I’m not a very experienced researcher, but I think in my short research career, I’ve had my fair share of dealing with self-consciousness. Here are some things I find:
Note that I mostly refer to the “I’m not worth other people’s time”, “This/I am dumb”, “This is bad, others will hate me for it” type of self-consciousness. There might be other types of self-consciousness, e.g. “I’m nervous I’m not doing the optimal thing and feel bad because then more morally horrible things will happen” in a way that’s genuinely not related to self-confidence, self-esteem etc. for which my experience will not apply. This is apart from the obvious fact that different things work for different people
Some general thoughts:
As my disclaimer might indicate, I see research self-consciousness not as bound to research. Before/outside of research/work/EA in general I didn’t notice that I had any issues with self-confidence. But for me at least, I think research/work/EA just activated some self-esteem/self-confidence issues I had before. (That is not to say that self-esteem etc. are not domain-specific, but I still think there’s some more general thing going on as well) So, I approach research self-consciousness quite holistically as character development and try to improve not strictly in the research domain, although that will hopefully also help with research self-consciousness. Because I never looked at it from a pure research-domain lens, some things might seem a bit off, but I’ll try to make it relevant.
The goal of the things I do to improve self-consciousness is not primarily to get to a state where I think my research is great, but to get to a state where I can do research, think it’s great or not, be wrong, and be okay with it. I sometimes have to remind myself of that. On the occasions on which I do and decouple my self-esteem from the research, it lowers the stakes: If my research really is crap, at least it doesn’t mean I’m crap.
Things I do to improve:
In the moment of feeling self-conscious: I would second Jason that talking to others about the object-level is magic
I also have a rule of talking to others about my research/sharing writeups whenever it feels most uncomfortable to do so. Those are often the moments when I’m most hardstuck because an anxious mind doesn’t research well, exchange with others really helps, but my anxiety traps me to stay in that bad state!
I do something easy to commit myself to something that seems scary but important for research progress, so in the moment of self-consciousness I can’t just back out again. Examples:
Social accountability is great for this. When I’m in a really self-conscious-can’t-work-state, I sometimes commit myself to send someone something I haven’t started, yet, in 30 minutes, no matter what state it’s in.
I also often find it way easier to say “yes, I’ll do this talk/discussion round at date X” or messaging another person “Hey, I have this idea I wanted to discuss, can I send you a doc?” (Even though I don’t have a good doc, yet, because I think the idea is crap) than to do the thing, so whenever I feel able to do the first, I do it and future Chi has to deal with it, no matter how self-conscious she is.
Often, just starting is the hardest thing. At least for me, that’s where feeling super self-conscious often happens and stops me from doing anything. I sometimes set a timer for 5 minutes to do work. That’s short enough that it feels ridiculous not to be able to it, and afterwards I often feel way less self-conscious and can just continue.
I think the above examples are partly me basically doing iterated exposure therapy with myself. (I never put it in those terms before.) It’s uncomfortable and sucky, but it helps (, and I get some perverse enjoyment out of it). I try to look for the thing I’m most scared of that feels related to my research self-consciousness, that seems barely doable, and try to do it. Unless that thing becomes easier and then I go “to the next level”. E.g. maybe at some point, I want ot practice sharing my opinions publicly on a platform, but can only do so, if I ran my opinion by a friend beforehand and then excessively qualify when writing my opinion and emphasize how dumb and wrong everything could be. And that’s fine, you can “cheat” a bit. But after a while you hopefully feel comfortable enough that you can challenge yourself to cut the excessive qualifiers and running things by your friend.
Ideally, you do that with research related things (e.g. iterated exposure of all your crappy research stuff, then with you confidently backing them, then on some topic that scares you, then with scarier people etc. --> Not suggesting that this order makes sense for everyone), but we don’t always have the opportunity to iterate quickly on research because research takes time. I have the goal to improve on this generally anyway, but I think even if not, some things are good enough nearbys that are relevant to research self-consciousness. Examples:
For self-consciousness reasons, I struggle with saying “Yes, I think this is good and promising” about something I work on, which makes me useless at analyzing whether e.g. a cause area is promising, which is incidentally exactly my task right now. So I looked for things that felt similar and uncomfortable in the same way and settled for trying to post at least one opinion/idea a weekday in pre-specified channels. (I had to give up after a week, but I think it was really good and I want to continue once I have more breathing room.)
