If you’ve been working on your dissertation for any length of time and you find yourself not making the kind of progress that would be commensurate with the time that you’ve invested, it’s time to take a step back and take a broader perspective on the whole process, and then ask yourself—Am I addicted to the struggle?
This concept became very clear for me over the past few days as I was talking to various clients and some of my friends who were complaining about how difficult various aspects of their dissertation process (in the case of my clients) and their lives or businesses (in the case of my friends) were.
This got me thinking about the idea that we sometimes work harder when we need to work smarter. Now, when we look at working harder, that obviously means that we keep doing more and more of the same, thinking that we are going to get a different result–which is, by the way, also the definition of insanity.
When we focus on working smarter, we look for ways in which we can reach our goals much more easily and quickly with a lot less stress. One of the things that get in the way of our being able to work smarter is our own feelings and beliefs about the process that we are involved in.
If you’re writing the dissertation, you probably have heard somewhere along the way that this is a very difficult process; that it should take you a certain amount of years in order to be successful, that you have to meet a certain level of criteria or professionalism or expertise in order to successfully gain your Ph.D.
While all of that is true; you obviously need to write a paper of a certain level, you need to complete the research in a certain way, and you do need to write in at least a general scholarly way. All of those things are true.
Where the breakdown happens though, is when we start to think that these areas are truer or more significant than they really are. Let me explain. You can tell that you are approaching the dissertation from a place of working smarter when you set a goal or set a timeline to complete something, and you actually do it.
You can tell that you are addicted to struggle when you set a goal; have a hundred reasons why can’t reach it, don’t reach it, and then create a bunch of excuses why that didn’t happen.
It can be very easy to be addicted to struggle because that essentially keeps us within our comfort zones. If you see yourself as a person who continually struggles, and you’re continually struggling, you neither have to change your behavior, nor change your perspective on yourself. And while it doesn’t feel good, it is much easier to keep doing things the same old way than it is to change.
Other Posts You Might Be Interested In:
- What to Do if You Are Addicted to the Struggle So if you have been struggling in the dissertation process...
- Expect to feel strange when you reach a milestone. In the past few days, I’ve had three clients schedule...
- Dissertation Transformation: How Self Belief Changes Everything It's been a pretty hectic and exciting month so far,...
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