There’s a particular kind of discomfort that lives inside many academics — one we rarely talk about, let alone admit. It sounds like this:
“I should know how to do this by now.”
“Other people seem to manage.”
“What if they find out I’m struggling?”
These quiet questions don’t come up in research seminars or writing groups. But they often swirl beneath the surface, especially when it comes to writing. At the heart of this discomfort is something we al know has a profound place in academia: ego.
Not necessarily always ‘ego’ in the arrogant, bombastic sense, but ego in its more subtle, more dangerous form: as a defence mechanism against perceived professional weakness. And this kind of ego creates a blindspot, and one that can seriously hinder your career.
The Rumsfeld Problem: What We Don’t Know We Don’t Know
It’s the unknown unknowns that causes the trouble. Especially for academics who assume that, by the time they’ve earned a PhD, they should know how to write. The more senior they become, the more dangerous this is.
They should be productive. That asking for help or admitting struggle is a kind of failure we cannot admit to in a highly competitive environment. Professional athletes are loathe to admit they have any kind of injury niggle before races, because they don’t want to give the psychological edge to their competition. Academics can fall into this similar mindset. But here’s the rub: writing is a craft. A technical, genre-bound, and structurally complex craft. And it’s one most of us were never actually taught, and are certainly not comfortable performing inside a time pressed environment where we have substituted technique with time.
The gap in our skillset is an unknown unknown: as such we don’t recognise it as a fixable problem. We internalise it as a personal flaw.
And then the ego kicks in.
The Academic Ego: What It Protects (and Prevents)
The academic ego protects us from the embarrassment of not knowing. It tells us things like:
“Everyone else is fine. You just need to focus more.”
“This isn’t a skills issue — you’re just lazy or disorganised.”
“If you ask for help, you’ll lose credibility.”
This mindset is understandable. Academia is structured around performance — and performance demands polish. We are rewarded for what looks effortless, not what required rebuilding our entire process behind the scenes.
But the cost of this ego-protection is high. It keeps us stuck. It erodes our confidence. And it prevents us from getting the targeted help that would allow us to flourish.
Writing Is Not Supposed to Be Easy — But It Is Learnable
Here’s the truth I wish more scholars could hear early in their careers:
Struggling to write consistently is not a reflection of your intelligence, talent, or commitment. It’s a sign that something in your process needs to change . But to get there, you have to move past the ego. You have to be willing to say:
“There’s something here I don’t yet know how to do or I could do it better.”
That small admission opens the door to exponential growth. Because when you approach writing as a craft — one that can be broken down, studied, and rebuilt — you shift from seeing yourself as the problem to seeing your system as the problem. And systems can be fixed.
The Real Professionalism: Admitting and Addressing the Gaps
Ironically, the most professionally mature thing an academic can do is admit what they don’t know and take deliberate steps to close that gap.
That’s not weakness. That’s mastery in the making.