Everyone’s puzzle is different

I did a lot of reading this past summer, in service of an activity I’m working on, a passion project if you like, which I hope will deliver huge value to the research community, particularly female researchers with BIG ambitions. For now, I’m calling it the Artemis project. Artemis because I want to put out lots of super helpful, and totally free resources to help female researchers in the hunt for large/strategic research funding. Female academics in particular, because whilst we are as successful as our male counterparts when we apply for large grants, we do so MUCH less frequently! Project, because the work has a very specific focus, and hopefully an end point! Anyway, more about that at a later date when I have something useful to share. For now though please DO get in touch ([email protected]) if you are already a senior female academic WITH a large grant and have top tips to share with those following in your footsteps. I’d love to gather some data and write some general articles and specific case studies (named, or anonymous as you prefer) about the challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

Back to this summer’s reading… As you can imagine I have reams and reams of notes; most nicely curated, properly indexed, etc. and referenced against which book, blog post, video, or podcast I extracted useful ideas from.  But today I’ve come across a paragraph that struck me as useful to share, but for which I’ve totally misplaced the reference.  It may have been the book Rushing Women Syndrome (link below) by Dr Libby Weaver, but I cannot be sure without re-reading that book.  I have summarising Dr Weaver’s book on my to do list, but for now let me say the key message is that particularly as we move through middle age and beyond i.e. exactly the sort of time we feel that we are well positioned to be hunting for bigger grants… we need to be particularly mindful of our stress levels, not trying to do and be everything, all at once. If we do, if we never leave the stressed rushing, caretaking everyone else mode then cortisol production becomes chronic and chronic stress exacts a terrible toll on bodies and minds leading to lower performance and terrible wellbeing.  This is particularly detrimental in mid life because hormones are produced hierarchically and chronically elevated cortisol leads to much lower levels of other hormones in addition to storing fat in unhealthy locations around our bodies, which impacts both our physical health and self-image.

I digress, the mysterious paragraph! I noted down “…look at your [life] as a puzzle. Everyone’s puzzle is a different size [and shape!]; some may only have a 250 piece puzzle to solve, whereas others might be faced with a 1000 piece puzzle. Be patient, get curious, start by putting the border pieces into order, then work on different coloured sections, working your way towards the centre”. I thought that was great advice, if you’re feeling overwhelmed just start somewhere, get that theme organised and then move onto the next, gradually dig your way out of overwhelm, set up systems to streamline all that is going on, remove as much spurious activity as possible, and delegate whatever you can!

We all have many, many duties, and responsibilities, and projects on the go; usually far more things than can actually be accommodated in the time available to us! It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed so if we think of life as a bit of a puzzle, we just need to focus on one piece, or one type of piece and work through the puzzle bit by bit, to bring a bit of wellbeing and less overwhelm back into life.

Furthermore, let’s not assume we all have the same size, or shape of puzzle. Some of us have many, may small pieces, some a few large ones, some a whole mix of different size pieces making up an atypical shaped puzzle. Don’t compare, just focus on getting all the pieces of your own puzzle into place. Focus on one section/theme at a time and you’ll lower your stress levels.

What does your puzzle look like? If you’re overwhelmed what topic will you work on first, get that sorted before moving onto anything else? What are your edge pieces?

If you want support we’re always here. We’ve got courses to build knowledge, coaching if you need help developing ideas, facilitated workshops if you want to turn research ideas into collaborative grant applications and specific proposal critical friend support/pre-interview coaching. You can find details of all of these here: https://onlineaccess.researchinfocus.com/store or drop us an email at [email protected]

We believe in you, you can do it!

References & further reading of interest:

1: Rushing Women Syndrome, Dr Libby Weaver https://amzn.to/3zpOGYP  (this is an affiliate link, you can view the book and if you decide to buy it costs you the same whilst we are awarded a small commission for directing you to the relevant page; it also helps us track how helpful you find our articles so if you do click on the link thanks!)