celebration

Holding Up a Mirror to Perfection: Why I’m finding LinkedIn can impact how I view myself

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This is not the post I’d planned to write this week. I don’t think it had really been on my mind. That’s often the way of these things however, thoughts that have been lingering without notice sneak up on you and call for attention.

Last week, I had a meeting with the wonderful Vicky Payne and talk came around to blog writing, but also to how much we both missed the twitter communities we used to have. The supportive space, where you felt like you could share in an authentic way, and how the community really felt like it was there cheering you on. This blog was built in that community space, and it probably wouldn’t be what it is now without the support and positive reinforcement that that community gave it.

We then moved onto where we tend to post and share now, and this led us inevitably to LinkedIn. I felt like I had to share how LinkedIn feels like a very different space. That makes sense. It is a professional platform that was developed as a way of people connecting to find roles, form business connections and turn those into opportunities.

Let me start by saying this isn’t an ‘I hate LinkedIn post’. I’ve been a member on LinkedIn for years, it’s more about the change that occurred in our terms of reference, and I for one did not notice.

Like most people I used to post now and again. I’d use it as a nice way to keep up with colleagues and those in similiar specialisms. Then the decline of Twitter happened, and the ethical challenges of that meant that we all left in droves. There was a social media and connectivity hole that needed to be filled. Many of us tried alternate spaces such as Bluesky and Mastadon, but after a promising start they stalled, as many of these things do.  To me, that during this time it appears that the way people use and access LinkedIn also changed. Its use expanded and changed in order to somewhat address this need. The problem is that many of us shifted our use without really taking the time to realise that it was in no way a like for like switch.

After a conversation that triggered a lot of thinking and then logging in this evening and consciously monitoring my responses and feelings linked to what I saw, I had somewhat of an epiphany about one of the reasons I’ve been struggling lately. LinkedIn makes me feel bad. With this in mind I thought I’d write about why I think that is and what I think I’m going to do about it.

How does it make me feel?

As someone who needs to be pretty active on social media, not just linked to this blog and book writing, but also because I believe that visibility and public engagement matters, I’ve not been feeling great lately and some of that is definitely driven by the social media space I inhabit. I don’t feel enough right now. I don’t feel like I achieve enough. I feel like I’m like the last runner in a race I didn’t know I’d signed up for.

To have things seen by others on LinkedIn you have to log in, react and post regularly, otherwise your content just doesn’t get shared and seen by others. The algorithm rewards engagement. My use of LinkedIn has therefore increased. This is, in itself, not a problem. The problem is that that means everyday I see a stream of amazing achievements. People knocking it out of the park. Everyone doing more. Achieving more than I could dream of doing. When I say that that is a problem, it isn’t really. I love the people that I’m seeing achieve and have such impact. It is inspiring. At the same time there is no balance to the constant stream of highlights. It triggers the ‘must work harder’ ‘must achieve more’ part of my brain, and I have to say that those parts of me are not the healthiest parts. Those are the parts that respond to emails at three in the morning, that didn’t have a weekend off in three years. The parts that lead to a world of well being challenges as I fail to sleep or eat properly.

Bear in mind I acknowledge that this is a me problem, not an issue of the platform or those posting.

There’s a lot of uncertainty around

It is important to acknowledge that some of this response is highly likely linked to the uncertain times we are living in. For the first time in my career of over 2 decades the NHS is undertaken wide scale job cuts, with pushes for voluntary redundancy, and the previously unheard of compulsory redundancy processes. The need to show value, to show that you are ‘good enough’ is very much in my mind at least. The self doubt and questioning that working in such an uncertain space brings on is even more amplified when you see and inevitably benchmark yourself against others.

For me, as an over thinker, that makes me feel even more at risk and unsettled, which then drives the spiral to continue. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Some of the posting of the good stuff I see from others, I suspect is also driven by the need to be ‘seen’ to be enough. Thus we all stay on the carousel and it spins again.

