November 4, 2024
Anne-Laure Le Cunff is a neuroscientist and an author. I discovered her earlier this year and I was immediately interested in what she has to say. Much of her content is about where my interests lie - psychology, productivity, lifelong learning. On top of her already busy work life she has recently written a book called Tiny Experiments which will come out in March 2025.
Tiny Experiments is a book about adopting an experimental mindset to problem solving and achieving your goals by making small adjustments that will (hopefully) lead to lasting changes, and it is the reason behind this "Write 30 in 30" challenge I'm embarking upon.
I'm doing my own tiny experiment.
I love reading, I love researching. I take copious amounts of notes about pretty much everything. If I open my notes app now, I'll find notes about computer science principles, PHP and Laravel development, women in tech, psychology, history, horse riding, horse care, or trail running. The list is endless. I am curious and I have an unlimited amount of interests. You won't ever find me bored. You will, however, often find me exhausted.
I also suffer from the impostor syndrome - something I'm writing a long-form article about. But you know what? This article would have been published months ago if only I had stopped listening to my inner voice telling me I was not qualified to write such a piece. Yes, I do have a degree in psychology, and I've consumed a large amount of research in preparation for this article, but my inner voice - I call her Patricia - knows better.
Patricia also tells me daily that I'm not qualified to be a developer. Because I have a psychology background and not a computer science one.
It's exhausting.
I cannot win.
But I am large, I contain multitudes*. I might suffer from impostor syndrome, but I am also very, very stubborn. I don't give up. I try, I fail. I try again, and again, and again, until I succeed. Because despite what Patricia tell me, the good, the bad, and the ugly, I believe there is no such thing as a failure, only the opportunity to learn and to move forward.
And forward is the only way I'm willing to travel.
In the next 30 working days, I will write for 30 minutes each day - and publish my work here. This is my own tiny experiment. It will be difficult to publish articles that will no doubt be imperfect, incomplete, and sometimes downright messy - a pure stream of consciousness just like this one is. But it may just be the only way to move forward, to take control of the impostor inside me - she seems to be going nowhere, I might as well make a friend out of my enemy.
The topics will vary. I don't have a list of ideas to fall back on and I have a hard deadline of 30 minutes to write and publish each one. It will be interesting to see what I can come up with. It might be a passage from a book I'm currently reading, something I heard on a podcast, or something I'm currently working on.
The idea is to just write. Find my voice and find the courage to publish. To follow my curiosity wherever it may take me.
I am looking forward to my next 30 working days and I'm looking forward to hearing what you think.