Nobody is going to help you unless you help yourself first.
You can find variations of that quote attributed to a hundred people online, and that’s because it’s got a good juicy kernel of truth in it.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was just in the news due to some social media comment he made. This piece hit me hard:
“Life to me was never about accomplishment, but about Happiness, which is Smiles minus Frowns. I developed these philosophies when I was 18-20 years old and I never sold out.”
Smiles minus frowns.
Beautiful and oddly meaningful in light of today’s topic; You get to define your own philosophy and there’s not a single soul on the planet who can do something about that.
You have agency and power over yourself.
Your ability to smile more and frown a little bit less is not only about circumstances. And this is a fact based on robust psychological research! Just look it up and you’ll find meta reviews with up to hundreds of thousands of participants showing how accountability, or taking responsibility of your actions, makes you way more happier than than those among us who simply attribute everything to external factors.
In other words, accountability is one of the most reliable, strongest predictors of satisfaction that humanity has discovered. So. When I talk about accountability here, my point is not to lecture you about how anyone can just magically be happy. This is more about just letting you in on a research-backed “inconvenient secret” that you might want to confront rather sooner than later.
That said, I find it somewhat sad that some choose not to see their agency. Anyway, I thought now was the perfect time to write up my remaining thoughts about being happy in academia, which is an oddly flammable topic where everyone has something to say.
And my opinions are not always popular! And that’s ok. Having any opinions means you’ll get some pushback. And having opinions is a must if you want to change anything out there. And, of course, strong opinions attract strong pushback. And controversial opinions attract strong, angry pushback.
Still, it’s critically important to develop your opinions on what and how things are in your own personal world and philosophy, just like Mr. Wozniak did about happiness over five decades ago. For himself. Not for anyone else. That’s a key distinction here. His happiness is his to define, and his to live!
So here are some of my remaining thoughts about the role of accountability in a good, happy academic life. We talked about Locus of Control last time, on how you must first observe your world, thoughts, and learn to recognize things that are in your control.
And then start working toward an internal locus of control, to become the main agent of change in your own life!
In other words, first you build the belief that you can affect things and are not just drifting at the complete mercy of the storm that academia can sometimes be. The second and logical step is then to take accountability for your doings.
Definition
Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane? No, it’s Superman (Accountability)!
Let’s start with a little mandatory disclaimer. Just because the topic is sensitive and easy to misunderstand (hence the rage online always when I talk about this). Yes, of course, 100%, I know about all the nasty systemic issues in academia. The job market is brutal. Some institutions don’t pay well, if at all (for PhD students). Promotions have a lot to do with timing and luck. In fact, a lot of success in academia has to do with luck. Many rejects are unfair. There are evil PIs out there. There are bad professors out there. There are borderline insane deans out there who require you to work during your maternity/paternity leave. And mental health is not exactly peaking in academia either.
All this and more is true.
And none of that has anything to do with what we talk about today: your personal accountability for your happiness and good life in academia, should you choose to stay in academia.
The issues above are things you can do almost nothing about right now; They require systemic change over long time periods. You can do your part in remedying them, and I encourage you of course to do so, but none of the issues above you can change today.
Yourself? You can change the way you look at the world today.
Want to know what makes you happy in academia? Being happy makes you happy. Whatever makes you happy makes you happy. Whatever makes me happy is different from what makes you happy, however.
Getting confused yet?
There’s no need. We’re arriving at the main dish. There are things you cannot control in academia. There are things you can control, and your locus of control helps you see even more of those.
Then, taking accountability for the outcomes and actions among the things you can control is the only way to drive change in your own experience of academia.
Put simply, accountability means being answerable for your actions, decisions, and results.
This includes accepting responsibility for your deliberate actions and being willing to explain what you did or did not do. And why.
Understand this: Accountability has nothing to do with self-blame.
If you did what you could, the best way you knew how to do it, and still failed, and you took accountability for all the things you did and could still explain why you did them, there’s no reason to self-blame!
You did what you could, and that’s the maximum. Sure, the unfair rejects will still sting. And they will continue to do so forever.
But rejects stinging a bit is just a sign you care!
Now, at the same time now that you understand your actions
Accountability is also not the same as discipline. Super easy to mix these. Accountability means you own your results. Discipline means you keep doing things you promised yourself to do: it keeps you on track to pursue a goal when motivation and inspiration both fail simultaneously.
Are we getting clear here?
Let me just repeat this once again: failing, especially in academia, is not always your fault. Many things, especially in academia, are out of your control. Weird things happen that you cannot have a say on, especially in academia!
But for everything else: Know what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and own the outcome as a results of your own actions.
This will help you get better at everything you do.
I can share a great example from my past; I used to SUCK at writing grant applications. Like, really really suck! I know that now by simply looking at my first applications. But I remember the time, and after each reject, I looked at the reviews and said to myself:
- Crappy reviews from incompetent reviewers
- They don’t like what I do, so there’s nothing I could’ve done differently
- There’s something about my credentials and persona they don’t like, so whatever
Perfect external locus of control. Super common in academia, by the way. The risk here is passivity and giving up!
Never give up. The current Simo with a much more internal locus of control (smarter version of me) would’ve thought already back then:
- OK, I failed to anticipate their concerns, and can fix this for the next one
- OK, the proposal was not clear enough, and I can fix this for the next one
- OK, maybe I got unlucky this time, so I can just improve this and anyway go for the next one
A far, far healthier way to react, improve, get better, and ultimately win. And guess what also happened along with that shift I made?
I got happier. Way happier. Every time you choose internal explanation over an external one, you’re telling your brain you can affect things. Which means accountability. Which means power. Which means internal locus of control. Which is directly linked to happiness. Or that’s how the research goes about it, I’m sure there are other factors at play here too.