Portrayal through a singular lens

All posting on social media is biased, I’m not saying it’s not. What I am saying is that because LinkedIn is a platform that is basically set up as CV sharing, there is a string tendency to only share things that would be seen as CV candy. This understandably removes the balance of some posting that is undertaken on other platforms. I don’t see a lot of posts about people, the focus tends to be on events and milestones, and those events and milestones are almost always achievements, rarely do you see failures. It’s a world that feels, to me right now, that functions on toxic positivity. Once you become more aware of that posting bias it is probably easier to navigate, but as someone who wasn’t paying enough attention to notice the drift, I also wasn’t looking out for the impacts.

Everything is polished for public consumption

Due to this positivity, and I suspect in response to the tone of posts that are generally shared, everything is not just positive but dressed in a way to support branding. As someone who is known by more people as Girlymicro these days than Elaine I am in no way averse to people having a personal brand, I think it’s the world we now live in, but I think it’s the nature of that branding can be challenging. Branding that is all about surface or positivity does not feel, to me, that it can also be authentic.

It feels like it’s tick boxing, and worse than that, deliberately manipulating perceptions to cause us to be drawn into some form of unwinnable race where everyone is perceived as winning, but in reality we’re all drowning and not forming the real connections that could throw us a life line. I’m not talking about this at a person based level, but at a platform level. I just think it’s easy to get caught up without even realising, and to think that everything you are seeing is an accurate portrayal of the reality without undertaking the necessary sense checking on what is in front of you.

About perceptions rather than dialogue

One of the biggest changes that this type of posting leads to, is that it feels much more like shouting into a void. It’s about putting success out there, rather than leading to greater dialogue, or focusing on connection. Although it feels straight forward to gain a larger and larger following, I’m not sure how well I could say I know most of that following, outside of the ones that I also know in real life. This is in contrast to how I used to feel about Twitter, where I had connections that I formed and felt like I got to know really well, who I never met in person. Everything feels more superficial, although I have to say there are a few exceptions to this, it is far from universal.

Don’t get me wrong, there are benefits to forming these larger networks, but as Dunbar says, you can only maintain deeper connections with a small number of these contacts without deeper dialogue. These networks maintain a purpose, just not the same one that I originally felt that they would have. They are less about support and more about linkage for the purpose of opportunity sharing. Valuable, but different.

Being different is not a risk free strategy

The other big challenge, which I’m only just now getting my head around, is that LinkedIn is always fundamentally linked with my job. My job title and employer are front and centre on my profile. I have always tried to maintain my social media separate from my work. There is a reason every blog post finishes with ‘All opinions in this blog are my own’. They are my thoughts, my opinions. This is an important separation for me, and yet this separation isn’t easy to achieve now this platform switch has occurred. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I ever want to post things that are unprofessional, I don’t think that I post things that will impact my role, but I also have always appreciated the voice that independence allows me.

It is also true that, in a world where your posts are always linked to your CV, that posting outside of the norm could have an impact but not in the way that I would hope. It could be that posting holistically could be perceived as weakness and failure, rather than growth and learning. I have also encountered a few instances recently where personal opinions have landed on professional pages, because profiles were being utilised similar to twitter, which led to confusion of aims and muddying of the terms of reference for those pages. This has negatively impacted not just the page, but the person and project linked to it. There is a possibility, therefore, that getting this wrong is not a risk free challenge.

I am more than my job

As profiles are linked so tightly to roles, it is also no surprise that the sharing and posting tends to be much more job orientated. The thing is, and I know this may shock you, I am much more than my job. I have interests and experiences that exist outside of my role, many of which I have shared across other platforms as I think it is so important for public engagement that people see who scientists are outside of the day job. People talk about the fact that you can’t be what you can’t see, and that isn’t just about the role. It’s about seeing that people like you occupy those roles. In my case, it’s about seeing that someone who didn’t go to private school, someone who didn’t always achieve academic success, someone with chronic illness, and who isn’t only interested in intellectual pursuits, can still succeed. By only posting about the role, we miss out on the fact that success means different things to different people, and not all of that is about the job. It limits the success that we share, and I’m not sure that that is a beneficial thing for those that aim to follow us.

