Personal Growth Connections

I wanted to do a series on what has helped me sort through some emotional stuff recently. Who knows? Maybe you can relate, or find it helpful for yourself or someone you know.

I have done a lot of work on myself the past few months. It started with a therapy course last November, which really helped me connect a few of my unhelpful beliefs to my habits. Just being cognizant of what I'm doing has really made a huge difference. A few of the main tips:

#1. How you talk to yourself matters.
Probably the biggest change I've made has to do with how I talk to myself--in my head--after making a mistake. I tend to berate myself and re-live the humiliation over and over. It makes me feel horrible. I call myself all sorts of names.

Now, mind you, prior to my therapy course, I wasn't even really aware that I was doing this. It was just something that happened after I made what I thought was a big mistake. Most of the time, it happened after talking with someone whose opinion I cared a lot about. Out of nowhere, my brain would re-imagine and re-live the exchange, and I'd get embarrassed all over again, and call myself names. Mistakes equaled mental flogging. This would go on for a few days to weeks after the exchange.

The therapy course forced me to actually write the words down that I called myself in those situations. It was a huge shocker. I had to submit these answers to my therapist, which I think was a really important step--admitting to someone else what I had been doing. The course asked me questions about these scenarios that made me cringe to answer honestly. Who knew I was silently bullying myself so badly for the past 35+ years?!

Would I actually say these things to another person? A friend? Even an enemy? Absolutely not. Then why in hell am I so mean to myself?

It has to do with how I connect my self-esteem to my achievements, and how I think I "should" be. To be proud of myself, I need to never make a mistake. Always say the right thing. Make the healthy choice. Be perfect at work and everything I try, immediately.

When I fall short, which is inevitable as I am not a robot, I turn on myself.

#2. Adopt a Growth Mindset to mistakes.
The key to address this self-abuse is to recognize when I'm doing it. If I catch myself, I can go through a little belief test to short-circuit the process.


It has become easier to forgive myself for these mistakes aka 'growth experiences,' and I have developed a better way to talk to myself about my growth experiences by attempting to adopt a Growth Mindset. Growth Mindset is the idea that your intelligence, musical ability, athletic ability, socialness, whatever--isn't fixed. It's all malleable. You can always improve it via deliberate practice.

I originally read a few articles about it, and decided to read the book ('Mindset,' by Carol Dweck). People with growth mindset are able to make a mistake--or several--and not beat themselves up. They look at where they went wrong, and eagerly try it again, with little to no judgment of themselves as a person. There is little to no connection between their worth as a person and their performance on challenging tasks.


There are aspects of this idea that are a bit confusing to me still (e.g., even though you have a growth mindset, there is still a ceiling to how good you could get at, say, violin, based on your nervous twitches/finger length/whatever affects violin-ing), but I agree with the finding that if you believe your X characteristic is fixed, it will end up being fixed. Simply believing that you can get better can help you get better, because you are more willing to learn how to get better, and there is no shame in trying, failing, and trying again. Your self-esteem isn't wrapped up in doing it perfectly in the first few tries, instead, you value how hard you try and how much you are learning.

I think that most of us are not operating at our absolute optimal capacity at the things we want to get better at. Instead, we say, "Oh, I'm just not good at ____." and accept that we suck at ____. We aren't trying to make ourselves better. We avoid the things that make us feel uncomfortable or the things we think we aren't good at, and beat ourselves up for not being good at everything on our first try.

#3. It won't work immediately, or how you expect it to.
The immediate effect of this forgiving myself and not beating myself up and not judging myself harshly has been an overall dip in performance, if I were judging myself with my old standards. It turns out that I had been doing a lot of shiz (or avoiding a lot of shiz) just to avoid yelling at myself. Kind of like when you clean your room because you know you'll get in trouble with your mom otherwise. It is more uncomfortable to be yelled at than to clean your room, so you just do it.

So yes, the immediate affect of forgiving myself for mistakes more easily has been...more mistakes.

But these days they don't really feel like mistakes. At least, these mistakes do not feel as badly as they used to feel. For example, there is less caring if I send out a mass email with a spelling error (which used to haunt me for hours to days afterward).

