Tag: personal-growth
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Looking Back V: Fifth trip of 2026 – Bilbao and the Basque region
Having not been to mainland Spain for around 30 years, I had mixed feelings about returning. On the one hand, I was curious to see how it had changed. It had been a long time, and I wondered whether my mental picture of the place remained in any way valid. On the other hand, after…
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Looking Back IV: Forth trip of 2026 – Malta
I’ve worked for the Maltese government since 2024, so you might assume I’d visited before. I hadn’t – at least not until this year. The irony is that I booked this trip entirely on my own dime after deciding I’d probably never get to Malta through my contractual work. About a month later, I was…
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Looking Back III: Third trip of 2026 – Iceland
Iceland gets rave reviews, so I knew I had to see it for myself eventually. As it turns out, every one of those reviews was deserved. This became one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. Nature feels wonderfully raw here. The island’s volcanic and tectonic origins aren’t hidden beneath the landscape—they are the landscape.…
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Looking Back: First trip of 2026 (Sibiu, Romania)
As a full-time academic, I had my busiest semester yet in the first half of 2026: four modules in total, leading three of them and playing a major role in a fourth. In all my years in academia, I’ve never encountered a workload quite like that. I’ve survived — and in fact, I’m proud to…
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Mastering Shoe Storage: My Personal Journey
I love my shoe room, although it’s been in a fairly dysfunctional state for a while. Some shoes are on display, some boxes have pictures, but around 80 pairs are boxed without any indication of what’s inside. Many of the shoes aren’t in their original boxes, which makes it practically impossible to find a large…
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New skills and practicing what I preach: a growth mindset
In one of the modules I led this year, a key topic was growth mindset, which is the opposite of a fixed mindset. The latter involves the assumption that “I am what I am… I can’t [insert your limiting belief—drive, fix things, speak in public, etc.].” It’s not about denying the significance of talent; it’s…
Dr Martin James 