[Monday Motivator] The Biggest Mistakes New Faculty Make - May 4, 2015

As the NCFDD transitions into our Summer Session, many of our members have asked for a simple recap of the this term's Monday Motivator series. Since January, we've been working on the theme "The Biggest Mistakes New Faculty Members Make".

Just in case you missed any of the Spring Session Monday Motivators, here's a complete list with links to each one!

Mistake #1 Your Semester Has No Plan
Mistake #2 Your Time Isn't Aligned With Your Evaluation Criteria
Mistake #3 You Believe Balance is a Myth
Mistake #4 You're Investing in Long-Term Institutional Change at the Expense of Your Research Agenda
Mistake #5 You're Reactive Instead of Proactive in Your Professional Relationships
Mistake #6 You've Put All of Your Eggs in One Institutional Basket
Mistake #7 You Don't Know How You Spend Your Time
Mistake #8 You Haven't Set Up Any Feedback Loops
Mistake #9 You're Over-functioning on Teaching While Under-functioning on Your Research
Mistake #10 You're Ignoring Your Body
Mistake #11 You Internalize Rejection and Negativity
Mistake #12 You're Trying to Do Everything Yourself
Mistake #13 You Avoid Conflict
Mistake #14 You're Looking for A Guru-Mentor
Mistake #15 You Don't Have Strategies to Relieve Stress

The Weekly Challenge:

• This week I want to challenge you to:
• Read through the list of common mistakes
• If any of them resonate with you, try re-reading that Monday Motivator and implementing one of the suggested strategies this week
• If you don't have time to re-read, just make sure you're writing every day for at least 30 minutes.
• If many of the mistakes resonate with you, consider enrolling in our 12-week Faculty Success Program. Our summer bootcamp is a great way to establish positive work habits and increase your productivity this summer.

You may agree or disagree with our list of common mistakes, but I hope seeing it all in one place is helpful to you as a way of assessing what you did (and did not) accomplish this Spring and making some important adjustments as you move into the summer months.