92: What To Do When You Get Stuck

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Hi everyone. Today I am recording an episode on what to do when you get stuck. I'm not gonna lie. I actually got a little stumped this week because I got thrown off. I had a guest lined up for Friday's episode, and things somehow didn't work out for this week with that guest. Hopefully, we'll be able to get them on for another week. But because of that, I have not planned for another topic or to do another recording. I also was planning to be out of town this week.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

As you can tell, I don't have my usual background. I usually use my Grad School Femtoring background, but I am recording from San Francisco right now. I'm recording off of my husband's ipad, which I'm not familiar with. So it's a little different. I might look a little different. I might sound a little different. For those of you that are watching from YouTube, you'll notice the difference. You'll be able to see the difference. But anyway, long story short. I kept thinking to myself- well, I try my best to become consistent. And I like publishing a Friday episode. I had not planned for anything. And I was sitting around in the hotel room thinking, what am I talk about this week? Oh, I could do a personal update. Like why am I even in San Francisco? Aactually, I'll offer a little bit of that too.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But then, I thought well, I'm a big fan of- and I've been doing this ever since I started the podcast. I record on whatever it is that's coming up for me right then and there. So if someone presents a topic that is a suggestion, and I feel like I have something to say about it, I'll record on that topic. If something has come up for myself, for a student, for a client, for a mentee, I will record on it. This week, I found myself feeling a little bit stuck. And I thought well, maybe that can be the topic of today. What do you do when you get stuck?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Because what I did was, I realized- oh, my goodness, I'm stuck. I'm not really sure what to record on. What do I normally do when I get stuck? And I went back to my toolkit. I was like, when I get stuck, I just get started. When I get stuck, I set a timer. I kept thinking about strategies that I could then implement to help me come up with a topic for this week's friday episode. Then somehow, I had that meta-thought of- actually, this week's episode is on what to do when you get stuck. So we'll talk about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But before I get to it, if you hear any background noise, I am actually sharing a hotel room with my family. That's going to kind of bring me to the personal update, a little bit of a personal update. Why in the world am I in San Francisco? Because if you listen to- I think it's episode 74, where I talked about why I left higher ed. I talked about one of the big big reasons was wanting to move my family abroad, move my family to Portugal. Part of that process requires applying for a visa.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And for me, it's not a simple process whatsoever. In fact, I have struggled a little bit with navigating it. It's a twelve step process in terms of the actual application. There are fourteen- twelve to fourteen things that they ask you to submit. Each person or each family member needs to apply, and each person needs to set up an appointment with a VFS office, with the consulate office in your region. There's three nationwide. There's one in Washington DC. There's another one in New York City, and then another one in San Francisco.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So for me, because I'm on the west coast, because I'm in California, my family and I had to fly up to San Francisco for this appointment. Our appointment is tomorrow, which means that by the time you're listening to this, I will be in the middle of my appointment most likely. It's a little bit nerve racking. It was a bit of a process, of a project, to gather everything that they ask for. And I also got stuck during that process too. So let's talk about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Let's talk about being stuck. What might be some circumstances in which you would find yourself feeling stuck? Well, I know about my listeners and my audience. I know that most of you are in your early, mid and even late 20s. Some of you are undergraduates. Some of you are recent graduates, maybe kind of in that in between stage, considering grad school. And some of your grad students. That means- if you are a student, that you might be having to write a paper. You might be having to work on a thesis. You might be writing a dissertation. All of those things might present you with opportunities where you get stuck, where you think- I don't know what to write this paper on, or I'm stuck on the thesis. How am I going to write this -what feels like a big paper? How am I going to write a dissertation, which feels like you're writing a whole book?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then later on, you might come up with other big major projects that you work on that will also have you feeling stuck. What could those projects be? It could be - you're a grad student, you're working on your exam. Studying for quals is a big thing. You might get stuck, feel like, ugh I don't know where to start. You might one day write a book. If you're an academic, it's a requirement to go up for tenure for most academic jobs. Not necessarily all of them. If you're in a community college, most likely you're not required to write a book to get tenure. But it's becoming more and more of an expectation in a lot of academic jobs if you're up on the tenure track.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Or just a lot of professionals decide that they want to write a book. Even I am interested in writing a book inspired by this podcast and the work that I'm doing. So who knows? That might be in the future- cross our fingers. But yes, lots of opportunities for getting stuck. And let's think about that. Why are we getting stuck? What's happening there? For me, when I get stuck, there's quite a lot of feelings involved. First of all, immediately the big feeling that comes up for me is the feeling of overwhelm. Oh, this is a really big project. Or oh, there's just too many things going on. How do I just get it all done?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Or I'll start to feel scared, afraid, fear. And what's that fear? It's the fear of failure. So oh, I don't want to start writing the dissertation because it's gonna be terrible. People are gonna think that I'm a fraud, and that I don't know what I'm doing. And that they made a mistake in admitting me to grad school. Or what's the fear of failure- I'm going to write this paper, and this professor is going to give me a big ol F, because I wasn't able to dedicate as much time and effort and energy to it based on my circumstances,etc. All these things that come up. So fear- fear of failure.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another thing that comes up sometimes, especially for those of us who are first gen navigating things for the first time, is confusion. Sometimes you get stuck, because you're like, I don't even know what in the world I'm supposed to do. How do you even write this paper? How do you write a research paper, if you've never done research before? How do you write a thesis, if you've never written one before? How do you write a dissertation if you've never written one before? You see what I mean? There's a lot of confusion. And sometimes, it's that. The fact that you've never done this before, that makes it so big and scary.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