The things I'm making mistakes in are either inconsequential (e.g. the spelling error in the email), or something that I wouldn't have tried before because I was too scared to do. For the first example, because I recognize that a tiny spelling error doesn't matter or is not even noticed by many people, lots of stuff gets done quicker. I don't obsess over details quite as much as I used to; I'm more efficient.

For the second scenario, I am trying more things that scare me. Now that it is OK to make a mistake, things aren't quite as terrifying as they used to be. I still am scared out of my gourd to confront someone that has hurt me, for example, or stand up for myself to my boss, or to give a TV interview, but you know what? I did them, and I did them well, but not perfectly. I recognize that, and that that is OK. I am able to review each situation and learn where and how I'd like to do better next time.

It means that I am not sweating the small stuff, getting more results faster, and doing things that build my self-esteem and career. It's helping me grow my friendships, developing honest work relationships, and helping me become the person I always knew I had the potential to be.

It turns out that flogging myself isn't the path to being who I want to be. Huh.

Blues But Better

It's been two weeks since I posted about feeling the blues, so I wanted to give an update.

Since then, I chatted to my main supervisor and we hashed out a plan to talk to my other supervisor about everything. We then met with him and I reviewed all the things I'd been feeling and how it was affecting my work. He basically said nothing, but honestly, just getting it out of my head was the biggest thing for me in terms of healing and removing the huge block I have about my PhD work.

I react very, very badly to his supervision style. That, combined with me then trying to communicate with him how I'm feeling and then getting shut down or ignored by him is a MAJOR trigger for me, apparently. It brings up some issues I have about being heard, about having a voice, and my ability to exert some control over my life and improve bad situations. When I feel like I'm consistently being ignored or talked over or not listened to no matter what I try, I completely shut down.

(I wonder where that comes from? Some childhood thing?)

It would have been nice if he apologized, as my other supervisor said, but all we can do now is be honest and communicate how we are feeling in the moment so things don't get out of hand again.

Regular meetings are the answer, I think.

Other than that, I've been making a huge effort to take a walk every day. That means I see more people, which also helps my mood.

I've only gone down the sadness rabbit hole once in the past 2 weeks, and it went away pretty quickly, so I'm grateful I seem to be getting better.

The past month has been full of me tackling challenges head on. It's all been insanely scary both before and during the event/confrontation, but the outcome has been positive every time. Interestingly, all the scary challenging things involve me talking. I feel great afterward, though I feel like I'd rather die than do them before hand.


It helps that I'm embracing a growth mindset these days. Mistakes are OK. I reframe them as learning opportunities, and give myself permission to make them. They are part of the learning process, and necessary in order to get better. I have always tried to be perfect, but of course I am not. I constantly am reminding myself to be nice to myself, to forgive myself for doing dumb, preventable stuff, and ask myself what I've learned so that I can do better next time. And if I can't do better, that is OK too, but I do need to give myself another chance to make more mistakes.

Avoiding mistakes or feelings is probably the biggest thing holding me back.

All About Taxes

Taxes for 2016 are DONE, man!

I mailed my Fed US tax returns last Tuesday. I completed my US state taxes this past weekend, and mailed them Monday.

I did my NZ taxes on 31 March. I earned ~$30,100, paid ~$4700 in income tax, and received about $1925 in interest, paying about $330 on that. The IRD indicated that I will get back over $500! This is due to a credit that earners between $24K and $48K receive, not because I paid too much tax throughout the year.

I should receive my tax refund from NZ in mid-June. I love that, because I'll be on holiday then! (One of my favorite things in the world is getting paid while on vacation...)

Note to US readers: In NZ, you choose the tax bracket most appropriate for your income, and then you get taxed on that on all of your accounts (savings, income, etc.) throughout the year. None of this, get paid interest through the year and then pay taxes at the end stuff, nope. In NZ, the gov't immediately takes taxes out of your savings account as soon as the interest is paid.

Wonderfully, my effective tax rate in NZ is ~14%. And that is with subsidized health care. Visitors to NZ even get 100% free care when they have an accident in NZ--and we residents help pay for it. (Incidentally, my mom took advantage of this--called ACC--when she visited me in 2012 and fell on Fox Glacier, needing stitches.)  Pay attention, USA.