Failure is learning

Another danger linked to only sharing successes is that the journey from point A to point B appears straight forward from the outside. This can mean that those attempting to follow a similar pathway can end up feeling like failures when they encounter a route that is less straight forward. It could mean that they give up because they lose confidence in their ability to complete the journey, when the journey may have been that difficult for others, they just aren’t talking about it. Rather than raising others up therefore, it can, as an unwitting consequence, result in discouraging others from following.

The other thing to note here is that I have learnt so much more from my failures than from my successes. My failures have taught me about who I really am, what really matters to me, what drives me, as well as how to do things better in the future. No matter how challenging, they have made me both better at my job and better as a human being. By not sharing our failures, it means they are almost seen as an embarrassment, when far from a source of shame, in many ways mine are a source of pride. Without them I wouldn’t have achieved, and so I think that learning is more worthy of discussion than any of my tick box moments.

Rest isn’t failure

I have always struggled with workaholic tendencies. The need to work harder in order to feel like I’m keeping up and the resulting abandonment of self care. I’ve had to work really hard to attempt to put boundaries in place in order to maintain both my physical and mental health. I have a tendency to feel like I’m falling behind and that I achieve little in comparison to others. A lot of this is seated in having had to fight to keep up my whole life, whilst managing being unwell. I know that this is not anyone else’s problem, this is very much a me thing, that I am aware of and need to counter. I do however, miss the parts of twitter where we would celebrate rest time with others. Liking posts where people talked about what they were reading, going for drinks with friends, cooking, and spending time not being on the productivity treadmill. Now that success is re-focused on productivity I find it harder to remember that resting is not failure. I need to remember that rest is productive in it’s own way, and that my life is should not, and cannot, always be measured by how productive I am against a single given matrix. I miss seeing what people enjoyed doing outside of their role productive spaces.

Remembering that I’m running my own race

That has all been a lot about what I miss and what I’ve found challenging, but what am I doing about it now I’ve had some time to think? Well, first I am looking at LinkedIn a little less, and when I access it I’m acknowledging the success of others but trying to not get overwhelmed by what I’m seeing. I love cheer leading others on, but I need to find a balance. I’m learning to love Instagram a little more, not that I really understand that either, but it means I get to still see sides of people that are about rest and joy, not just a CV (I’m Girlymicro there if you want to look me up).

The biggest thing however, is that I now understand my responses to what I am seeing, and so instead of self flagellation, I am able to remind myself that I am just running my own race. I am pleased for others, but I am intent to only bench mark against myself. What do I want to achieve? What can I do this year that I could not do last year? Where is my learning? What am I doing to become a better scientist and human being? Worrying and giving head space to the self doubt just makes me anxious and achieves little, so I need to actively focus on taking my next steps uninfluenced by others.

Bringing authenticity back

As well as changing my approach when reading others peoples posts, I am also going to deliberately take some risks and makes changes in some of what I post. Instead of only sharing the shiny bits, I am going to share posts like this but also ones like the one below, that don’t disguise the fact that I find some days, some challenges, some moments, just hard. I think being aware that the platforms we use have different unwritten rules is the first step to understanding what is possible, and I am happy to push the boundaries of that, without acting like it is something it is not. LinkedIn has a lot of benefits, so I plan to embrace it for what it is, rather than pretending it is something it isn’t, but I intend to do that by sharing more of my authentic self when appropriate.

Reflecting on the dangers of comparison

This whole process has reminded me of how dangerous it can be to compare ourselves to others. There are many benefits to using others to inspire us, to see and understand the possible. Maintaining these benefits without letting comparison start to limit or impact our sense of self is something that I think we all need to be aware of. This could just be because I’m a peri-menopausal 40 something who has lost a lot of her confidence after the pandemic, but the brain weasels are real, and being aware of triggers is an important part of stopping spirals before they begin. Knowing how much is enough, knowing my purpose, and what I am aspiring to achieve, are important aspects to keeping me centered and in a good place. I’m focused on the vision, not the comparison right now.

