Speaker 1: During a PhD, alongside actually trying to do your research, you've got to deal with all of these negative feelings that kind of bubble up from inside. They're persistent, you don't often know where they come from, but here are the best ways to deal with those worst feelings that you'll experience through your PhD and also in an academic career anyway. The first feeling is that constant feeling that you're gonna get scooped, that someone is working on your exact project or your exact problem and they are gonna sort of like solve it before you. This is one of the hardest ones because it just is always, always in the back of your mind. And unfortunately, there are no easy ways to deal with it. One thing that I take comfort in is that no one will do research exactly like me. I have my own history, I have my own knowledge and I am looking at a problem with through like my own set of eyes with my filters that I've sort of like built out and I'm watching it. And it's everywhere, and I understand the up from all of the knowledge previously, and that is true for you. Now, it doesn't mean that someone won't also be working on that problem, but hopefully, and quite often, you'll arrive to similar conclusions in different ways. And it's part of telling that story of how you get there through publications that makes your research unique. In recent years, I've been reading a lot of stoic texts. And one thing that it says is not to worry about those things that are outside of your control. Always sort of like worried about what's happening in another lab, in another country, seems counterproductive, but we can't help ourselves from doing it. So quite often, if I feel myself like ruminating, or I'm really struggling to focus on what I'm doing, or I have that sort of like bubbling anxiety, I just ask myself, is this something that I can control? If not, I shouldn't worry about it. I should focus my attention on my actual work. Another constant worry that a lot of PhD students have, and I know a lot of people do, is that they're that I had it during my PhD and my academic career, is that your supervisor doesn't like you. That is something that's very hard to kind of navigate, because you don't want to ask them outright, right? You don't want to be like, hey, do you not like me? No, trust me. I think that a lot of the kind of feelings that we get from supervisors is just the fact that they're in their own bubble, in their own head, worried about their own careers, worrying about getting money, worrying about teaching, worrying about admin, worrying about their own kind of like competition. in the academic world. And a lot of the time, we perceive that as it being about us. And in my experience, almost all the time, it is more about the supervisor's state of mind, rather than something I've done to that supervisor. So a lot of the time, just speaking to your supervisor, making sure that you have regular contact, asking them for critical feedback when you want critical feedback, asking them for, you know, what they're feeling about the project, how they think it's going, all of that, will often just reflect on the fact that they're not going to be able to reveal to you that they're not really thinking about you, they're actually thinking about some other stuff that's annoying them, and it's coming across as them being annoyed at you. That being said, there are a lot of really horrible researchers who will use manipulation tactics that will bully you, that will use sort of like highly competitive, high pressure environments to try to get the best from their students. This is normally less about the individual, but more about the culture of the lab that's being built up. So, Dr. Rick in your lab, everyone's stressed, everyone's really sort of like worried about what the supervisor will say. Once again, it's not about you, it's about the supervisor and their management style. It's not nice and it's probably best to avoid those sort of labs altogether unless you really sort of thrive on that pressure and that highly competitive environment. Another thing I like to do is get a mentor. I have seen a huge amount of benefit from actually just approaching someone outside your immediate academic bubble and asking them for mentorship. That way you can catch up for a coffee every couple of weeks, every month, just go there and say, hey, I've noticed this, this and this. And trust me, a lot of time they say, oh yeah, I've dealt with that in the past. This is the problem. It's nothing to do with you. And having that extra kind of like independent person outside of your academic bubble to give you advice is really helpful. So seeking mentorship can be very, very valuable. A lot of the time we end up self-sabotaging ourselves. Without even realising it. Now, I am a man of science, but I do read some sort of like little bit of self-help on the side. And there was this book about the upper limit problem, which I thought was a bit of a rubbish book, but ultimately it kind of gave me a new lens by which to think about self-sabotage. And that is when you're, you know, getting to the end of a project, whenever you're feeling like you can't push through or that you're, you know, really just really leaning in and you're not really able to push through, you're not really able to push through. And when you get into the fact that you can't do a certain thing, you need to ask yourself why. Because a lot of us have what this book described as a thermostat, which is set at a certain level. And once you get past that thermostat, you know, maybe something's going really well, you kind of self-adjust for self-sabotage so that you don't do better than you think you're capable of. I hope that makes sense. So one thing I always think about when I start to see sort of like my self-sabotaging act is say, okay, well, is it just the fact that I'm getting to the top of my thermostat and I'm trying to push my own sort of like capability and my own success down a little bit because I'm more comfortable here than up here. I expect my life to always be at this kind of level, but at the moment I'm doing really well. And oh no, okay, it's time to self-sabotage and bring that down. And it's really helped me kind of push past a couple of those mental blocks where I think, well, why am I doing this? There's no real reason for me. I