In my last post, I used the analogy of personal training to think about what motivates us and how we can harness that to consider career options and push through the rough patches that we’ll inevitably encounter in our career trajectories. I’m going to continue with the sports analogy for a bit longer, thinking about how we can apply the training habits of athletes to our work life.
I’ve been pretty athletic throughout my life, but over the
past two years, I’ve started taking my fitness much more seriously. I have many friends who can tell you their 5k
personal record or cycling watts/kg without thinking. When I meet these people, the first question
they typically ask is “What are you training for?” When I return the question, the answer is occasionally
“I’m in a rest season,” but this is almost always directly followed by “…then
I’m training for…” It has struck me that
even among amateur athletes like me, almost nobody says “I’m just hoping to
maintain the fitness that I have.”
So, how does this apply to our careers? It can be easy to fall
into the habit of thinking that if you get your job done every day, then you’re
doing well. But, that’s just
maintaining. It’s the equivalent of
saying “I’m not training for anything. I
just want to run a few miles every morning even if I never get faster.” If this
sounds good, then you can still have a very happy career. But, if you thrive on challenges and growth,
then you should be thinking about your training practices. There are several principles we can take from
sports to think about our professional growth and development. In this post,
I’ll explore six habits of successful athletes. Next post, I’ll wrap up with the
final, and what I think is the most important, habit of athletes that we can
apply to our work lives.
Goals. It’s
really hard to push yourself if you don’t know what you are training for. Last post, I talked about how to envision career goals. As a note, it’s completely fine for these to
change over time. Chances are that whatever
you are doing now to move toward one career goal is developing important skills
that will transfer, if and when your goals change in the future. Training is rarely wasted – hitting the track
with a 5k goal in mind will absolutely help you if you decide to do a triathlon
instead. Don’t be afraid to set big,
ambitious goals. Even if you don’t quite
hit what you’re shooting for, you’ll get a lot farther than if you’re only
training to achieve an easy goal. In a
practical sense, it’s important to have both short- and long-term goals. Where do you want to be in 1 month? 1 year? 5
years? At the end of your career? Make
these goals as specific as possible. When
my athlete friends ask me “What are you training for?” and I answer, their next
question is inevitably “What is your goal time?” If you’re in grad school, your overarching
goal is probably to earn a PhD, but you should have more detailed goals than
that. How many papers do you want to
publish? Do you want to gain teaching experience? It’s these specific things that will help you
as you apply the next principle, which is that you need a…
Plan. “A goal
without a plan is just a wish.” I love this quote from Antoine
de Saint-Exupéry. It makes so much
sense, but it’s also so easy for us to get caught up in daydreaming about goals
and forget to make a plan. Just as an
athlete lays out their training plan immediately after setting a goal, you
should be looking at your goals, asking yourself what you need in order to get
there, and planning out how and when you are going to get that done. No matter what your career stage, find
mentors who are in the place you aspire to be, and ask them what it takes to
get there. For example, to get my job,
students usually know that they will need a solid publication record. But, they may not realize that they also need
to hone their ability to formulate and refine ideas or develop excellent
communication skills. You should have a
plan for each of your goals, from the shortest term to the longest term. A good check is to ask yourself whether your
short-term plan and goals are helping you accomplish your long-term plan and
goals.
Conditioning. If you’re not regularly pushing outside of
your comfort zone, you’re probably not growing.
Here is where the running example is especially relevant. Think about a pace that feels difficult to
maintain. If you run at that pace
frequently, you’ll find that you can maintain it for longer, and eventually it
might even start to feel easy. At that
point, you’ll find there is a new, faster pace that feels difficult. But, again, you can eventually make that feel
easy if you push yourself often enough.
As you go about your work, think about how you can push yourself – what
is it that you don’t know you’re capable of?
Is there a level of multi-tasking in lab that feels overwhelming? Does writing terrify you? (It terrified me
for a long time!) Frequently push
yourself beyond what you think you can do, and I can almost guarantee that
you’ll look back and wonder why it ever felt difficult in the first place…then
be sure to look ahead to the next level.
Have fun. This
one may seem strange, and your immediate reaction may be “Jen, if you want me
to have fun, then you really should stop talking about running.” Training is hard and often painful, but it’s
much less so if you can find ways to make it fun. I joined an indoor bike training program last
winter, where I showed up 2-3 times per week, got on my bike in the basement of
a nondescript building, and suffered through an 80 minute workout. And I paid money
for this! Why? It’s because there were 10 other people there
with me every time, and while we did occasionally resort to our respective “pain
caves” during hard intervals, we spent much of the time getting to know each
other, joking around, listening to fun music, and watching cool you tube videos
on a big screen tv. Even if you take
your hobbies and work seriously, you should still be having fun with both. My research group members are amazing in many
ways – they’re incredibly bright, creative, and driven, and they also know how
to make the job fun. The walls of our
lab and offices are decorated with their own custom research memes, and though
everyone is working very hard, there is a consistent background of joking
around. Grad school is hard, but they have
the insight to realize that it can feel a little less hard with some
intentional fun. Wherever you are in your career, it’s important to cultivate
fun. If possible, choose groups where people take the science seriously, but
don’t take themselves too seriously. If
you’re stuck in an un-fun workplace, think about ways that you can slowly
change the culture, or find others in your same position outside of your group
who you can joke around with.
Perseverance. One
of my science heroes recently shared with me the analogy that sometimes
research is like running up a hill with a bend in the road. You’re struggling just to maintain your pace,
and you don’t know what’s around the bend.
Is it more uphill? Steeper? Flat?
Downhill? This is where
perseverance comes in. Even when we
think we know what the immediate future holds, we really don’t. When things feel tough, sometimes you need to
just keep going. I can think of many
times that my project wasn’t working, we got scooped, I didn’t know if I’d ever
get a job, I didn’t know if I’d ever get a grant funded. The list goes on – the key in nearly all of
those situations was to just keep going.
In these times, your short-term goals are your friend. It may feel overwhelming to think about
achieving your 5 year goal, but you can hopefully muster the energy to work toward
a 5 hour goal. That being said,
sometimes you also need a rest, which brings us to…
Periodicity. If you’re not into sports, periodicity is the
intentional practice of alternating between pushing hard and resting. It’s a physiological fact that you don’t get stronger
while exercising; you get stronger while resting and fueling after exercise. Similarly,
if all you do is push yourself professionally, eventually you will burn
out. I’ve found that it’s incredibly
important to alternate between times of pushing hard and times of taking it
easy. And, this spans multiple
timeframes. Most days, I treat myself to
a workout and end the day with a relaxing beer or glass of wine. Each week, I take one day where I do
essentially no work. You may be working
crazy hours in lab and at an insane intensity for several weeks to get all of
the data for a manuscript, but once you do that, it’s wise to take at least a
short vacation. After both undergrad and
grad school, I took about four months off and travelled the country. While it can feel hard to take time off when
there is still more work to be done, I’ve found that this is the time when I
step back, put everything into perspective or see things in a new way, and the
renewed energy and creativity I have upon returning more than makes up for the
time lost. As you think about your short-
and long-term plans, think about the points at which you can engineer in rest
hours, days, or even seasons. Savor the
rest time and enjoy it without guilt.
I know that I’ve centered this around sports, but my hope is
that whatever pursuit drives you outside of work, you can see the training
practices there and apply them to your work life as well. Stay tuned for my
next post on what I think is the most important training practice of all.
