Publishing Before I’m Ready
What Three Books Taught Me About Doing It Anyway
From Footnotes for Flourishing — reflections on psychology, personal development, and growth.
Welcome to my new blog.
It’s been gestating for a while, and it’s finally seeing the light of day, now that I’ve recognised I don’t have to wait until I’m ready to publish. I’m a cognitive psychologist with almost 30 years’ experience teaching at university level, with broad research interests including expert performance and creativity. I am also an actor and musician, and fascinated by what it is that enables people to develop, become, and ultimately flourish at whatever they do.
This first post is about the three books I’m currently reading, which together have contributed to the fact that you are reading this. Well, when I say reading, in fact one is an audiobook, one on Kindle, and the third a paperback. All formats have their pros and cons, and I like the variety. But I’m engaging with them all - though not at the same time, I hasten to add.
The first is Dr Jessamy Hibberd’s The Imposter Cure, in which she discusses how we can make sense of and address the ‘psychological mind-trap’ of imposter syndrome. I’ve been listening to part of the chapter on perfectionism on my walk this blustery, sunny Sunday morning. While we can all strive for improvement, perfection just isn’t attainable. We will always fall short, and perfectionism can damage both our self-esteem and confidence, among other negative effects, ultimately contributing to our sense of being an imposter. Dr Hibberd also discusses the importance of self-compassion, the problems of both overworking and avoidance, and the significance of learning from mistakes and improving resilience. For instance, this blog post can’t be perfect, and it won’t be. But it will be the best that I can produce, here and now, errors and all. And I have the opportunity to learn from how it lands with my readers (assuming there are at least two - otherwise ‘reader’), and take that on board for my next post.
Themes of self-belief and growth also run through my current Kindle read, Emotional Capitalists: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Emotional Intelligence for Leaders by Dr Martyn Newman. Our lives are shaped by our interactions with others, and developing our emotional intelligence, or EQ, is vital for helping those interactions to be as connecting, effective and productive as possible. Dr Newman’s Emotional Capital Model of EQ encompasses ten competencies, of which he discusses seven in this book. I’ve just started reading the chapter about self-reliance and self-belief, and how they relate to leadership and creativity. But despite the title, it’s not just leaders who can benefit from developing their EQ. Future chapters I’m looking forward to include those on self-actualisation, self-confidence, and empathy. You should already be able to see how it dovetails nicely with The Imposter Cure.
Finally, I’m reading a paperback copy of Dr James Kustow’s How to Thrive with Adult ADHD: 7 Pillars for Focus, Productivity and Balance. Dr Kustow conceptualises adult ADHD as a dysregulation syndrome where someone’s ability to regulate behaviour across ten domains (e.g. attention, impulse, pleasure/reward-seeking) is compromised. He puts forward seven pillars for managing adult ADHD, and I’ve just finished reading the first: nurturing a growth-oriented mindset. As an academic who can sometimes take set-backs too personally, this chapter really spoke to me, and it echoes some of the messages I already give students. For instance, one of my first-year modules, Skills for Psychologists, includes a week on resilience, grit, and growth mindset, and the idea of reframing setbacks into opportunities is something we cover. Although there are specific diagnostic criteria for being labelled as having adult ADHD, I view it as a spectrum (similar to autism), and as everyone falls somewhere along that spectrum, I think this book is worth reading for everyone, whether you think you have adult ADHD or not.
All these three books have several things in common. They are written by experts (Hibberd and Newman are chartered clinical psychologists, and Kustow is a consultant psychiatrist), they use real-life case study examples (anonymised, of course), and they provide practical solutions, strategies, and tools. They also all speak directly to me in the journey I’m on right now, and it’s due in part to engaging with them that I’m starting this blog now. Am I ready? No. Will it be perfect? No. Will it be good enough? For me, yes. But how can I know what your ‘good enough’ is? It’s time to trust myself, understand that my emotions of doubt and hesitation are perfectly natural, know that I’m not an imposter, and nurture my growth mindset. So I’ll publish anyway. Enjoy the read, and perhaps stay with me to explore where these Footnotes will lead.
Images co-created via ChatGPT