Loving my imperfect self

Most important of all, I am reminding myself that I am enough. So what if I don’t publish as much as I’d like to. So what if I haven’t found time to write the grant applications I’d wish. So what if I don’t feel like I’m always impactful enough, or accepted for my expertise without constantly fighting to be visible. At the end of the day I come home to Mr Girlymicro who loves this flawed human for who she is. He loves me irrespective of my successes or failures. He loves me despite the fact that I fall flat on my face and throw food down myself on a regular basis. He loves and believes in me when I have no ability to do those things for myself. So I am taking a leaf out of his book and trying to see myself through his eyes. I am trying to love all of me and not place caveats upon that love. To know that my value is not based on what I’ve achieved, but who I have achieved it with and the relationships that got me there.

No matter what social media you use, or how you use it, always remember that if you can return to a place of true connectivity where you are seen and loved for all you are, it doesn’t matter how you are seen out there. You are always doing better than you perceive, and are almost inevitably loved more than you know. Keep the faith, and treat yourself as kindly as you would treat others in a similar boat.

All opinions in this blog are my own

Merry Christmas One and All

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Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Merry Christmas everyone, wishing you all love and laughter and excessive amounts of good cheer!

All opinions in this blog are my own

Practicing My ‘It’s Lovely to be Considered Face’: Why we should celebrate all the moments, not just the successes

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Today, I’m at the Advancing Healthcare Awards, as I’ve been shortlisted for an award from the Academy of Healthcare Science. It’s so lovely to be considered, especially as this nomination was linked to this blog, and it’s the first time I’ve ever been considered for something linked to Girlymicro. That obviously means an awful lot. In all honesty I’m highly unlikely to win, and that is nothing to do with modesty. If you don’t know the other people listed below, they are all pretty epic, and I think are much more aligned with the judging category.

The thing is for me, it’s not about the winning, it’s about sharing in the success of others, and that’s what I’m really looking forward to. Now, you may roll your eyes at me, and say that I am just saying that as everyone wants to win. I acknowledge that I won’t refuse the award if offered, but I can genuinely say that I’m OK to be the person that cheers loudly for others. I’m lucky enough to have won a number of awards in my time, and I’m even more fortunate to have been considered for many more.

At the start, I really did think it was about the winning, but over the years my appreciation of just being in the room has grown. Now, I consider the fact that someone has given their precious time to nominate me the real win. Time is the thing that no one has a lot of, and for someone to use it on something for me means the absolute world. This isn’t just true for awards, however, my point of view and how I celebrate has changed for most things, from grant writing and papers, to goals in my personal life. Doing my PhD, and writing my PhD thesis, really caused me to actively think about what works for me. So, I thought on a day like today I would share my thinking in case it helps others.

What success looks like feels different at different times

As I’ve said above, I haven’t always had the same attitude to marking progress and success as I have now. I think undertaking a PhD, and trying to make my way as a clinical academic, where so much of what happens results in failure, really caused me to actively think about how I maintained my motivation and marked progress. This is especially true for long terms goals, including those career milestones which occur over years rather than months, and where there are likely to be a lot of peaks and troughs along the way.

It’s important to also know that success feels different at different moments in life. There have certainly been times in recent years where the successes I’ve marked have not been about the big things. They haven’t been about winning large amounts of grant funding or awards. My successes have been about getting through the week, and to be honest, sometimes they have been about getting through the day. The pandemic hit me hard and I think I’m still in recovery mode. At these times, for me, it’s about finding and celebrating the small wins and setting myself small targets, in order to feel like I’m still moving forward.

If you only celebrate the successes you miss out

I wish I’d learn to change my attitude to success earlier. I feel like, in hindsight, I missed out on enjoying some of the journey of my career by being so target focused, and only appreciated the big mile stones. I’ve always been the same though. When I was at uni or doing my A-levels, I was so focused on getting through the exams, I never had the energy to go out and celebrate afterwards with everyone else. I would just go home and crash out. Making the shift to celebrating the steps along the way has made such a change to my perfectionism by making me appreciate the building blocks it takes to achieve. I also think it has made me a better mentor, supervisor and leader, as I now encourage others to do the same. Don’t just celebrate when you get a paper accepted. Celebrate when you have finished writing it and you are ready to submit. Celebrate getting a first draft of your thesis written, not just the day that you pass. Celebrate completing a section of your training portfolio, not just the day you get the completion certificate. Celebrate the fact that you have done the work, shown up and made the effort. Not just the outcome, about which you may have little control.