For me, navigating this visa application, I still don't know if I'm gonna get it. I don't know how it's gonna go tomorrow. I don't know if they're going to say that everything is there or that something is missing. But it reminds me of that process of applying to grad school, that process of applying to college, of feeling like - this is really big and really scary. It's a multi step process. I'm afraid to even get started. But my enthusiasm and desire and passion in wanting to pursue do those things outweighed that fear, and the overwhelm, and the confusion. Somehow, I figured it out.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

For you, if you're stuck- for myself, being stuck in that process of my visa application, or the process of coming up with the topic episode for this week, I kept thinking, what are my own tried and true kind of strategies to get me to do the things that I need to do? And I think- like I mentioned them earlier- just taking things one step at a time. Just getting started. Getting started sounds so simple, but it's much easier said than done. For me, getting started means setting a timer and just working on it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Getting started also means creating a setting where I can focus. What does that mean for me right now? I'm in a hotel room with my family. I sent my husband out with the kids to try to keep them entertained for this time that I'm here recording for you all. So I'm grateful for that. But that gives me- if they were right here, yelling at the top of their lungs, like my baby loves to do, I probably would be distracted and wouldn't be able to finish this episode. So allowing yourself with the time and space and the ability to focus is establishing the setting to be able to do that. Having a timer, getting yourself in the right setting, the right kind of headspace- whether that's putting on some headphones, listening to music, working on a table, or a desk, or your bed, or whatever you designated workstation is.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And then just starting it, and thinking about progress- not perfection. You don't have to know exactly what you're doing. You just have to know what the next step is in that process. I took a couple of notes too. The other thing I wanted to say- I mentioned the timers and getting started. I mentioned taking it one sub project or sub task at a time. For a lot of things, breaking the steps down into very small, manageable things, that's gonna take you a long way. As soon as you develop that skill set of breaking things up, and being self efficacious, and believing in yourself and following through on the things that you want to do- because trust me, there's a lot of people who struggle with committing from the beginning to end on something.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

