This is a post about following my own advice, or rather how I haven’t been lately!
Between the light lifting, the sun is rising its weary head a little earlier.
Sleep is finding its own pattern once again. Things have felt a little brighter.
I haven’t really been following my own advice very well lately. I still recommend things we wish we’d known before starting graduate school even though I’ve been learning quite a few new lessons lately:
- Work must happen in its own time even as you must exercise discipline. A PhD is a marathon-like endeavour. It is the consistency of effort that builds momentum – as if droplet by droplet!
- Thesis Roadmaps are not like your usual roadmap. A Thesis roadmap is one that is being written and rewritten all the time. This is not just okay, this is preferable.
- Though work is best done daily (at least an hour of solid writing a day), progress is calming and threatens to overwhelm like Murphy’s great tonne of bricks.
- You write better when you eat properly. I have a tendency to fail to eat when I’m under stress or working very hard. I just forget. This doesn’t fuel you to think and write well! If you need to, set an alarm to make sure you eat!
- Exercise will make you feel better and help you think. I’ve struggled to get out into the scottish cold winter’s air and I know that my well-being has suffered because of it!
- Ask for encouragement when you need it. Ask for help when you need it.
I still maintain that the way to finish a Phd is to put one foot in front of another, one word and then another – word after word, sentence after sentence
Okay, so I know I’ve been writing alot about the PhD this week – hence the title – but alot of what I’ve been talking about applies to reaching any goal. With the aim of being positive about life’s challenges as opportunities I made a list. Maybe you’d like to make one too!
Five things I’m doing before July ends:
1. finishing my PhD dissertation!
2. moving from Scotland to Australia!
3. Speaking at conferences on two continents!
4. moving into a house with my little sister!
5. swimming in the sea on three continents!
Name me five things in the comments….they could be your five favourite movies, books, songs, countries, languages!
Whatever you like!
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