Acknowledge the work done

There are days when you will not achieve. That is just the reality. There will be days when you stare at the screen and manage to eek out 300 words, rather than finding your rhythm and getting down 2000 plus. To try to persuade yourself otherwise will just set you up for failure. It’s important to work out where the benchmark for celebration is, and also to match the reward to the benchmark. For me, some days that’s rewarding myself with a bubble bath if I finish a blog post early enough to make the time. Some days, it’s saying if I can make it through the next 30 minutes of meetings I’ll reward myself with a biscuit and a cup of tea. Other days, it will be that I can buy myself the dress I want if I can get back to running a continuous 5K. Not everything is worthy of a reward, in my world, I still have to set and meet a target. It’s just that target gets flexed these days based on the reality I find myself in. I still have to do the work, there is no free pass.

Marking progress in any form is worthwhile

The reason I now adjust my benchmarks is that I’ve learnt the value of movement, and not being paralysed by the size of the task ahead or the pressure I’ve placed upon myself. If you only celebrate the big moments, the end points, then in the times in-between it can be easy to feel like this movement doesn’t exist, as it’s harder to realise the progress you are making. This could just be me, but there is so much value to psychologically feeling like you have momentum. That even if the way up the hill is slow and painful, you are still getting closer to the summit. There’s a figure banded around that only 20% of grant submissions are successful. Most of the essays that get submitted will not get A’s, and for every successful interview candidate there will be multiple people that don’t get the job. If you don’t acknowledge and notice the progress it is easy to get overwhelmed by the failures. So mark progress where it happens so that you don’t just see the ‘no’s’.

There is always value in feeling seen

I’ve written before about all the reasons I think it is important to nominate others for awards. A lot of the reasons why you should nominate for awards also hold true for putting people forward for other opportunities, such as membership of committees, or inclusion on grants and papers. It can feel very lonely when you are carving out a path for yourself, especially if you are not following a well trodden path. Nominating and putting others forward can help them feel recognised, but the same is also true for you. Opening ourselves up to risk of failure, of not being chosen, or receiving feedback that may not be glowing can be hard. The thing is, this is how you build networks and get seen. This is how your name gets known. You may not get that opportunity, but it may be that the panel remember you for a future one where you may be more suited. This one comes back to celebrating the things that are in your power to control. You have control over the submission, over the putting yourself out there. You don’t have control over how your attempt lands (other than making sure you put in the work), or who you are competing against. So the success to celebrate here is the courage it took to take a chance, and step out of your comfort zone. Celebrate rolling the dice on yourself.

Feedback can be the greatest gift

I’ve received some pretty hard core feedback in my time, everything from ‘you contribute negligibly to infection prevention and control’ to ‘there does not appear to be anything that demonstrates this applicant has anything exceptional or above average for their future career trajectory’. I’ve had documents returned covered in red, comments about the fact that I can’t write, and grant rejections where I’m pretty sure they didn’t even open the form, despite the fact I’d sacrificed 6 months of my life to complete it. Needless to say, it is these comments I remember rather than any of the ones that said anything positive or nice about my submissions.

Now, I’m not saying that I celebrate the harsh ones right away, I permit myself a period of processing. This period of processing is easier and shorter if I’ve allowed myself to celebrate the work it took to get the submission in. After this period of processing/mourning, however, I make an active choice to go through and find the learning. I find the commentary that is based in fact, no matter how uncomfortable. The commentary that is actionable, and I reflect on how to make the change/improvement. I try to learn how to be better for next time. I then celebrate my engagement with the process. It may not be a party. It may be a ‘thank god that’s done’ drink, but I mark it. I mark the learning and I mark the fact that I had the courage to do the work that was hard/unpleasant. Celebration shouldn’t just be about joy. For me, it’s about acknowledgement of significant moments, and that includes failure as long as there’s learning.