Anyway. In reality, the smartest call I think is to adopt an external stance for things we can’t control. In my example above, these would be funding decreases, random luck, review panel politics. No point wasting energy blaming systemic randomness. And an internal one for everything else: clarity, story, impact — really everything you can most often find in those reviews!
Power! Accountability is not a burden. It’s power! That’s it.
The 600-Hour Truth
Now, let’s connect all this to another concept I talk about quite often. Long-term thinking, with steady (however slow it may be) progress.
One of the most overlooked truths in academia is how small, consistent efforts compound into meaningful output. I mean, they just do. Not fast, but they do. They eventually lead into smashing those juicy goals of yours! Consider someone who sets aside just three focused hours a day, five days a week, to write, analyse data, and revise past work. That’s 15 hours a week of deep, undistracted academic work.
Just three of your nominal 8 hours per day. Sounds doable? How many do?
Over a standard 40-week academic year, this amounts to 600 hours of real progress. How many articles, proposals, smashed goals and crazy victories is that?
My guess is a lot.
Contrast this with an academic who spends a similar amount of time each week, but instead of engaging with their research, they dwell on how toxic the system is, how unfair peer review feels, jumping between shallow goals, half-assing their work because “how impossible it is to succeed” anyway in a system rigged against you.
The difference isn’t in available time, talent, or even motivation.
It’s in accountability. It’s in how those hours are used and how to recalibrate your course after feedback from the world. In this marathon, accountability is your best running buddy. When you take ownership of where your time goes, you suddenly see patterns you didn’t see before. You realise that complaining about the system doesn’t change the system (wow), and even less will it change your results. In fact, complaining just steals from your academic experience via added frowns (remember: smiles minus frowns) and lost time.
So by all means complain! And make noise about the problems, but do all that in the correct places and times where it might make a difference. Social media timelines are most likely NOT among those places.
OK, as always. Let’s get practical now.
Inject a Dose of Accountability into Your Academic Life
1. Self-assess
How often do you blame external factors for your situation? Once again, I’m not saying external factors don’t matter. They really do. But if your default response to any setback is “the system is rigged,” you’ve just given away all your power.
Congratulations. You lost.
Here’s a better idea. Keep a simple log for a week. Every time something goes wrong, note whether you immediately look for external causes or ask “what could I have done differently?”
2. Dig deep into the why
Why are things the way they are in your academic life right now? Not the surface-level things you can answer without thinking at all. The real reasons. You have to stop and be honest.
Why didn’t you finish that paper last month?
Was it really because it was impossible, or because you spent three weeks perfecting the introduction instead of getting a complete first draft done? Or you spent 5 hours chatting about pointless nonsense with your buddies during working hours instead of working on the paper?
Again, that’s fine if you did! If you can explain why you did it, and you are OK with that. I’m not here to say chatting with your friends is wrong! Not at all! I do it too. But I am very aware of what the consequences are. And I’m OK with them.
Why didn’t you apply for that grant?
Was it really because the system favours established researchers, or because you didn’t start early enough to put together a competitive application?
I think you’re starting to see what I mean.
3. Let go of what you need to let go
What has happened has happened. Can’t do much anymore now. It’s always better to focus on a bright future yet to unfold!
That rejection from last year? Let it go. That supervisor or co-author who didn’t support you? If you can’t change the situation, let it go and focus on what you can control now and especially in the future.
No point wasting energy. Direct it to things that can have an impact on your career. Direct it to the results (and getting results is the big thing we teach, in detail, in the PhD Power Trio too)
4. Consider the big questions
And now, we tap into personal accountability hard. Answer these questions to know what you must do:
- What changes must happen in your approach?
- What do you need to do more of?
- What do you need to do less of?
- What choices do you need to remake every day?
And then the difficult part: Start doing it. You now know what you must do. Time to execute. Deep down, all these mental exercises are super valuable. But they lead to feelgood instead of results without execution. Feelgood is fine! But feelgood with results? Even better.
The Undeniable Link between Accountability and Happiness
Look, I get it. Accountability is harder than blame. It’s easier to scroll through academic Twitter and nod and scream(!!) along with posts about how everything is broken. It feels good to be part of the victim club where everyone agrees that success is impossible.
But honestly? Where will it take you? You know where it takes you. Nowhere. Find me an academic you admire, and tell me that academic spends his/her days screaming about how academia sucks.
Go on, I’ll wait.
That dark victim mindset is expensive. It costs you opportunities, motivation, and ultimately even the career you actually want.
Tragic but true, that victim mindset also costs you your chances to be happy.
The academics I know who are genuinely happy (yes, they exist) have one thing in common: they’ve figured out how to take responsibility for their part of the equation while not taking responsibility for things outside their control.
Accountability for what you do: Knowing what you did and why you did it, which helps to change the course when things don’t work. To try new things. N=1. You as the experiment and the experimenter.
Don’t blame yourself for unfair rejections. Ask yourself if their submission was really as good as it could have been. If not, why not? That’s power. Not blame.
Don’t blame yourself for not getting a job at Harvard. But you’d do well to examine whether you applied to a realistic range of positions. And if your life circumstances prevented you from applying to where you wanted? Cool! No blame. No cynicism. Just realise it wasn’t for you anyway. You know your why. And you’re accountable for your choices.
Before We Go
Accountability makes you happier. It gives you back your agency, should you have for some reason lost it at some point. It gives you control over a decent chunk of those smiles and frowns.
Happiness is in your hands.
This is an important topic, and if you want to hear someone else talk about accountability in a context that has everything to do with being happy, have a quick look here: https://ltamh.com/2020/01/27/lets-talk-about-accountability/
Alright. Till next time!