Guilt, imposter syndrome & doing good: 16 past guests share their mental health journeys

Guilt, imposter syndrome & doing good: 16 past guests share their mental health journeys

"We are aiming for a place where we can decouple the scorecard from our worthiness. It’s of course the case that in trying to optimise the good, we will always be falling short. The question is how much, and in what ways are we not there yet? And if we then extrapolate that to how much and in what ways am I not enough, that’s where we run into trouble." —Hannah Boettcher

What happens when your desire to do good starts to undermine your own wellbeing?

Over the years, we’ve heard from therapists, charity directors, researchers, psychologists, and career advisors — all wrestling with how to do good without falling apart. Today’s episode brings together insights from 16 past guests on the emotional and psychological costs of pursuing a high-impact career to improve the world — and how to best navigate the all-too-common guilt, burnout, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome along the way.

Check out the full transcript and links to learn more: https://80k.info/mh

If you’re dealing with your own mental health concerns, here are some resources that might help:

Chapters:

  • Cold open (00:00:00)
  • Luisa's intro (00:01:32)
  • 80,000 Hours’ former CEO Howie on what his anxiety and self-doubt feels like (00:03:47)
  • Evolutionary psychiatrist Randy Nesse on what emotions are for (00:07:35)
  • Therapist Hannah Boettcher on how striving for impact can affect our self-worth (00:13:45)
  • Luisa Rodriguez on grieving the gap between who you are and who you wish you were (00:16:57)
  • Charity director Cameron Meyer Shorb on managing work-related guilt and shame (00:24:01)
  • Therapist Tim LeBon on aiming for excellence rather than perfection (00:29:18)
  • Author Cal Newport on making time to be alone with our thoughts (00:36:03)
  • 80,000 Hours career advisors Michelle Hutchinson and Habiba Islam on prioritising mental health over career impact (00:40:28)
  • Charity founder Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on the ups and downs of founding an organisation (00:45:52)
  • Our World in Data researcher Hannah Ritchie on feeling like an imposter as a generalist (00:51:28)
  • Moral philosopher Will MacAskill on being proactive about mental health and preventing burnout (01:00:46)
  • Grantmaker Ajeya Cotra on the psychological toll of big open-ended research questions (01:11:00)
  • Researcher and grantmaker Christian Ruhl on how having a stutter affects him personally and professionally (01:19:30)
  • Mercy For Animals’ CEO Leah Garcés on insisting on self-care when doing difficult work (01:32:39)
  • 80,000 Hours’ former CEO Howie on balancing a job and mental illness (01:37:12)
  • Therapist Hannah Boettcher on how self-compassion isn’t self-indulgence (01:40:39)
  • Journalist Kelsey Piper on communicating about mental health in ways that resonate (01:43:32)
  • Luisa's outro (01:46:10)

Audio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic Armstrong
Content editing: Katy Moore and Milo McGuire
Transcriptions and web: Katy Moore

Episoder(332)

#19 - Samantha Pitts-Kiefer on working next to the White House trying to prevent nuclear war

#19 - Samantha Pitts-Kiefer on working next to the White House trying to prevent nuclear war

Rogue elements within a state’s security forces enrich dozens of kilograms of uranium. It’s then assembled into a crude nuclear bomb. The bomb is transported on a civilian aircraft to Washington D.C, ...

14 Feb 20181h 4min

#18 - Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty & the spurious action-inaction distinction

#18 - Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty & the spurious action-inaction distinction

Ofir Reich started out doing math in the military, before spending 8 years in tech startups - but then made a sharp turn to become a data scientist focussed on helping the global poor. At UC Berkeley...

31 Jan 20181h 18min

#17 - Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster

#17 - Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster

Immanuel Kant is a profoundly influential figure in modern philosophy, and was one of the earliest proponents for universal democracy and international cooperation. He also thought that women have no ...

19 Jan 20181h 52min

#16 - Michelle Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals

#16 - Michelle Hutchinson on global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals

In the 40s and 50s neoliberalism was a fringe movement within economics. But by the 80s it had become a dominant school of thought in public policy, and achieved major policy changes across the Englis...

22 Des 201755min

#15 - Phil Tetlock on how chimps beat Berkeley undergrads and when it’s wise to defer to the wise

#15 - Phil Tetlock on how chimps beat Berkeley undergrads and when it’s wise to defer to the wise

Prof Philip Tetlock is a social science legend. Over forty years he has researched whose predictions we can trust, whose we can’t and why - and developed methods that allow all of us to be better at p...

20 Nov 20171h 24min

#14 - Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuse

#14 - Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuse

What if you knew that ducks were being killed with pitchforks? Rabbits dumped alive into containers? Or pigs being strangled with forklifts? Would you be willing to go undercover to expose the crime? ...

13 Nov 20171h 25min

#13 - Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results

#13 - Claire Walsh on testing which policies work & how to get governments to listen to the results

In both rich and poor countries, government policy is often based on no evidence at all and many programs don’t work. This has particularly harsh effects on the global poor - in some countries governm...

31 Okt 201752min

#12 - Beth Cameron works to stop you dying in a pandemic. Here’s what keeps her up at night.

#12 - Beth Cameron works to stop you dying in a pandemic. Here’s what keeps her up at night.

“When you're in the middle of a crisis and you have to ask for money, you're already too late.” That’s Dr Beth Cameron, who leads Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative...

25 Okt 20171h 45min

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