Any journey worth taking is filled with moments of tantalising closeness

Traditionally, success is often seen as moving from point A to point B. In reality, in my experience, success is more like a series of concentric circles where improvement is cumulative, and often based on iterative improvement. Therefore any journey actually has a lot of near misses with success before success actually occurs. It’s actually important to notice when these near misses occur, rather than just discounting them as failures. These near misses represent huge steps of progress in themselves, and therefore deserve to be acknowledge as an important part of the journey. Not least because, by celebrating them, it can make it easier to take on and include the learning they provide, rather than discounting them as just another failure. The lens through which we see these moments can have a direct impact on how quickly we move from near miss to direct strike. Attitude is everything, and so make sure you embrace these as the opportunities they really are.

Sometimes the moments between successes can be protracted

There are things in life and professional practice that are the work of years, rather than weeks or months. Even if a project is over months, there can be moments when it is hard going. Writing a big report can feel soul destroying when you are on draft 54 and everyone has given conflicting feedback. Undertaking a professional portfolio can just be draining when you can’t get anyone to give you the time needed to sign off competencies or review sections. Then there are things like a PhD which run over years and are comprised of numerous stages, all of which are likely to rely on other people at various points, or to practice skills you are only just learning. All of this means the time from commencement to completion can be long, causing relying on internal motivation alone to be pretty hard going. By acknowledging that these bigger pieces of work are comprised of segments, and celebrating completion of these parts instead, can enable you to visualise progress made as well as to celebrate the learning gained along the way. It can also help you to regain momentum when you lose it.

The real learning occurs long before the end point

Talking about celebrating learning, this is an important point for me. It’s taken me a while to really stop and reflect on what ‘success’ really means. For a long time if you’d asked me I would have said it was the completion of something, but I’m not sure I would any more. The certificate at the end, or the gateway is symbolic of that completion, but for me now it’s more symbolic of the learning and change that occurred within me as part of the process. It’s the hard won changes, in either knowledge or outlook, that have been gained that are the real marker of change linked to the activity. This learning happens as you are involved in the process, and there is normally a fairly steep learning curve at the start. It therefore makes less and less sense to me to just celebrate at the end. Celebrating during the toughest moments, where the maximum learning is being gained, no matter where along the process that occurs, now makes the most sense. For me, success is getting to the point where I feel I do something better than I did before, be that decision making, leadership, or a practical skill, and so I celebrate when these breakthroughs occur, rather than relying entirely on an external evaluation of my progress.

Share the moments

This photo was taken at another Advancing Healthcare Awards lunch, many years ago. You can see all the smiling faces of people still involved in my life even now. The thing is, I didn’t win, but that is not what I remember about the day. I remember a glorious afternoon and evening with people that I admire and care about. I remember laughing so hard that one of us fell over. I know that we still talk about that day even now. I don’t even remember what I was nominated for, because it is the people I remember, not the lack of a win.

All of this is to say, it is the people in our lives that make life worth it. It is the people who pick us up and put us back together. It is the people that celebrate our successes and cheer us on. So why would I want to have less of that, and restrict my access to these moments. Share the joy, share the progress, and share the moments that matter in making us who we are. Life is short, so seize it.

All opinions in this blog are my own

Merry Christmas One and All

girlymicro General , , , , , ,

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Merry Christmas everyone, wishing you all love and laughter and excessive amounts of good cheer!

All opinions in this blog are my own

We Lift by Raising Others: Why we should all get our nomination heads on

girlymicro General, Healthcare Science, Leadership, Research/Academia , , , , ,

I’ve been fortunate enough to win a few awards in my time, but I count myself even more fortunate to have seen the great work and inspirational people in my science and Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) communities get recognised. Seeing the joy and the difference it has made to individuals and projects has really made me an awards convert.

I haven’t always been so supportive of them, as it some times feels like the same people, or groups, get recognised all the time. Now, having been on judging panels, I realise the reason for this is that they are the ones who are actively involved in nominating each other. So it’s less awards bias, more nomination limitations. So, for this weeks post, I wanted to try and persuade you all to remove some of that limitation by talking through both why and how you should nominate others, not only to show your appreciation but to enhance our communities.

