four zones we find ourselves in:

Zone of Incompetence

• The things we’re just not good at.

There are lots of skills we don’t have and aren’t interested in developing. For instance, I have no desire to learn how to fix things in my car so I typically have no problem leaving that up to my husband. A few weeks ago I thought, “I can change my own headlight. I’ll watch a YouTube video.” I watched for a few minutes and realized it was more complicated than I thought. Instead of continuing to spend time figuring it out, I let it go. It’s in my zone of incompetence and I’m okay with that! 

Zone of Competence

• Things we’re okay at.

I’m a competent cook. I did spend time building cooking skills in my teenage years (thank you, 4-H!). I enjoyed it then. But now, it’s not something I want to pursue. I can make a good dinner, yes. But who is even better at it? My husband. Cooking is in a different zone for him than for me. So if we put that on his plate (pun intended), we’re both winning.

Zone of Excellence

• Things we’re good at and have developed skills in.

In my own Zone of Excellence, I have many characteristics, such as enthusiasm, discipline, connecting people, warmth/kindness, optimism, joy, intelligence, reflection, and analytic skills. It’s comfortable for me to be here. I can tap into these strengths in a variety of ways.

Zone of Genius

• Where we really shine and excel when we’re in the flow.

Finding your zone of genius is like thinking about Russian nesting dolls. Where are you when you’re in the flow? That’s the first layer. 

For me, my Zone of Genius begins in a classroom or a coachings session. But then, I consider that coaching is all about helping others learn. Digging deeper into that, I realize that I’m at my best when I am learning and others are learning too. As the layers are peeled off, something more detailed emerges from inside and I discover more specifically where my Genius Zone lies.

Strengths and Superpowers

Dr. Katie Linder has a comparable concept with different language. She calls them “strengths” (Zone of Excellence), and “superpowers” (Zone of Genius). Strengths are great but the Zone of Genius is where greatness is fully amplified. It’s where you naturally do well. It’s the place where you operate so automatically that it can very quickly trigger the imposter syndrome. We wonder why others are praising us for something we’re so good at! 

How do we find our Zone of Genius? Well, it’s not always easy and it takes a bit of work. In the search for our superpowers, we ask ourselves questions like:

• What do I love doing? 

• What have I always enjoyed doing, even when I was a kid?

• What would I do if I didn’t have any barriers?

• How do I like to spend my free time?

• What fits me so naturally that I almost feel like I’m cheating?

Fighting Hidden Barriers

Hidden barriers are ways we get in our own way of living in our Zone of Genius. We doubt ourselves and pull back. We start to shine and throw up lots of obstacles. We think it shouldn’t be this easy, so we make it difficult on ourselves. We do this when we’ve experienced lots of Zone of Genius moments.

As with the number of zones, we find four roadblocks that keep us from functioning in our sweet spot: 

Hidden Barrier #1 - Fundamentally Flawed/Fear of Failure

In this barrier, we convince ourselves that we are not worthy of enjoying our genius so we play it safe and sit on the sidelines. We fear that we won’t succeed so we don’t even try. 

Hidden Barrier #2 - Disloyalty and Abandonment 

Here we believe the message that others will turn away from us if we dwell in our Zone of Genius. We assume that others in our community will feel threatened or otherwise upset and we will ultimately end up all alone. 

Hidden Barrier #3 - More Success Brings Burdens

With this barrier we tend to downplay the lives of celebrities to make ourselves feel better about our lack of success. We might have ideas such as: “I’d be/have an even bigger burden than I am/do right now if I became successful.”

Personally, I often think thoughts like this: “Well, at least no one is looking in my windows or wanting to take my trash. If I were famous like Dr. Brene Brown, I’d have to deal with those things. And who wants that?” It’s a point of self-sabotage meant to make me feel better about my less-than-ness. 

Hidden Barrier #4 - The Fear of Outshining

We send ourselves messages like these: “I don’t want to get in other people’s way. I want them to have success too, so I’ll play it small in order to let them shine.”

It’s so easy to become complacent and allow barriers to keep us from our genius. In fact, I see it all the time with my clients who don’t really want to live in their zone of genius. They are afraid and they continue an inner monologue that justifies their fears. Ultimately, they want to play small and hide.

We can choose to get out of our own way by only saying yes to things that are in our Zone of Genius.

Consider making this commitment as Dr. Hendricks suggests: “I am 100% committed to living in my Zone of Genius.”

And that means saying no to a lot of great opportunities so that you can say yes to the perfect opportunity! Why busy yourself with doing only those things you are competent at so that you aren’t available when the true, genius opportunities show their faces? 

Photo by Edu Lauton on Unsplash

Living It Out 

Now that I’ve introduced the zone of genius concept to you, it’s time for application. Personally, I needed a life coach to hold the space for me to explore these ideas. I could certainly carve out the time to sit down and make myself think about it. But I need prompts and someone to guide my thought process. So I use a coach. Having someone else to hold the space for you to discover your superpowers makes all the difference! 

Examples of Success 

Doing this type of work brings such clarity to daily decisions. Because I know when I’m in my Zone of Genius, I know exactly what to say no to. Sometimes I have to turn down what seem to be amazing opportunities because I know it’s not in my Zone of Genius.

For instance, I could analyze statistics all day, every day. It’s in my Zone of Excellence! It’s fun for me! But is it in my Zone of Genius, where I love being? Not anymore. So I say no to it. Even when it seems so attractive.  

Another way to think about it is on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being something you would love to do. If it’s a 7, it’s probably in your Zone of Excellence, but not your Genius Zone. We have to be wise about saying no to 7 opportunities, even though they are better than 3-5 opportunities!  

Right now, coaching is in my Zone of Genius. And I would be honored to be your coach to help you figure out the difference between your Zones of Excellence and Genius. Read my take on why academics should or shouldn’t hire a life coach.

You can stop settling for your Zone of Excellence. Take the leap and let me help you to also live in your Zone of Genius!