On the value of optimism

Set big goals and tell everyone to F off

Hello darlings!

How is everyone’s summer going? I hope it is filled with fun, fun, fun, and many a little bit of productivity (if that’s what you want!)

A little housekeeping:

If you are going to be at EPSA in Cologne or ECPG in Ghent, please say hello! I’ll be at the opening reception for both conferences — please find me for a sticker / postcard! I would love to meet y’all.

I’m here today to preach the gospel of optimism.

Guess what? The world sucks. Like, a lot. Maybe more than in the past (?) and certainly more than we expected it to when we were delightful little positive beings imagining our future.*

*this isn’t true for me! My life is so much cooler than I ever imagined it would be! I hope yours is too.

Also, if you are an academic, our worlds are full of a lot of suck! Rejections, hard writing days, dumbass political shit that gets in the way of us doing our fucking jobs, mean people, racism, sexism, homophobia, elitism. BOOOOO.

It is very easy to internalize this shit! But I’m here to ask you to have a little fucking optimism about your life. And if you have trouble believing in yourself, know that I think you are fucking awesome and I want you to succeed.

Believing in yourself is hard AF (but you can do it)

Let’s just start with the idea that things might actually work out. And when they do, we will be deserving of those good things. Maybe you need a sweary affirmation to start? Feel free to come up with your own and use one of mine:

Just fucking do it

You are abso-fucking-lutely amazing

I’m the fucking best

I deserve all the good shit heading my way.

Setting big goals is betting on yourself

One way to be optimistic is to set some big fucking goals for yourself. Go all in. What would it look like if you succeeded well beyond what you actually think is possible? What would it mean if you did it all? One way to get to this is to set some BIG FUCKING GOALS. Goals so fucking huge that your little inner gremlin says in a mean little voice: “you will never get there. Why even try? You will fail.” Sure, but also what if your inner gremlin is an asshat loser and is wrong?

So: what would it look like if you turned your goals up to 11? What would it mean to bet the mortgage on yourself? And then, even more terrifyingly, what would it mean to tell other people about those goals? Last year, I decided that I was going to write books. And I told someone that I wanted to publish four books in 2024. They laughed! They should have. That was preposterous. But I do think I’ll publish three books this year! And there’s no fucking way that I’d get to three if I didn’t try for four. Let’s try this together: what are your big goals for the rest of 2024? What do you want to get accomplished in the next year? Here’s a big one for me: I’d like to apply for five big grants by the end of 2025. Will I get there? Who knows! Come along and watch me fail! Or even better: fail with me! It’s fun. (no it’s not but winning is!)

Stop selling yourself short

I’ve seen a lot of presentations in my career, many of which involve someone with an extraordinarily high level of expertise. About a quarter of these start with this person (usually a woman) saying something like “well, this is a garbage project” or “this is VERY preliminary so don’t get your hopes up” or “I have to apologize because [we didn’t finish/this was last minute/we have no idea what we are doing]” or [exact quote] “I know this is a garbage idea so…”

STOP IT.

JUST FUCKING STOP IT.

Let the audience decide for themselves if your ideas are good or if the project is far enough along or if it is actually science or whatever other shame-spiral scenario you have concocted in your head. I know why we do this! It is hard and being pessimistic about our work provides protection from a world that likes to kick us hard when we are down. I KNOW. Can you have a little bit of goddamn pride about your work? Stop with the fucking self-sabotage. Or if you can’t completely stop it, can you stop saying it out loud to other people who don’t know you well enough to not believe you?

Get yourself an optimism booster  

Maybe being kind to yourself is out of reach (please go to therapy and tell your therapist “I need to learn how to be kind to myself even when I don’t deserve it”). It is also possible that you need a better coven / group of guy/gal/non-binary pals who will be your hype-person.

I finished a book this year that I’ve been working on for a long time and am pretty sure is a combination of terrible and boring and unimportant! Whew. Is it actually those things? I don’t know! That’s because I’m a really fucking bad judge of my own work. (Don’t worry, I’m working on it in therapy too). But friends and reviewers and editors tell me that it is actually a good idea (?) and not terrible (??) and maybe even important (???). So get yourself the friend who says “I can’t wait to see this book out in the world” or “that’s such a good idea” or that they thought about my book after they read it. A hype person can help provide the needed optimism that you can’t seem to drum up for your own work. So get yourself an optimism booster (and do this for your coven).

XOXOX

Mirya