Raises awareness

There are really three components to this one, linked to individuals, work, and the community. I think we often think of the person or project when people win awards and the benefit it provides to them. I think this misses out on what may be a cumulative, even larger, benefit. That is raising awareness of the community in which they sit. One example of this that I’ve experienced personally was last year when I was the first woman and scientist to be awarded the HIS Early Career Award. I was given a platform to be able to talk about my work at a national conference. As part of that session, I spent time talking about career paths in Healthcare Science. I got so many messages afterwards where people talked about how much that meant to them. It helped them feel seen and raised the profile of what scientists can bring to the world of microbiology and IPC. I’ve felt the same way when I’ve seen other IPC professionals win at mixed discipline awards. Any time a Healthcare Scientist or IPC professional is up for anything, no matter how well I know them, I will always be screaming at the top of my lungs if they even get nominated. Their visibility increases all of ours, and so by working together and supporting each other, we all flourish.

Acknowledges good work

Everyone works hard, I get that, so why should some people get awards for it and others not? Well, actually, in my ideal world, we would all get nominating for lots of different things and that hard work would be recognised more widely. It’s not just hard work that we are acknowledging in awards categories though. There are awards for those people who are not just great scientists but are also great leaders/educators/advocates/engagers/mentors, or even for bloggers. Sometimes, it’s an opportunity for us to express gratitude for that person who always throws themselves in to help or who we recognise is always there to support their peers. There are limited ways we can do this is a way that is visible or concrete in the NHS. Yes, we should always acknowledge and thank on a 1:1 basis, but sometimes it’s nice to go above and beyond as part of recognising others, just like the people we are celebrating.

Provides encouragement

I’m writing this as someone who weekly writes blogs and throws them out into the world and hopes that they make the tiniest bit of difference to a single person, acknowledgement is the most amazing encouragement to keep doing what you are doing. When I’m so tired or stressed out that I don’t have the energy to pull this weeks blog out of my brain, seeing previous comments/DMs/emails can be the thing that helps me get it done.

It’s the same with my projects, science related or not. Every project will go through challenging times, with trouble shooting, funding, or one of another 100 issues. If that project has been recognised, especially if recognised for the science or making a difference to patients, then that can be the pick me up required in order to persevere and take it to the next level, where that impact could be even greater. So if you see a project you admire, instead of saying, ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ say ‘I WISH I HAD THOUGHT OF THAT!!!’, and celebrate that joy by nominating it so others can have the same reaction.

Aids prospects

There is no getting away from it, money and positions can be difficult to find. Project funding especially is not as easy to come by, not matter how great the idea. Everyone says the average grant success rate is only 20% after all. Combine that with the fact that very few business cases are approved on a pure quality basis these days, and the landscape is pretty rough. Projects often need a something extra to stand out from the pack, especially when reviewers are often looking at a pile of papers and skim reading for initial comparison.  Winning a national award can make the project, or those involved with it, stand out from the others. So nomination doesn’t just recognise current work, but can really help to ensure projects can get taken to the next level.

Supports individuals so they are seen

The principle of standing out works not just for projects but for people too. There’s a lot about who you know and your connections in health. It shouldn’t be the case, but it definitely is. Networks mean you hear about opportunities, can reach out for coaching and mentorship, or have your name recognised when it’s mentioned by others in the room. All of these things are really helpful when developing careers. One of the things that winning any award gives people is visibility.  Those who win are often asked back to be judges, which enables you to spend one on one time with others. It may also mean your Trust decides to celebrate the win. At a minimum, it can be a talking point on your CV and helps open doors you didn’t even know existed. These are things that should be open to everyone, but unless we get our nomination heads on, it will continue to be the realm of the few.

Enables continuation

This may sound a little odd, but without nominees awards just doesn’t exist. I’ve held roles in numerous societies and sometimes it has been so hard to get any nominations submitted for some awards. Everyone thinks they are not good enough or that it will be too competitive, and frankly talk themselves out of nominating. What doesn’t seem to be so well understood is that awards have to be seen to add value by Trustees and other members of governance committees, and if no one is being nominated they will invest that resource elsewhere. This is even more true for awards, such as the AHAwards, which are not linked to charitable societies. There aren’t that many awards that recognise the small worlds I inhabit as a Healthcare Scientist in IPC. If I don’t nominate, there will be even fewer opportunities to raise the profile of both of these professions.  I suspect the same will be true for many of the people reading this blog and your specialisms. If we don’t nominate, these opportunities will decrease, so if we want to continue to have the option, we have to seize the day no matter how competitive we believe it might be.