April Goals

What can I say? I didn't make all my goals in March. It was a busy and super stressful month. I will just have to wipe the slate clean and recommit to my two main goals for 2017:

1. Wake up/go to bed earlier. I use StayFocusd to restrict late night internet time. Restrict to 1 am on week days. March comment: THIS REALLY WORKS. When I use it, it makes me shut down my computer and concentrate on reading books/writing/meditating and I end up going to sleep earlier.
2. Incorporate more movement into my days. I use break software to help with this. March comment: This also works. I'm really happy with how well add ons and apps seem to make meeting my goals easier. I've also pledged to walk at least 21 min/day (science says this helps increase well-being and boost moods, something I desperately need right now. It also has a ton of other health and community benefits).



Other (extra) goals:

1. Book eye exam for April. DONE 10/4/2017. Need to follow up about contact lenses.
2. Get my flu shot.
3. Mail state tax forms.
4. Apply for new cc for May travel. DONE April 7 2017. Applied for Chase Ink Business.
5. Host a game night. DONE April 8 2017
6. Go to 2 work out classes.
7. Go on Easter road trip. CANCELLED DUE TO CYCLONE.
8. Finalise all accommodation for W Coast road trip.
9. Update my CV, LinkedIn, Twitter, blog, and staff page profiles for work.
10. Revamp About Me page into My Research page with link to latest CV (make short CV and load as pdf onto website). Add photos to page, move text about me to My Research page. Fill in presentations page. Send url to academic friends for review and tips. 
11. Give one media interview. DONE. I have a ton to learn still, but it went well. *Pats self on back*
12. Back up home laptop.
13. Keep up with once a week cooking. Week 1: roast and glaze a ham & roast walnuts, make homemade dressing, cut up apples for apple-feta-walnut salad; Week 2: roast chicken, mashed potatoes/roast kumara, chop up apples and pepper for salad; make homemade dressing Week 3: eat up leftover lasagna, salad, and make breakfast bites.
14. Log my daily habits (without judgment) to track moods/hormones/effects of behaviour experiments.
15. Make weekly goals.
16. Review monthly and yearly and lifetime goals. 
17. Monthly PhD treat: Easter road trip with friends. Brows waxed. Haircut.
18. Floss every day.
19. Stretch every day.
20. Meditate every day. 
21. Check my self criticism.

March 2017 Budget

March was great--a 3 paycheck month, and I had already decided to cut back on food and transportation costs.

	Mar 2017 Budget
Category	Spent	Budgeted Amount	Balance
Rent	$1,125.00	$1,125.00	$0.00
Groceries	$371.31	$430.00	$58.69
Internet	$26.33	$26.33	$0.00
Electricity	$45.73	$50.00	$4.27
Eating Out	$167.67	$150.00	-$17.67
Charity	$0.00	$50.00	$50.00
Cell phone	$116.64	$25.00	-$91.64
Medical	$0.00	$90.00	$90.00
Misc	$1,115.54	$700.00	-$415.54
Savings	$500.00	$500.00	$0.00
Total	$3,468.22	$3,146.33	-$321.89
Remainder	$983.48

Income: $4451.70 (3 paycheck month)
Leftover: $983.48

MISC
alcohol	$          20.30
entertainment	$          64.12
exercise	$               -
fees	$          10.45
gifts	$          95.10
goods and wants	$          42.40
transportation	$        150.00
travel	$        733.17

I paid for some alcohol at a wedding.

I bought my first computer video game in March and tix for an upcoming concert.

I paid some library fees and disability insurance fees.


I paid for a wedding gift and my mom's birthday.

Goods and wants--I bought some American store groceries.

I did really well on transportation this month--I walked almost every week to the grocery store, but had to rent the car for 2 days to attend a wedding. 

I paid for my Easter travel and half of my W Coast US travel this month, which accounts for the large amount of travel expenses.

FINANCIAL GOALS
I made major advances on my financial goals: my 2019 US Trip is fully funded now, I'm 72% of the way towards my LASIK Fund, I paid for lodging and car rental for my Easter and half of my West Coast road trip out of this month. Next month, I'll pay for the other half, as well as pay for incidentals on my Easter trip out of my Misc funding. In May, I'll try to do the same out of my normal monthly budget, so that I don't have to dip into my savings to pay for anything.