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Deprioritizing your PhD is a necessary step in successfully completing your Ph.D. This is especially true for senior graduate students. During the course of graduate school, you need to tune your level of caring in order to:
- Take care of yourself
- Succeed / Reach your ultimate goal
Let me back up…
I was working on my website today and realized that I got a question from a reader in a comment, that I had previously missed.
The comment appeared below this post:
It’s really unfortunate that I missed it before.
I have put measures in place that will ensure that I can better see and respond to comments. I have been getting so inundated with spam in the comments that real comments got buried deep in there.
But, I have put more blockers in place for the spam, cleaned up a lot, and I am more ready than ever to read, and answer your questions.
The question was:
“What should you do when suicide seems like a good alternative to writing your thesis?”
First of all, I hope you are alive/alright. Sorry for the delay in responding. I am glad you asked.
Hang in there.
We are going to handle it. We are going to be alright.
There is much more to life than getting a Ph.D.
In my book, I talk about “The Tunnel” – this is a dark place.
The Tunnel
Every demoralized graduate student is in a long, dark tunnel. Everyone says you should “just finish.” But you do not know exactly how long that is supposed to take.
Does it just happen at some point? Do you keep on going and going and it happens one day? For me, I didn’t know I was out of the tunnel until after my defense.
Actually, sometimes, I still feel I am in the tunnel. But that is post-dissertation stress disorder or PDSD – a topic for another book.
Not only is it a tunnel in that you cannot see the end of it, but you are also expected to have tunnel vision. You forget about the rest of the world and how there is a life beyond academia.
In other words, it is a tunnel both in terms of:
- inducing feelings of demoralization and discouragement making it impossible to see a successful outcome, and
- the “tunnel vision” that academia demands
It is OK to take a break for mental health during a Ph.D. and take care of yourself and put yourself first even though a Ph.D. can tend to be an all-consuming process.
You are definitely more important and your life is absolutely MORE and BIGGER than getting a Ph.D.
Getting a Ph.D. is totally optional. You can finish the Ph.D., OR NOT.
Everything you have done so far will still matter and still count for something.
You will not be a failure. Plenty of people do just fine without PhDs.
You have still learned and your accomplishments so far will not vanish if your Ph.D. does not work out.
Whether you finish your Ph.D. or not depends on how you are feeling, but your health and safety come first. What is more, you will discover that deprioritizing your PhD will actually help you to succeed!
Take power back by deprioritizing your PhD
Deprioritizing your PhD will enable you to regain balance and give you power back in this situation, helping you to succeed.
The biggest trick is to not care too much. Take some power back from the academic system.
If it is making you feel bad, screw it. Find, or remember the other things in life that you care about.
In fact, deprioritizing your PhD and having other things that you care about will be a key ingredient in succeeding in the Ph.D. program.
Take care of yourself and take control:
- Take to your family and friends
- Get an appointment with a doctor
- Find a hobby or activity that you care about and can take control of like exercising, writing, etc.
Give yourself permission to prioritize these above your Ph.D.
That is how this blog started for me. I needed to pursue something that I was passionate about, was an outlet, and had control over.
Take the pressure off. Life is more than that and you deserve to be happy.
Again, hope you are feeling better.
Thanks for writing! Please follow on Twitter!
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