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

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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

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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!

How Lifestyle Transformation Is An Achievable Goal For Academics

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The use of leadership coaches has become an acknowledged and widespread practice in corporations, non-profit organizations, even governments, and the reasons vary.

When individuals work with leadership or life coaches, they start to experience higher levels of effectiveness at work and at home, with improvements in both their task and relationship orientation. At the same time, organizations discover that they are more productive when they hire life coaches because they experience a higher return on investment.  

As a parallel, employing coaches in academic life or the use of any kind of systematic organizational development is basically uncharted inside the university world.  With the higher demand for notable change that universities are now facing, in economical and technological areas, there are good reasons to believe that things are about to change.  

While universities and colleges accept the fact that changes are enveloping them, individual staff, such as professors, and administrators should consider turning to a personal coach. Why? Because doing so can boost their advance both in their careers and their lives.

Coaching - It’s Not What You Think

Those who are unfamiliar with coaching tend to believe that coaching is a form of consulting, mentoring, or just advice-giving. At its core, coaching is a form of one-on-one analysis and examination in which the client is guided by the coaches. This process consists of closely listening and asking pertinent questions in ways that help the client identify and overcome obstacles and then come up with courses of action and implement them.  

A life coach focuses on supporting only the client’s agenda, starting wherever they are at that point. The right coach enters the engagement without stereotypes or some ideal sense of the right goals for their clients. In this way, the client is able to safely explore their authentic path, style, and career in a safe manner, finding a supportive environment in life coaching.

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Five Occasions Coaching Can Be Helpful In Your Academic Career

When compared to other kinds of organizational development interventions, such as training and team building, coaching is especially better suited for the highly competitive and individualistic nature of academia. The privacy of the coaching collaboration enables a safe haven for sharing hopes and concerns, successes and breakdowns, as well as possibilities and aspirations, without any judgment.

Let’s have a look at five situations in an academic career when hiring a coach might be beneficial to a scholar:

• You’re thinking about becoming an academic 

Obtaining your Ph.D. or some other terminal graduate degree is a considerable commitment, and academic life is not suitable for everyone. Hiring a life coach at the beginning of the academic journey can both save you from a probably costly and emotionally consuming decision and start with clear, precise, and realistic expectations, intentions, and aspirations.

• You’ve taken your first academic job 

Congratulations are in order if you’re a fresh assistant professor and you’re eager to begin on your teaching and research, but you may have already found out that the long road to tenure is paved with difficult decisions. And even though your dean, department head, and esteemed colleagues will provide you with much advice,  how can you maximize your possibilities of succeeding and still remain authentic to your original aspirations and intentions?  

Hiring a life coach at this stage in your career gives you a prudent method of analyzing your challenges and opportunities with a person who has only your interest at heart. 

• You’ve been promoted or received tenure (or denied promotion or tenure)  

The career path of a professor has three major phases, and each promotion can be a considerable life alteration.  The switch from assistant to associate professor is usually followed by tenure, and the point in career when you get tenure can be confusing.  

You start wondering if you should continue on the same trajectory or whether it's time to think about an administrative role. These are just a few of the questions that demand answers when receiving tenure, and a life coach plays a decisive role in finding those pertinent to your circumstances, helping to find your own answers.  

Denial of tenure is a difficult time, and many universities provide little or no support whatsoever.  But a life coach can guide you to be able to look at the event from a proper perspective and identify the path aligned with where you are now.  Denial of promotion to full professor position is another tough case, and the right coach can be especially helpful in analyzing perspective and figuring out the next steps.

• You’ve taken a new administrative post

Shifting from teaching to an administrative position can be quite demanding in your system, and even going up in the ranks from head of department to  dean position can be challenging as each new post is filled with different tasks from the one vacated.  

Administrative entries and promotions are convenient times to find a life coach to guide you through the challenges of a new posting and to prepare you for consecutive advancement by enhancing the skills and evolving in ways that are according to the new post and the next.

• You’re preparing to leave the university  

Maybe you’ve decided it’s about time to go to the next level, perhaps start a company, become a consultant, take a job in the private sector, or retire.  These progressions are excellent to ask good questions and follow a coach’s guidance to help you draw out the best in what comes next.