need to do this. I need to just sort of like be a little bit tough with myself and say, you do deserve this and this and this. You are capable of doing this, this and this, and just push through all of those self kind of like those limiting beliefs that we all build up around who we are, what we do and what we're capable of. There's a toxic trait that I think a lot of academics are prone to, and that is they are relieved when a certain task is over or they achieve a certain goal. Rather, than being happy. And it's kind of endemic in the academic world. That is when you get a paper published, for example, or you get a grant, the thing is not to be like, yes, I did it. But rather a lot of people are just like, oh, thank God that's over. I remember this one time where I got a paper and it was one of my first, like maybe it was the second or third paper, but I was actually quite pleased. And so I went up to my supervisor, handed it to him and said, look, we've been published. And he went, great, let's think about the next one. And I was like, whoa, hang on, I've only just got this paper. Surely there should be a moment where we celebrate as a group or that we at least acknowledge that this is a good thing. It was much more about the process, like, okay, let's just continue. Let's just continue. Don't be too excited. Let's just go. And I think that can be a little bit detrimental to people's own kind of perception of what is important in academia. So one thing I used to like to do is if there was something that was important to me, not important to my supervisor, not important to my colleagues, my collaborators, but something that was important to me, I would make sure that I celebrate it. I would go out for like a nice takeaway that I don't often get, or I treat myself to this little thing. Now I know we can't rely on external things to motivate us. It's much better to come intrinsically in an ideal world. But a lot of the times you just need to sort of like have that external reward to make sure that you do mark something that is successful, that you're happy with. Otherwise you'll end up in this constant just kind of like, okay, got over that hump. What's next? Okay. Got over that hump. What's next? Rather than just going, you know what? Take a moment, enjoy this success. And then after that, we can move on. Just take a moment for yourself. Academics are not robots. I know, shock horror. But importantly, it means that at times you are going to feel completely unfocused, completely unmotivated. And interestingly, these feelings often come at a point, where you need to feel motivated, or you need to feel focused the most. And one thing I often found was that these feelings would come around towards the end of a project. And I was just over it. And I think that is important to know, is that we are not just this sort of like a machine that you can turn on, that you sort of set at 10 and it just cruises along. We are human. And so you're going to have up days and down days. And I really found that there's really two ways that I can deal with this. The first way is really tough, right? There's no harm in being tough with yourself every so often. Just saying, you know what? Suck it up. Just do the work. Sit down. And I often found that I could do this undistracted at the beginning of the day. So if I felt unmotivated, the first thing I would do when I got in, I wouldn't do emails. I wouldn't speak to people. I sometimes wouldn't even get a cup of coffee. I would just go and sit at my computer and be like, all right, I'm going to set a timer for half an hour, an hour, whatever it is. And I'm just going to work. And that kind of idea of deep work can kind of come from that. But importantly, when you're feeling unmotivated, sometimes you just got to be tough with yourself. If I was tough with myself and it didn't work, then I would have to sort of like reevaluate. And so you know what? All I'm going to do is take a little bit of a step back. Why am I feeling unmotivated? Why am I feeling unfocused? And it could be that I've just lost touch with the things I actually like. For example, during a PhD project, I really liked the project side of things. I liked making experiments, doing experiments, but the writing to me was so very boring. You may be the opposite way around, but going back to the lab and just reconnecting with the things that I actually enjoyed really gave me that little bit of a boost. If you are a PhD student, there are great ways to connect with the things you like again. Things that I really liked, like I said, was research, but also teaching, making sure and speaking to my supervisor and saying, hey, is it okay if I do like, one lecture or one workshop a week? So I just need to get that connection with students and reconnect with the things I actually like about academia. So reconnecting, refocusing, if being tough on yourself doesn't work. And towards the end of my PhD, I had to be tough of myself. I sat in a library for six hours a day. I did three lots of two hours of focus work. I ate loads of dates. I drank lots of energy drinks, but importantly, I finished and it wasn't too hard for me, to kind of push myself. And sometimes you just gotta be a little bit mentally resilient and say, you know what, Stapes, Andy, that's my name, do it. If you liked this video, remember to go check out this one, where I talk about how to stop feeling stuck during your PhD. So there we have it. There's all of the best ways to deal with the worst feelings during your PhD. Let me know in the comments what you would add. And also remember, there are more ways that you can engage with me. The first way is to sign up to my newsletter. Head over to andrewstapleton.com.au forward slash newsletter, the link is in the description. And when you sign up, you'll get five emails over about two weeks, everything from the tools I've used, the podcasts I've been on, how to write the perfect abstract and more. It's exclusive content available for free. So you've got nothing to lose. Go check it out now. Also go check out academiainsider.com. That's where I've got my new projects, where I've got my eBooks, my resource pack, my forum, the blog, everything is over there to make sure that academia and your PhD works for you. All right then, I'll see you in the next video. Subtitles by the Amara.org community