Skill-related goals

Most of my planning concerns prioritizing what should be done and when. However, before each academic year, I tend to set up a more long-term skill-related goal. This concerns something I can’t do or am not comfortable doing but which in the long run I want to – or need to – be able to do. In previous years, such goals have included being comfortable writing in English and using PowerPoint. Last academic year, my goal was to learn how to write a book that was not a thesis.

In my experience, an academic year is a quite reasonable amount of time to learn something new. It is sufficient time to play down whatever it is you’re trying to learn. This means plenty of time to try, fail and try again. At the same time, this is not an infinite amount of time. If you want to get something done, you can’t wait for too long. 

The background of this routine is my experiences from the basement at LUX. In other words, my lowest point as a postdoc when I truly realized that if I wanted to work as a historian, I had a lot left to learn. What I was and what I knew were not sufficient for getting to do what I wanted to do. Hence, I identified a number of skills I needed to learn: write peer-reviewed journal articles, prepare applications, become a confident lecturer, etc. However, I was unable to learn all of this at once. Nor was everything equally important in the situation I found myself in at the time. That is why I gave myself permission not to worry about everything at once but to focus on learning one thing at a time and then trust the process. 

The year of skill training from which I have the strongest memories was when I was supposed to learn to write in English. It was the academic year 2015–2016 and I had just received a two-year postdoc position through the Crafoord Foundation. This was the longest contract I had been given after receiving my PhD and I really wanted to make the best of this opportunity. The memory of being on my september way out of the system was still fresh in my mind. I was well-aware of the fact that peer-reviewed articles in international journals carried much weight. That is why I decided to mainly write in English for one year – even though it was tedious work for me. I made sure to write whole manuscripts and let colleagues accustomed to writing in English read them. This was also the year in which I wrote journal articles together with Isak Hammar and Anna Kaijser. Of course, I did not master or become fluent in English during this year, but I did become reasonably comfortable. The worst resistance and my fear of making a fool of myself vanished. 

The goal for the 2019–2020 academic year differs somewhat from previous goals. This is because, starting this fall, I now work with Finish On Time. I am very pleased and grateful for this opportunity. This feels exciting, fun and stimulating as well as, obviously, a bit scary. My goal is thus to be comfortable in this new role and that, over time, I will be able to do this a few times each semester without adding too much stress. In other words, more or less the way I have learned how to manage seminars, conference presentations, teaching and public lectures. A few years ago, I could go on and on for weeks preparing for these things. Now, it’s just something I do. That’s why it also feels like this is the right time to try something new. It is time for me to expand my comfort zone.

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