Is the new year a good time to make some positive changes in your life? Or are new year resolutions a bit ... you know, cliched? And if you do decide to make some resolutions, how do you choose them? Your imperfect friend is here to hold your hand and guide you through it all. We're going to look at why, psychologically, new year is a pretty good time to make some changes, and why cynicism about new year resolutions is understandable, but overblown. We're also going to look at how you can dig down into any resolutions you've been toying with and get to the heart of what you really care about, so that you can focus your new year efforts in the right place.

Not an obvious comparison, I'll admit. But, trust me, you're way better at knowing how to draw boundaries around your sleep (even if you don't always put that into practice) than you are at knowing how to draw boundaries around your writing. Do you schedule meetings in the middle of the night, knowing that you'll need to interrupt your sleep to attend them? Thought not. But I bet you're guilty of scheduling meetings during time that you'd planned to spend writing. You probably even blame yourself when you find it impossible to get back to writing afterwards. It needs to stop. Now.

We talk about success and failure all the time. You're probably in the habit of telling yourself that you'll never succeed, or that other people are more successful than you are. But do you actually know what you mean when you say things like this? Unless you have a clear conception of who you are and what you care about, you have no idea. Join The Academic Imperfectionist to cut through the bullshit stories we tell ourselves about success and failure, and find out how to write your own rules.

You've read the inspirational quotes, you've got uplifting affirmations written on post-it notes and stuck to your fridge, you're fully on board with personal growth and empowerment - so why do you still have the inner critic buzzing away inside your head? It must mean you've failed, right?

Well, no, honey. You're completely normal. You've got the inner critic all wrong, that's all. The bad news is that you're stuck with her. The good news is that she's not in charge of what you think and do - you are.

All that beating yourself up about how lazy you are, and about how you're not achieving the things you need to achieve as fast as you need to achieve them - it's just tough love, right? It's what keeps you going and striving to succeed. Well, actually ... lol no, imperfectionists. Your well-meaning self-criticism and self-shaming are serving no purpose whatsoever. Don't argue. It's science.

Do you struggle to cope with uncertainty - about the effects of the pandemic, about your career, about your income, your relationship, and God knows what else? The Academic Imperfectionist is here to break it all down for you. You're going to learn:

1. That it's completely normal to feel stressed and anxious in the face of uncertainty;

2. That the reason uncertainty is stressful is due not only to the possibility of some nasty outcome that you fear, but also to how anticipating it makes you feel;

3. That coping effectively with uncertainty requires two separate strategies: one to try to avert the nasty outcome that you fear, and another to address the stress that anticipating that outcome causes you;

4. How to start implementing both those strategies right now.

Would you rather boil your head than start the day by making a task list? Does the idea of identifying your core values make you feel faint? Are you terrified to make plans because - what if you get them wrong? You're not alone. Your anxiety about writing down what you need to do and what's important to you is understandable, but misplaced. Join The Academic Imperfectionist for the low-down on all the things you have to gain from embracing imperfect planning.

So, you heard the last episode, and you're completely on board with not writing being an essential part of writing. But what sort of not-writing is best? Some not-writing activities allow our best ideas to ferment away in the background, growing in goodness like a good batch of sauerkraut. Other not-writing activities, however, grind the whole mental fermentation process to a halt.

The bad news is that, at the moment we decide to take a break from writing, we're especially vulnerable to plumping for the wrong sort of not-writing activities. The good news is that The Academic Imperfectionist is on hand to shut that shit down.

Yeah, I know - you should be writing. Same here. Not writing enough is one of the worst sins a researcher can commit - and we're all committing it almost all of the time. But what if we've got 'not writing' all wrong? What if those procrastinating hours you spent trying to decide which font to use and what colour to paint your bedroom were actually important parts of your writing process? What if, without plenty of time spent not writing, you wouldn't be a writer at all - at least, not one that anyone would want to read? Shut that laptop and let your imperfect fairy godmother blow your writing guilt out of the water.

Do you have a battle going on inside every time you try to achieve something important - a battle between the part of you that's trying to do well and your inner saboteur, who is determined to mess things up for you? Have you ever wondered why you work against yourself in this way? I mean, it's exhausting, right?

The answer, my imperfect friends, is that your inner saboteur isn't a saboteur at all - at least, not intentionally. She wants you to do well. It's just that she's afraid of what might happen if you do. If you want to go places, doing battle with her isn't the answer. You need to tune in to your inner saboteur, work out what makes her tick, and then get her on side. I'm going to show you how.

