Reply To: High IQ and you can't market or sell a product or youself

[Scattybird]

Hi RichD33 – I know what you mean. I too got my PhD and whilst writing it was a struggle – or at least starting it was – it wasn’t difficult because at that point I enjoyed the work, I could work at night and at my own pace so I could have bouts of productive hyperfocus and bouts of sleeping to recover. The outcome was the same as for those who worked steadily, although they didn’t seem as exhausted as me at the end of it.

In contrast, my school grades were all over the place – boring stuff I guess.

But working is a whole different ball game from doing a PhD. With a PhD it’s one subject to focus on. With work, things fly at us from all angles and we often have to pace ourselves to fit the work patterns of others.  It’s much harder.

When things go wrong my self esteem plummets and it’s hard to pick myself up. That turns into a vortex of self-destruct if it continues. I notice my colleagues don’t appear to find it so hard to pick themselves up again.  I sometimes wonder how they can have such self-belief in their abilities. I have noticed that they have a better work-life balance than me. My lack of focus, erratic working patterns and lack of sleep because it takes me twice as long to do anything must play a role in having less self esteem. Just the fact it takes so long to do something that takes others minutes is annoying.

I am starting to come to terms with the fact I am me and they are them. Not comparing myself with them is beneficial. Realising that I am unlikely to progress any further up the ladder has been hard to accept because balancing that with motivation to do the job is difficult. However, in this current climate the motivation is trying to just keep my job rather than anything else.  Sometimes I think I have bitten off more than I can chew and other times it’s OK.

Those at work with the high self-esteem also seem to progress because they ‘blow their own trumpets’ and it is infectious and others believe them.  Maybe we should start blowing our own trumpets even if we don’t really believe it and see if the positive rubs off on us? We are all as good as the next person, we just need to believe it.

 

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