For the same reason as above, I deliberately go through my messages and delete all anxious qualifiers. I can’t always do that in all contexts because they make me too self-conscious, and I allow myself that.
I appreciate that the above self-exposure-therapy examples might be too difficult for some and that might seem intimidating. (I’ve definitely been at “I’d never, ever, ever write a comment on the forum!” I’m still self-conscious about what I up- and downvote and noone can even see that) But you can also make progress on a lower level, just try whatever seems manageable and be gentle to yourself. (And back off if you notice you chewed off too much.)
However, it can still be pretty daunting and it might be that it’s not always possible to do the above completely independently. (E.g. I think I only got started when I spent several weeks at a research organisation I respect a lot, felt terrible for many parts, but couldn’t back out and just had to do or die, and had a really good environment. I’m not sure “sticking through” would have been possible for me without that organisational context)
I personally benefited a lot from listening to other people’s stories, general content on failing, self-esteem etc. I’m not sure how applicable that is to others that try to improve research self-consciousness because I never looked at it from a pure research lens, but it’s motivating to have a positive ideal as well, and not just “self-consciousness is bad.” I usually consume non-EA podcasts and books for this.
On positive motivation:
Related to the last point of positive ideals: Recently, I found it really inspiring to look at some people who just seem to have no fear of expressing their ideas, enthusiasm, think things through themselves without anyone giving them permission etc. And I think about how valuable just these traits are apart from the whole “oh, they are so smart” thing. I find that a lot more motivating than the smartness-ideal in EA, and then I get really motivated to also become cool like that!
I guess for me there’s also a gender thing in where the idea of becoming a kickass woman is double motivating. I think I also have the feeling that I want to make progress on this on behalf of other self-conscious people that struggle more than me. I’m not really sure why I think that benefits them, but I just somehow do. (Maybe I could investigate that intuition at some point.) And that also gives me some positive motivation.
This seems like a great bundle of ideas, advice, and perspectives!
Often, just starting is the hardest thing. At least for me, that’s where feeling super self-conscious often happens and stops me from doing anything. I sometimes set a timer for 5 minutes to do work. That’s short enough that it feels ridiculous not to be able to it, and afterwards I often feel way less self-conscious and can just continue.
I’m not a very experienced researcher, but I think in my short research career, I’ve had my fair share of dealing with self-consciousness. Here are some things I find:
Note that I mostly refer to the “I’m not worth other people’s time”, “This/I am dumb”, “This is bad, others will hate me for it” type of self-consciousness. There might be other types of self-consciousness, e.g. “I’m nervous I’m not doing the optimal thing and feel bad because then more morally horrible things will happen” in a way that’s genuinely not related to self-confidence, self-esteem etc. for which my experience will not apply. This is apart from the obvious fact that different things work for different people
Some general thoughts:
As my disclaimer might indicate, I see research self-consciousness not as bound to research. Before/outside of research/work/EA in general I didn’t notice that I had any issues with self-confidence. But for me at least, I think research/work/EA just activated some self-esteem/self-confidence issues I had before. (That is not to say that self-esteem etc. are not domain-specific, but I still think there’s some more general thing going on as well) So, I approach research self-consciousness quite holistically as character development and try to improve not strictly in the research domain, although that will hopefully also help with research self-consciousness. Because I never looked at it from a pure research-domain lens, some things might seem a bit off, but I’ll try to make it relevant.
The goal of the things I do to improve self-consciousness is not primarily to get to a state where I think my research is great, but to get to a state where I can do research, think it’s great or not, be wrong, and be okay with it. I sometimes have to remind myself of that. On the occasions on which I do and decouple my self-esteem from the research, it lowers the stakes: If my research really is crap, at least it doesn’t mean I’m crap.
Things I do to improve:
In the moment of feeling self-conscious: I would second Jason that talking to others about the object-level is magic
I also have a rule of talking to others about my research/sharing writeups whenever it feels most uncomfortable to do so. Those are often the moments when I’m most hardstuck because an anxious mind doesn’t research well, exchange with others really helps, but my anxiety traps me to stay in that bad state!
I do something easy to commit myself to something that seems scary but important for research progress, so in the moment of self-consciousness I can’t just back out again. Examples:
Social accountability is great for this. When I’m in a really self-conscious-can’t-work-state, I sometimes commit myself to send someone something I haven’t started, yet, in 30 minutes, no matter what state it’s in.