A lot of us have really amazing ideas and really exciting dreams. But when it comes to implementation, when it comes to getting it done consistently and following through and completion, it's hard. The fact that you're even here, doing the work to get to the next step, whatever the thing is that you're getting stuck on, that's great. For me, having this podcast actually- oh my goodness. I think I just realized it right now. This month is my two year podcasting anniversary. I can't believe tha it's been two years because in many ways, I'm still learning a lot about podcasting.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But I just lost my train of thought because I just realized this is my two year anniversary. And I'm still doing it, you know? I'm still trying my best to be consistent, trying my best to focus on progress. It doesn't have to be perfect. The tech doesn't have to be perfect. I just do the best that I can with the content that I have, with the knowledge that I have, with the experience that I have, and hope that it is an offering to someone, and that whatever I say hopefully is of value to someone else, is helpful to someone else.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another reminder, I wanted to say is if you're stuck, and you're not really sure- if you're really really stuck and you actually can't get started. You try a timer, you're just completely lost. Ask for help. For me, what did that mean? That meant actually getting a hold of a consultant to help me with my visa application. Yes, I needed help. And yes, it's okay to ask for help- from femtors, from mentors, from coaches, whoever it is- from editors. Whether it's paid or unpaid, asking for help never hurts. It can only help you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The other thing I want to say about this topic is having to do with patience, and control, and your timeline, and your deadlines. I want to remind you that if you're getting stuck on something, and you're working on something that's a longer term project, try to be patient with yourself and the project, and also to exercise flexibility in as many ways as possible. What do I mean by that? When I say be patient, I mean that there might be things that get in your way of getting things done- and getting things done according to whatever timeline you set for yourself. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have a timeline. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have deadlines. And sometimes you have firm deadlines. Like it or not, you just have to meet that deadline.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But if you're patient with yourself, then that allows you with that ability to shift things if something that you didn't expect happens. So for me, what happened with my visa application is actually, I was supposed to come to San Francisco about two weeks ago. Like I said, there's twelve to fourteen different items that are part of your application. One of them is the application form itself. There's a personal statement that you have to write. You have to have a bank account setup. You have to have a lease in Portugal. You have to have a- oh my goodness, I'm blanking out on the name- kinda like a reference letter. Someone who knows you in Portugal who can write on your behalf.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

There were two major things that I was missing, and it was of no fault of our own. One was the Portuguese bank account, because it was taking so long for us to get it set up based on the timelines and the timing of the bureaucracy there. The other part was the lease and getting a lease registration. We got a lease, and then we ran into some hiccups with the landlords and getting them to register our lease with their official Financas office. That was taking forever. And then to top things off, there was a random holiday in Portugal in the middle of the week.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

We just got all the materials in this morning before flying out to San Francisco. It was wild. We didn't have them two weeks ago, so we had to reschedule. And we thought for sure we would have them with plenty of time for our rescheduled appointments. But long story short, we didn't. We thought we were going to show up with an incomplete application today. And to our luck, everything- the last two things that we needed- showed up this morning in our emails- finally got the proof of the bank account and the proof of the lease registration. And I hope that everything goes well with it. But I think I went on a little bit of a rant about that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Going back to being patient, we had to be patient. We had to be flexible. If I would have thought well, two weeks ago was my firm deadline, then I would have gone. It would have definitely been an incomplete application. I probably wouldn't have been accepted, and we would have to start the process all over again of reapplying for the visa- or something like that. I mean, this is all new to me. So probably, I would still be having to do this again. I guess in your case, if you're writing a paper, if you're writing a thesis, if you're writing a dissertation, having patience with yourself compassion with yourself, can be helpful, because it can help you to advocate for yourself when you need to extend deadlines.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It can help you to learn to set internal deadlines that are earlier than what somebody else sets for you so that then you can give yourself a cushion, so that if things do happen- especially the things that are out of your control- you can still navigate them well, and navigate them without stressing yourself out too much. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. Asking for help, being patient and creating flexible deadlines if you can. Especially if you're a grad student and you're held responsible for your own deadlines- flexible deadlines, allowing for some cushion. And I am a fan of deadlines. I'll just put that out there. Because deadlines allow you to work towards a goal. So create the deadlines, and try to meet them as best as possible. Take them seriously, but then still have a little bit of cushion.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I think those are it. Those are some of my strategies that I use myself when I get stuck. I try my best to get started. I try my best to ask for help, to be patient, be flexible. And have a goal in mind, have a deadline in mind, and work towards that goal until it gets done. Even if it doesn't get done exactly when you hope to get it done, progress. Even if it doesn't end up being exactly what you wanted it to be- progress. Progress not perfection. In fact, I tell my son when he works on his homeschooling, instead of thinking practice makes perfect, I just say practice helps you progress.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I no longer try to strive for perfection, even though perfectionism is still something that I struggle with. Hopefully over time, my own kids won't have to struggle with that as much and you all won't have to struggle as much because you'll be learning these techniques and skills to focus on getting better, on not doing things perfectly- even if it's your first time doing them. Alright yall, I think that's all I have to say for today before I keep going off on another ramble or start to overshare about my personal updates. I will talk to you all next time.