Practice makes perfect

I always worry when I nominate someone that I won’t do them justice and that my lack of skill at writing the piece will be the reason they don’t get recognised.  I’ve written some top tips at the bottom of this blog, which I hope will help, but the bottom line is that practice makes perfect. Like everything in this life, you get better by doing, and the best way to learn is to start. From a purely selfish point of view, getting good at writing nominations will also have other benefits for your general working life. It will mean that you get better at the art of pitching, which helps with business cases and influencing skills in general. So really it’s a win win that we should all embrace.

Don’t be scared to self nominate

There are some awards that you have to self nominate for, and others that actively encourage it. There are also some that don’t permit self nomination. It is, in many ways, perfectly acceptable to nominate yourself. That said, I tend to find it a pretty uncomfortable process as it’s hard to shout about yourself the same way you’d shout about others. For this reason it certainly doesn’t give me the same pleasure as when I’m doing it for someone else. In contrast I’m happy to provide extra info about myself, if asked, as this is almost always necessary for someone else to be able to write in sufficient detail to do the nomination justice.

One of the main reasons why being able to self nominate is important is that we are not always networked enough, or in the lucky position where people think of us to nominate, or to even have people around us who know about the wide variety of awards out there to consider. It is sometimes the most sensible option, and I don’t think there is any shame in that. I would however always suggest a rule, and that is you always nominate others more than you nominate yourself. See it as a deliberate act of giving back to your community and building those networks that were lacking and meant you needed to self nominate in the first place.

If you get nominated, pay it forward

One of the more unanticipated consequences of being nominated for an award is that you are often then able to glimpse behind the curtain, as it were, to gain a greater insight into how that award works. If you have to attend an award interview, you gain insight into what kinds of questions they ask, which can in turn help you understand what they are looking for. If you are fortunate enough to win, you may get an even greater insight by being invited to become a judge, or have the opportunities to speak to the judges afterwards about what struck them about your nomination. All of these moments can really help increase your chances of success. This is your time to seize the moment and make sure that you capitalise on those insights to support others and make your own nominations. Someone nominated you after all, time to pay it forward.

Bring a little more joy into the world

Finally, I’d just like to be clear that this is not about the winning, it’s about finding joy in process of supporting and recognising others. Just being considered by someone else as worthy of nomination should make the nominees day a little bit brighter. If they get shortlisted, that is amazing! Winning is great, but all of the other parts are probably more important, winning is just the cherry on top of a pretty amazing cake. I also have one note of caution here, if you nominate and that person does well, feel good for them, enjoy the joy you have helped bring about, but try and not make their success about you. I have been to a few ceremonies where the nominators acted like they themselves had won the award. I think being able to write a good nomination is a skill, and I don’t want to take anything away from that. The nominee however usually did a lot of work to be worthy enough of being nominated, shortlisted and then possibly winning the award. Let’s make sure that we keep the focus on the brilliant nominee and keep the moment about raising them into the spotlight and recognising all they have done.

Here are some good examples of annual awards that you might want to consider (they’ll update links annually, and not all will be open right now, but these should sign post you in the right direction):

Please link to any others you know in the comments

Top tips for completing award nominations

  • Read the guidance – it will usually tell you how they are scoring
  • Check eligibility – both for you nominating and the nominee, sometimes you need membership
  • Take the time to choose the best category – there’s little point nominating a Clinical Scientist for an award sponsored by the IBMS for instance, or a scientist for the Nursing Times awards, even if they were in theory eligible it’s probably not the best choice
  • Don’t be worried about asking the nominee for more details – you’ll probably need more detail than you have to write something that does them justice
  • Be prepared – always look up the sections needed ahead of time and the word counts required
  • Spread the love – see if you can find some nomination buddies
  • Do you research – if you can look up previous winners, the details may help you focus the details of your nomination

So please please do me a tiny favour. Pick one award, any one, and ensure that some time this year you support someone or a great project by throwing their name into the pot! It won’t take long and you won’t regret it.

All opinions in this blog are my own