"WHAT STRATEGIES CAN YOU USE TO KILL YOUR PROFESSIONAL WEEDS? Part III: Relationships"

We now resume Weedland after all of your 4th of July celebrations. Put your beer, som'mores, and sparklers away. Hunker down. It's time for the weed of evil relationships. It's one of the toughest weeds to kill.

3. RELATIONSHIPS: Disassociate yourself from the cynics, pessimists, and complainers who will just drag you into their mire of weeds. If you keep company with weeds, you can begin to adopt weed-like characteristics yourself.

Instead, hang with colleagues who will feed and water your efforts regularly. If you can’t identify these people in your department, search for these colleagues outside your institution—at conferences, other universities, airports, places of worship, shopping malls, the grocery store, playgrounds, caves, or forests. You need to surround yourself with people who are supportive to keep you focused and motivated.

Pick profs or others who will build you up, not tear you down; who are ENCOURAGERS, not discouragers. The encouragers can provide constructive feedback, but hopefully it will be delivered with tender loving care and compassion.

You should also do the same with colleagues and students. Encourage and spur them on toward achieving their goals. Get out of yourself and help others. Isolation is deadly and can stunt your growth.

Also, find one or more MENTORS for your teaching and research who can show you the ropes and guide you through the professional rocky terrain with your gas-guzzling SUV. Again, they may be in your institution or anywhere in the world. Their old-sage advice can be invaluable along your academic journey. They can help your young-sage self grapple with the challenges you will encounter.

The next blog will suggest strategies for the final two categories of weeds, in case you haven’t accumulated enough weeds from the preceding blogs. I’m here to help! Don’t thank me yet. We’re almost done. Then you can shower me with weed poison or smack me with your baseball bat.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC 

“WHAT ARE THE WEEDS IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL LIFE? Part II”

Weed-wise, here are 2 more categories to consider:

2. WEEDS IN YOUR HEART: Have you isolated yourself and become hardened and cold in your relationships as a means to survival? A hardened heart will be manifested in your daily attitudes, words, and actions. It can distance you from important people and activities in your life.

Has your professional growth in teaching and research come to a standstill or regressed? Have you become rigid and resistant to interactions with colleagues and students? Are you toting around negative relationship baggage or harboring grudges, resentment, anger, or jealousy?

Remember, the objects of your harboring are happy and free; while your harboring may be making you miserable. STOP harboring! Let go of your harbor. Have you said to yourself: “I’ll succeed by myself by the hook or the crook? I don’t need anyone; I can do this by myself.”

3. WEEDS IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS: Who are your professional friends and heroes? Are the colleagues with whom you hang “discouragers”? Are they the negative haunting voices of cynicism and pessimism? Their voices can be like chains around your neck or shackles around your legs that can drag you down? They can squelch your spirit to succeed and suck the life out of the efforts you have made. They are poison to your professional progress.

How is your weed list coming? Didn’t make it, huh? Trying to remember them? Well there’s more on the way with the last two categories.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC