Take a break from the holiday madness to breathe, reflect, and regroup. Here is a selection of Love Your Dissertation blogposts to motivate you to get your proposal or manuscript to the next milestone so you can earn your Ph.D. and get on with your career.
Feel like you can’t? Get busy and get it done
Ask my mother, I bet she will say I was born moaning “I can’t!” Rarely is the problem as simple as I don’t know how. I get paralyzed by my fear that I will fail. Here’s what to do when you are struck with a case of the “I can’ts” as you are struggling to get your dissertation proposal approved. [July 2017] Read more
Should we finish everything we start?
When I was a teenager, I would start sewing a garment, make a total mess of it, realize the endeavor was hopeless, and consign the pile of abused fabric to the trash in disgust. What might I have learned from the debacle if I had kept working at it, seeking creative ways to turn my mistakes into something useful? [September 2018] Read more
Perfection is the enemy of the good enough
Have heard your dissertation chair say, “Good is the enemy of the best,” and taken that as an exhortation to settle for nothing less than perfection? Sometimes I thought I wrote something that was perfect, but even a few hours later, I discovered typos, grammar errors, and faulty reasoning. Maybe it is time to let go of our obsession with perfection and focus on doing our best. [October 2019] Read more
Perfection is not required, but persistence is essential. Take a break from the writing. I hope you get as much writing done as you can stand while still enjoying a peaceful holiday season with family, old friends, and new friends.
Life is more than a Ph.D., my dissertator friends. I hope you take time now to be present to the magic in the moment. Don’t look back later with regret that you missed opportunities to be with loved ones. We never know when they may be gone.