These five occasions are great ones to consider finding and using the expertise of a life coach.  The next part lays out a number of open-ended questions to guide you in the quest for your coach.

Finding Your Coach

So perhaps you find yourself in an academic transition when a coach might be useful to you. How do you find the right coach that would be aligned with your needs? 

The following questions will guide you through what to take into consideration when hiring a coach:

• What kind of training and qualifications does this person offer to their coaching?

• In what way does this person have academic experience and understand academic culture?

• How can this potential coach be curious about you, your obstacles, your opportunities and in what way do they appear to have a method or an answer?

• How comfortable do you feel with the potential coach, and how hard is it to share private information with him or her?

• Do you feel that this coach asks questions that engages your reflection and are both compelling and interesting to answer?

• Do you feel that the coach seems to listen to you and understand you through that listening?

While each academic has unique circumstances that lead them to hire a life coach, these are the most common occasions. 

If you find yourself in any of these situations and you are interested in boosting your academic career, don’t hesitate to contact me to discover the next step in reaching your personal and professional goals.

Or, get to know me better (and take the first steps towards achieving your goals) by learning how to stop procrastinating through self-coaching. Use the form below to get access to my tips for reclaiming your time!

10 Steps To Maintain Your Weight Loss [Why Overeating Is Not The Answer]

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The majority of people who succeed to lose weight, unfortunately, eventually end up gaining it back. In fact, a small percentage of dieters successfully lose weight and keep it off in the long term. However, don't let this intimidate you. There are some scientific methods that can help you maintain your weight - starting from exercising to controlling stress and accepting setbacks.

Why People Regain Weight

There are a few explanations why people gain back the weight they lose, and most of these are generally linked to unrealistic goals and feelings of deprivation.

Restrictive diet plans

Severe calorie restriction can slow your metabolism and change your appetite-controlling hormones, which are both factors that lead to weight regain.

Wrong mindset

If you consider your diet as a quick fix, rather than a durable solution to improve your health, you will be more inclined to give up and regain the weight you lost.

Inconsistency of sustainable habits

A great number of diets function on willpower rather than habits you can include on a daily basis. They are based on rules rather than lifestyle alterations, which may intimidate you and block weight maintenance.

However, have a look at a few steps that can be just what you need to bend the statistics in your favor and keep your hard-won weight loss. 👇

1. Exercise At Least Three Times A Week

Daily regular exercise, or at least three times a week, can significantly influence your weight maintenance. It can help you burn off the extra calories and boost your metabolism, which are two components needed to obtain energy balance. To achieve energy balance, you need to burn the same number of calories that you consume. This way, your weight can remain the same.

It's important to keep in mind that exercise can influence your weight maintenance when it's combined with other lifestyle adjustments, including opting for a healthy diet.

2. Stand By Your Plan All Week Long, Including Weekends

One practice that usually leads to weight regain is choosing to eat healthy on weekdays and “cheat" on weekends. This mentality often influences people to indulge in junk food, which can block weight maintenance efforts. If you allow it to become a regular habit, you risk to gain back more weight than you lost at first.

On the other hand, studies also show that those who keep a constant eating pattern all week are more inclined to maintain weight loss in the long term.

3. Stay Hydrated At All Times

Drinking water is critical for weight maintenance and there are a few reasons for this. First off, it provides fullness and can help you maintain your calorie intake in check if you drink a glass of water before meals.

In addition, drinking water has been shown to slightly boost the number of calories you burn during the day.

4. Get At Least 8 Hours Of Sleep Every Night

Getting enough sleep automatically influences your weight control. Actually, sleep deprivation seems to be a big risk factor for weight gain in adult life and may prevent weight maintenance.

This is partly caused by the fact that insufficient sleep leads to increased levels of ghrelin, which is known as the "hunger hormone" because it boosts appetite. Furthermore, bad sleepers seem to have lower levels of leptin, the hormone responsible for appetite control.

Additionally, those who sleep for just a few hours a night are simply exhausted and less motivated to exercise and make healthy food choices.

If at the moment you're not sleeping enough, make sure to figure out a way to change your sleeping habits. Sleeping for at least eight hours a night is best for weight control and general health.

Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels

5. Keep Your Stress Levels At A Minimum

Handling daily stress is vital to controlling your weight. Actually, high-stress levels can negatively influence your weight by increasing levels of cortisol, a hormone released in response to stress. Also, elevated cortisol is connected to stubborn belly fat, as well as increased appetite and food intake. Not to mention that stress is a common trigger for overeating.
On the plus side, there are numerous things you can do to overcome stress, including exercise, yoga, and meditation.

6. Create A Support System

It may seem difficult to obtain your weight goals on your own. One efficient strategy to conquer this is to create a support system that will hold you responsible and eventually partner up with you in your lifestyle choices.

Studies have shown that having a companion to follow your goals may be beneficial for weight control, especially if that person is a partner with related healthy habits.

7. Strive for Consistency

Consistency is crucial to keeping unwanted weight off. Rather than on-and-off dieting (which clearly means returning to old habits), it is best to keep your new healthy diet and lifestyle for longer periods of time.

Opting for a new "way of life" may seem crushing initially, but making healthy choices will become your second nature when you become used to them. Your improved lifestyle will become effortless, so you'll maintain your weight much more easily.

8. Improve Your Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is the habit of knowing your internal appetite cues and paying attention during your eating process. It implies eating slower, without distractions, so you can enjoy the aroma and taste of your meal.

When you eat in this fashion, you are more inclined to stop eating before you are truly full. Eating while distracted can make it difficult to notice fullness and you end up overeating.

Research shows that mindful eating influences weight maintenance by identifying behaviors that are associated with weight gain, such as emotional eating. Besides, those who practice mindful eating are able to maintain their weight under control without even counting their calories.

9. Be Mentally Prepared for Setbacks

Setbacks are unfortunately quite certain thing in your weight maintenance journey. There will be times when you might give in to an unhealthy craving or skip a workout. But, these random relapses certainly doesn't mean you should give up your goals. Just move on and make better choices next time.

It's also beneficial to plan in advance for situations that you know will make healthy eating a challenge, such as an upcoming vacation or holiday for instance.

10. Make Realistic Changes to Your Lifestyle

The reason why many people fail at maintaining their weight is that they choose unrealistic diets that are not doable in the long term. And they eventually become overwhelmed and feel deprived, which unfortunately leads to gaining back even more weight than they lost initially.

Maintaining your weight loss means making realistic changes to your lifestyle. These changes may look different for everyone, but basically, it means not being too restrictive, staying consistent and making healthy choices on a daily basis.

The Bottom Line

There are plenty of simple alterations you can make to healthy habits that will prove to be easy to keep and will also help you maintain your weight loss long term.

During your journey, you will experience becoming aware of the fact that maintaining your weight means much more than what you eat. And always remember that exercise, sleep, and mental health also plays an important role in maintaining your weight loss and giving up overeating.

In order for weight maintenance to become effortless, you need to adopt a new lifestyle, rather than starting a new weight-loss diet. If you are ready to make a change in your lifestyle, get in touch with me and let me guide you through the journey of weight loss so you can enjoy an improved life. 

9 Situations When Academics Should Or Shouldn't Hire A Life Coach

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Hugely successful public figures, from artists to business people, all have disclosed that they work extensively with life coaches. Experts say there are six aspects that bring high achieving people like academics to life coaching. 

In an interview given to Fortune magazine, Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet, formerly CEO of Google, claimed: “everyone needs a coach.” Evidently some don’t agree with this statement. But while there may be several circumstances that bring academic people to coaching, there are also good motives why certain people should not hire the services of a life coach. Let’s begin with these.

When Not To Hire A Life Coach

1. When you are looking for someone to fix what's wrong with your life

The right life coach will ask bold questions, listen, and reflect upon what they hear. They can challenge you to ponder in new and more resourceful ways, but a life coach will not “fix” anything for you. 

Keeping balance in your life, both personally and professionally requires a huge commitment on your part. A life coach can uncover some great tools and resources for achieving success in the academic area, but this isn't enough. If you’re not ready to commit to doing the most difficult part yourself, even the best life coach can't support you.

2. When you need help with psychological issues

Coaches are not your therapists. A life coach will aim their attention primarily on looking toward your academic future, helping you to find new ways of acting towards achieving academic success, rather than focusing too much on your past actions. If you are struggling with issues such as depression, anxiety, or mental illness, you will need a therapist first.