That productivity you care so much about: what's it for? For too many of us, it's not for anything. It's the ultimate end. Unless we're being productive, we feel like we're wasting our time, like we're being lazy, selfish, immoral, a loser. We can only bear to take a break because we think that not taking a break might harm our productivity.

That's not what we tell ourselves, of course. We tell ourselves that being productive is a means to attaining our goals: finishing a thesis, getting a job, getting promoted. Except we're pathological goalpost-movers who never attain our goals. Too often, our goals are just the excuses we need to keep on keeping on. We're wasting our lives with our pointless productivity.

The antidote? Make peace with wasting time. Yeah, I know it's uncomfortable. I know sitting around doing nothing makes you feel more evil than the devil. Embrace it. Get good at it. It's worth it, I promise.

You know what I’m talking about. You set out to achieve something important, you manage to achieve it (because you’re awesome and of course you did) - but instead of celebrating, you tell yourself it was no big deal and that you probably weren’t aiming high enough anyway and omg how are you ever going to get anywhere if you keep chasing such tiny, piddling little goals? Goalpost-moving is one of the main perfectionist weapons we use against ourselves. Doing it means that, by definition, we can never succeed. But there’s a way you can stop.

Last week, you were storming it. Hitting your writing targets. Keeping up with emails. Getting everything done (well, more or less). So, why is everything suddenly such a struggle? Why is it that you can barely remember your own name, let alone find anything intelligent to say about ... well, anything?

Congratulations, you have brain fog. But also, your reaction to it is probably causing you some problems too. Don't worry, though - The Academic Imperfectionist has fought through her own brain fog to pull you out of your mental swamp.

How many times have people told you that you should believe in yourself, and how many times have you responded by thinking, 'Pfft, how can I believe in myself when I see evidence of my inadequacy everywhere I look?'?

Sorry, friend, but you see no such thing. Not only are your negative beliefs about yourself doing a great job at holding you back, they're also doing a great job at their own PR - by filtering the way you experience the world so that you think you see evidence for them where there is none. The truth is - as Kant taught us - you don't see the world as it really is. You see a filtered version. The good news is that you can change the filters so that instead of seeing evidence of your inadequacy, you see evidence of your worth. Your imperfect fairy godmother is here to show you how.

Q: Why is it that you manage to find all the focus, enthusiasm, and dedication you need when it comes to explaining why some dude on Reddit is NTA, but you can't bring yourself even to make a start on what you're actually supposed to be doing?

A: It's because the way you think about what you're supposed to be doing is not the same as the way you think about what you're doing instead.

In this episode, we'll take a look at why your attitude to work is making it difficult for you to work and why your attitude to procrastination makes procrastination so easy - and at how approaching work in the way you approach procrastination can help you worry less and get more done.

HURRY! Listen now! This episode will expire in 13 hours, 49 minutes, and 37 seconds! You know that’s nonsense, right? Okay, but do you also realise that it’s nonsense that those other opportunities you’re considering - that not-quite-right project, that far-from-ideal job - are scarce resources that you’d better grab before they’re gone, or regret it forever? Join the Academic Imperfectionist to find out why it’s okay to hold out for what you really want, and for the lowdown on how to tell when your scarcity mindset is standing in your way.

Your desk is covered with self-affirmations on Post-It notes, you spend 5 minutes every morning visualising yourself as Queen of the Universe, and you try not to stick your fingers in your ears whenever people say nice things about you. So why is it that you still struggle to believe that you're good enough?

Does writing make you anxious? Is having any original idea immediately followed by a nagging voice in your head telling you that it's probably rubbish? That's your inner reviewer 2. Here's how to deal with her.

We get into a vicious circle when we’re anxious about our productivity. We get anxious because we feel we’re falling behind, our anxiety interferes with our work, and then we worry about falling even further behind. We tell ourselves that we’d feel better if only we could work a bit faster - but instead we end up watching cat videos on YouTube. It doesn’t have to be like this. Your wise, imperfect friend is here to tell you how to break the cycle.

Do you ever find yourself caught up in nostalgia, reliving the past, convinced that nothing the future holds can possibly live up to the good times you've already experienced? There are reasons why it's easy to think fondly about the past and to be fearful about the future. The good news is that it's all an illusion - and it's one you can ditch. Here's how.