I also often find it way easier to say “yes, I’ll do this talk/discussion round at date X” or messaging another person “Hey, I have this idea I wanted to discuss, can I send you a doc?” (Even though I don’t have a good doc, yet, because I think the idea is crap) than to do the thing, so whenever I feel able to do the first, I do it and future Chi has to deal with it, no matter how self-conscious she is.
Often, just starting is the hardest thing. At least for me, that’s where feeling super self-conscious often happens and stops me from doing anything. I sometimes set a timer for 5 minutes to do work. That’s short enough that it feels ridiculous not to be able to it, and afterwards I often feel way less self-conscious and can just continue.
I think the above examples are partly me basically doing iterated exposure therapy with myself. (I never put it in those terms before.) It’s uncomfortable and sucky, but it helps (, and I get some perverse enjoyment out of it). I try to look for the thing I’m most scared of that feels related to my research self-consciousness, that seems barely doable, and try to do it. Unless that thing becomes easier and then I go “to the next level”. E.g. maybe at some point, I want ot practice sharing my opinions publicly on a platform, but can only do so, if I ran my opinion by a friend beforehand and then excessively qualify when writing my opinion and emphasize how dumb and wrong everything could be. And that’s fine, you can “cheat” a bit. But after a while you hopefully feel comfortable enough that you can challenge yourself to cut the excessive qualifiers and running things by your friend. Ideally, you do that with research related things (e.g. iterated exposure of all your crappy research stuff, then with you confidently backing them, then on some topic that scares you, then with scarier people etc. --> Not suggesting that this order makes sense for everyone), but we don’t always have the opportunity to iterate quickly on research because research takes time. I have the goal to improve on this generally anyway, but I think even if not, some things are good enough nearbys that are relevant to research self-consciousness. Examples:
For self-consciousness reasons, I struggle with saying “Yes, I think this is good and promising” about something I work on, which makes me useless at analyzing whether e.g. a cause area is promising, which is incidentally exactly my task right now. So I looked for things that felt similar and uncomfortable in the same way and settled for trying to post at least one opinion/idea a weekday in pre-specified channels. (I had to give up after a week, but I think it was really good and I want to continue once I have more breathing room.)
For the same reason as above, I deliberately go through my messages and delete all anxious qualifiers. I can’t always do that in all contexts because they make me too self-conscious, and I allow myself that.
I appreciate that the above self-exposure-therapy examples might be too difficult for some and that might seem intimidating. (I’ve definitely been at “I’d never, ever, ever write a comment on the forum!” I’m still self-conscious about what I up- and downvote and noone can even see that) But you can also make progress on a lower level, just try whatever seems manageable and be gentle to yourself. (And back off if you notice you chewed off too much.) However, it can still be pretty daunting and it might be that it’s not always possible to do the above completely independently. (E.g. I think I only got started when I spent several weeks at a research organisation I respect a lot, felt terrible for many parts, but couldn’t back out and just had to do or die, and had a really good environment. I’m not sure “sticking through” would have been possible for me without that organisational context)
I personally benefited a lot from listening to other people’s stories, general content on failing, self-esteem etc. I’m not sure how applicable that is to others that try to improve research self-consciousness because I never looked at it from a pure research lens, but it’s motivating to have a positive ideal as well, and not just “self-consciousness is bad.” I usually consume non-EA podcasts and books for this.
On positive motivation:
Related to the last point of positive ideals: Recently, I found it really inspiring to look at some people who just seem to have no fear of expressing their ideas, enthusiasm, think things through themselves without anyone giving them permission etc. And I think about how valuable just these traits are apart from the whole “oh, they are so smart” thing. I find that a lot more motivating than the smartness-ideal in EA, and then I get really motivated to also become cool like that!
I guess for me there’s also a gender thing in where the idea of becoming a kickass woman is double motivating. I think I also have the feeling that I want to make progress on this on behalf of other self-conscious people that struggle more than me. I’m not really sure why I think that benefits them, but I just somehow do. (Maybe I could investigate that intuition at some point.) And that also gives me some positive motivation.
This seems like a great bundle of ideas, advice, and perspectives!
This reminds me of the Eliezer Yudkowsky post Working hurts less than procrastinating, we fear the twinge of starting.
Woah! Thank you for all these very concrete tips! A lot of great ideas for me to pick from. :-D