Episode 114 - Listen To This If You've fallen out of love with science and need to rekindle your curiosity

Transcript

Jen (00:00:19)

Hello hello, and welcome to Listen to This If. I'm Jen. And as always, I'm joined by my most excellent friend and colleague, Michael. And on Listen to This If, we take just one situation that you might find yourself in, in your world of study or research or work in science and science communication, and we each come up with our top tip to try and help you with that situation.

And Michael, today we've got a really good one. What do you do if you just feel like you've fallen out of love with science, and actually you just really need to find a way to rekindle your curiosity, so you can keep doing whatever you need to be doing?

Michael (00:01:00)

Yeah. I mean, it's such an important thing to try and maintain curiosity and motivation, but it doesn't always happen that we have that same drive. Look, I think, I looked up a few stats on this. And you know, job satisfaction is declining in academia. So I think, you know, there are a lot of people who are in this situation.

You know, personally for me, I think it really comes down to two things. So who you are working with and you know, what you're working on. So I think the big risks there are that if you are a little bit isolated, and perhaps you don't have you know, colleagues that you can, you know, interact with and chat through things to help give you perspective on your topic, to help, you know encourage big picture thinking on your topic.

And then I suppose that leads into the other area, which is what you're actually working on. And I think, you know, academics are just getting absolutely bogged down with, you know, admin. It seems to be you know, an increasing issue.

And I think you really need to try and find time to you know, work on those exciting big picture ideas, to try and do some actual science in your day, even if it's just a little bit, just to maintain that curiosity. So you surround yourself with you know, other people that you can be curious with.

Jen (00:02:30)

Yeah, I think that's such excellent advice because I really do think that the people that you spend your days with make a huge difference in how you feel about your study or your work or your research or whatever you're doing. So yeah, I think that's excellent advice.

So Michael, I took this one slightly differently. Maybe go back and reconnect with the things that helped you fall in love with science in the first place. You know, on the podcast, we've interviewed so many amazing scientists and many of them have a story about a place that they went to or a book they read or a documentary they watched or a movie they saw. You know, something that really made them kind of go, Whoa, this is cool. So that was my first suggestion.

But then when I thought about this one a little bit more, I feel like the more important question is: What is going on for you right now that you're feeling this disinterest? Are you really exhausted? Are you maybe really burned out? Are you experiencing anxiety or depression? You know, is your mental health not in a good place?

And so I think for me, my key advice would be to just give yourself the gift of a little bit of time. Maybe you can take a day of leave, maybe you can find a way to reduce caring responsibilities for an afternoon or you know, just try and give yourself the gift of a little bit of spaciousness to just go for a walk somewhere or sit down quietly somewhere and think What do I actually need?

Is it that this topic that I'm meant to be working on or this type of work that I'm doing genuinely no longer is exciting or interesting to me? Or do I just really need more sleep? Or do I really need to plan some time with a friend or a partner or a family member?

Although, you know, what can I do to fill my cup? Or maybe I need professional help. Maybe actually I've been really spiraling down into a place where my mental health isn't good and I can't find my passion just because I'm really struggling with anxiety. And actually I need to go and seek some professional help to get back to a place where I can reconnect with my feelings of wanting to do this work.

So yeah, my advice is just to try and find a way to take a step back and think more deeply about what might have led you to this place and whether you need to take some different actions that might be a little bit, you know, little bit less on the surface in terms of what work you're doing and who you're working with. But maybe there's something else going on too.

Michael (00:05:01)

I think that's great advice. Yeah, I mean, there could be many reasons why you might be feeling like that. And it's, you know, it can be complex sometimes.

So yeah, taking a little bit of time to figure out, you know, what's happening for you and you know, that'll inform what you can do about it. So yeah, great advice.

Jen (00:05:21)

So yes, if you find yourself in this situation, we wish you all the best for getting back to a place where you wake up in the morning and look forward to what it is that you're working on.

So good luck.

Michael (00:05:32)

Yes, good luck.

Michael (00:05:47)

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