3. When you would like a wise friend by your side

Family and friends have sometimes the best intentions, but they are not objective. Being too close to your situation can impair their vision to see the aspects where you may need improvements. However, a life coach is not your close friend. If you anticipate only collusion and affirmation for wrong attitudes regarding your academic efforts, life coaching may not be suitable for you.

But if you want to achieve faster your academic goals, these are the factors that bring high achieving academics to life coaching.

When To Hire A Coach

4. When dealing with successful events 

Change, even when positive,  is exciting and challenging, terrifying and disorientating. A decision in the academic area inevitably causes ripples in other areas of your life. New tenure, for instance, could affect your health, personal relationships, location and your spare time.

Academic growth often challenges us to self-awareness and to reconsider the professional capabilities we have overlooked. It can be difficult to renounce to familiar things, especially if you feel you “should” be incredibly enthusiastic and you aren’t, at the moment, feeling overwhelmed. Collaborating with the right life coach can guide you to discover how you can examine the career you already have and how you can encompass this great change into future academic success.

5. When dealing with difficult situations 

Whether you've lost your position, your grant submission was rejected, papers aren’t published, or you're simply feeling that you aren’t connected to your innovative self, don't just try to force your way through these situations. While most of us want to avoid difficulties at all costs, we shouldn't, as we'll only end up experiencing resentment and depression on a deeper level.

Taking the time to accept difficult changes in your life can shorten the amount of time you spend being unproductive. A qualified coach can provide a compassionate and safe place for you to overcome these challenges and set attainable academic goals.

If you are rethinking the structures of your career in your university, a professional coach can help you discover how to learn better from your struggle, to expand and move forward.

Photo by Jungwoo Hong on Unsplash

6. When absolutely nothing is happening 

Perhaps you keep trying to improve your current situation in academia and nothing seems to be working.

To achieve the results you want in the academic community, you will most likely need to change your attitudes towards attaining your goals or your fundamental beliefs regarding your advancement on the academic ladder. The start of the collaboration with a life coach is an ideal time to reconsider accumulated layers of identity.

Fear of failure is the biggest killer of plans and ideas. Lack of knowledge or skills, and missing a clear strategy or action plan, are great obstacles in the way of progress. However, the inertia caused by the fear of failure is the biggest one.

Be one of the few who are willing to knowingly risk failure when reaching for a higher pay grade. Even if you fail to take action, you gain a rich learning opportunity.

If you feel stuck in a loop, a life coach can help you break down self-limiting patterns and principles, renounce at self-defeating assumptions and re-construct the competing causes that keep you stuck.

7. When you want to make things happen 

There is always some goal you may have in your academic life that you desperately want to achieve but its enormity is crushing you. Also, the implications of making such a monumental change can affect your overall development. Often self-restricting behavior proves to be strongest just when you need the boost to take risks for the sake of enhancing your academic career.

Your life coach can offer you support to stay on track, meeting your daily goals and reduce actions that sabotage your plans regarding your career in the scholarly world. A coach can guide you through the doubt, resistance, and confusion that can appear when you are starting something exciting and new, especially when it comes to reinventing your role as a scholar.

8. When you are feeling stuck

Learning how to recognize and ditch wrong beliefs that are running in the background can get you out of weakness and clear up a lot of confusion regarding your next step.

An experienced life coach will help you to become much clearer regarding the achievements in your academic life. Experiencing career fulfillment is about living a scholar’s life that is valued and purposeful. And you can still find balance when you choose a life that is dynamic, aligned with a compelling vision.

9. When you need to figure out what is the next phase of your career

An expert life coach will lead you in the discovery process of your true academic value and guide you in becoming more self-aware as you prepare for a new phase of your scholarly career.

Therefore a life coach, by your side in this exploration, can ask powerful questions that will break your defense. When you learn to be curious about your capabilities, you will become more willing to look in the problematic aspects of your career and take on challenges that once seemed intimidating.

If there's something you’d like to change in your academic life, I can help you discover the motivation you need to get the results you truly want, finding the most effective process and right tools to understand how your brain works, and eventually access your inner power.

In the meantime, take the first step towards achieving your goals by putting an end to procrastination. Get access to my tips for reclaiming your time with the form below!