There is a word that has shaped much of my academic career: Yes.

“Can you review this?”

“Can you join this grant?”

“Can you supervise?”

“Can you speak at…?”

My instinctive response has almost always been the same: Can do.

That reflex has been one of my research superpowers. Saying yes builds trust and it opens doors. It creates networks and signals reliability. Many of the most rewarding collaborations of my career began because I leaned forward rather than back. I would encourage others to do the same — to say yes to opportunity, even when it sits slightly left of field. To rely on instinct and to believe you can learn.

Let me give you an example.

I joined Bournemouth University in 2002 as Chair and Head of Department. I did not feel entirely worthy of the title. In some ways that insecurity defined my early years there. I worked harder than necessary. I stretched higher than required. I was determined — though I’m not sure to whom — to prove that I deserved my professorship. Perhaps I was proving it to myself. At that stage, nothing felt beyond my scope.

One day a colleague appeared at my door with two contaminated land consultants. They were vaguely interested in using geophysics to evaluate closed — forgotten — landfill sites. I had not used geophysics in my research. I had no expertise in landfill investigation.

And I said yes. We could investigate old landfill sites for them.

My confidence rested on two things. First, I knew people who were experts in geophysics. Second, I knew how to obtain historic aerial photographs that would reveal the footprint of these landfills over time. I didn’t know everything — but I knew enough to build a bridge to the expertise required.

We undertook an initial contract for Bournemouth Council examining four closed landfill sites. We mapped their margins with geophysics and traced their evolution through historic aerial imagery. I packaged the results with high-quality maps, photographs and interpretation — the kind of narrative and visual clarity I would aim for in an academic paper. It was more ambitious than a typical consultancy report and it landed well.

There was always a sense of operating at the edge of my knowledge. But that edge was invigorating. It stretched me and it forced growth. Saying yes led to the creation of Landscan Investigations — a university-based consultancy that generated over a million pounds of income over the five years that followed. The work eventually dried up when government funding streams changed. But by then it had already reshaped my career trajectory.

Crucially, I shared in the profits. A portion from each contract went into a personal research account. Those funds pump-primed fieldwork trips to Africa. Those trips led to a Science paper in 2009 on 1.5 million-year-old footprints. And to top it all we got the Science cover as well. A year later, that momentum helped secure three quarters of a million pounds from the UK Natural Environment Research Council.

All of that — career-shaping development — from simply saying yes, and believing in my capacity to learn.

That is the power of yes. But here is the other side.

The same instinct has also been my Achilles’ heel — especially as demands on my time have increased and my willingness to work all hours has (sensibly) declined. When I say yes, I rarely calculate the cost. I do not immediately ask:

How many hours will this take?

What will I drop?

Is this aligned with my research direction?

Is this a growth stretch — or just another obligation?

I commit first and solve the logistics later.

Promises, unfortunately, occupy real space in a calendar. And calendars are finite. The difficulty is not usually the individual task. It is the collision of multiple well-intentioned promises made in isolation from one another. Each yes looks manageable on its own. Together they form an architecture of overcommitment.

Then reality arrives. Deadlines converge and teaching intensifies. Family life demands attention. Travel compresses weeks and jet lag lingers. What began as generosity becomes stress. What began as enthusiasm becomes obligation. What began as collaboration becomes calendar compression. There is an emotional layer here too. Many of us say yes because we want to be helpful. We want to be collegial. We want to be seen as reliable. Declining can feel uncomfortable — even disloyal. Academia runs on reciprocity and goodwill.

But unmanaged yes produces something else: a creeping sense of failure. Not because the work is beyond us, but because the cumulative load was unrealistic from the outset. The lesson I am slowly learning is not simply to say no more often. It is to pause before saying yes.

A simple pause protocol helps:

How many hours will this realistically take?

By when?

What will I drop if I accept it?

Does this align with my direction — or distract from it?

Am I saying yes from curiosity, ego, insecurity or generosity?

If nothing is subtracted when something is added, we are not shaping time — we are borrowing it. Borrowed time always comes due. And there is a further nuance.

Some yeses expand you.

Some yeses distract you.

Some yeses exhaust you.

The challenge is to distinguish between them. The landfill story was a growth yes. It stretched my competence, built networks and ultimately fed back into my research identity. Other yeses — less strategic, more reflexive — have simply diluted focus.

Yes builds opportunity. Unexamined yes builds overload.

The trick is not to extinguish the reflex. It has served me too well. It has shaped my career in ways I could not have predicted. The trick is to discipline it. To say yes with awareness rather than impulse. To subtract deliberately. To choose expansion rather than accumulation.

And here is the honest part: I still struggle.

I still say yes too quickly.

I still underestimate time.

I still feel the collision of commitments.

But awareness changes the texture of the mistake. It turns blind habit into conscious negotiation. You cannot do more than try. And I am trying.

(C) Matthew Bennett, 2026.