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Archive for the ‘beliefs’ Category

Walking up to the United States customs agent in an airport after a trip out of the country always makes me feel uneasy. Will there be something wrong?  Where should I look as the agent flips through my passport?

So I stand there, feeling awkward. Finally, the agent looks at me one more time and then, with what seems like genuine feeling,  the agent calls me by name and says, “Welcome Home.”  

Whew. I’ve passed muster, but I’m also curiously touched.  I know there’s nothing personal in the greeting.  It’s predictable that the customs agent welcomes the traveler, but I always feel a bit of emotion rising in my chest.       

I guess I belong here after all.

Inception and Leonardo DiCaprio

Have you seen the movie Inception?  I got around to seeing it a few weeks ago and was particularly drawn to the ending when the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio shows the same unease I often feel as I wait to see what the U.S. agent may ask me.  DiCaprio gives a slight acknowledgment to the agent and then lowers his eyes—how are you supposed to look in this situation? And where should you look?  Finally the agent says, “Welcome home, Mr. Cobb.”

 

And the relieved and happy Cobb/DiCaprio crosses the boundary into the U.S. He’s home. Of course, he had reason to worry.  He could have been denied entrance. 

But that’s another story. 

A customs agent in the role of gatekeeper reminds me of how often we can doubt that we belong in a community or in a situation which formerly had seemed or claimed to be our home. 

The notion of home, returning home, and feeling at home in various situations goes beyond familiar settings, sentimental snapshots, or an address on a customs form. 

 

The writer’s home

Most ABD’s come to a graduate program feeling at home, challenged, but nevertheless sure that this is where they will find the opportunity, the collegiality, and the inspiration that will bring out the best in them.

Even if they had felt completely at home as they took classes or as they wrote papers for classes or perhaps even acting as teaching assistants, once the students have moved past their course work or into the dissertation process, they are too often thrown by the process and feel out-of-place as they try to finish their dissertations and earn their degrees.  

As I coach writers, I am struck by how frequently brilliant, capable ABD’s become stuck and start to feel incompetent and unworthy. 

Incompetent and unworthy

ABD’s know what they’re supposed to do. They’re supposed to make goals and meet deadlines and just write.  But for many ABD’s, deadlines have become counterproductive. The pressure and the isolation of trying to grind out text somehow raise such self-doubt that they start to question whether they belong in this doctoral program.  

Some compare themselves unfavorably with others who are further along in the dissertation process.  They feel such regret and, worse, they feel such shame for time wasted during the doctoral program that they’re almost paralyzed. 

Do they have what it takes to finish this degree?  The familiar situations and professors no longer seem reassuring, but rather seem to raise barriers to the extent that ABD’s start to see themselves as frauds or imposters. 

Lower the stakes

If this sounds like your situation, you could take a cue from some graduate students who have gone through periods of self-doubt and shame and have rewritten the process to make it work for them.  

Instead of focusing on the product or on finishing, focus on the present moment. Determine the block of time that you are setting aside each morning for yourself and decide what your choices will be during that time.  You can decide that you will write and that’s all, or you could have a variety of tasks to choose from, as long as you put in the time.  What is important is that you step back from the process and lower the stakes from producing something brilliant and perfect to doing something.

Ebb and flow 

The writing process will be one of ebb and flow. Some days, the writing will be crappy, and other days you might think the work you did wasn’t half bad. What is important is that you show up each day at the time you have carved out for yourself and write. Do something. And it will be good enough.

Welcome home

The block of time for your daily work is your place and your time. Rewrite the script; redesign the scenery. Make the delivery and the timing your own. This is your home place. And at the beginning of each writing session, greet yourself. I bet you would smile if you greeted yourself each morning with “Welcome Home, Mr. Cobb.”  

Warm regards,

Nancy

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.nancywhichard.com 
 

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failure

Image by erix! via Flickr

What do you do when you have a plan for a writing project in place, but it goes terribly wrong?  What is your response?

When you slip up, do those powerful feelings that you’re not allowed to make a mistake overwhelm you? Do you label yourself as an imposter with the belief that you don’t know enough or aren’t clever enough to do the work?

If you tend to be a perfectionist, it can be hard to take the slip-ups in stride.

In the May edition of my e-newsletter, Smart Tips for Writers, I offer some thoughts and tips about what will help you be in solution mode, rather than going straight to meltdown, when you hit a rough patch.

You haven’t subscribed to my free e-newsletter?  That’s easily remedied.  Just go to my website at www.nancywhichard.com to sign up.

Nancy
Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
www.nancywhichard.com
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
nancy @ nancywhichard.com

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Gunter Böhmer: “Nightmare“, Indian ink drawing...

Image via Wikipedia

Most people I know speak of a recurring nightmare:

–Having to take a test you haven’t studied for

–Having to give a talk, but being unprepared

–Not being able to get to the location where your talk or test is to be given

–Feeling under great tension and wearing yourself out trying to accomplish something that you are unable to do

At some point, even if you’re still dozing, you realize it’s a dream.  And you feel incredible relief.

If you grew up in basketball state  in the U.S. or graduated from a university where basketball is a big sport, you may have watched some or all of the NCAA men’s basketball championship game a few nights ago.

The Butler University basketball team endured a nightmarish game where nothing worked for them.  It seemed as if the game would never end.

Whatever would have helped the Butler players— more preparation and practice on shooting two-point shots, less reliance on a star three-point shooter, an arena/ playing field more appropriate to the sport and the age of the players or . . . —  the Butler team lived a nightmare in full view of millions of people.

Their desperation was visible, as they played a high-stakes game that was not going to turn out well for them.

Over the years I’ve coached writers for whom the stakes are high . . . . Doctoral students who are panic-stricken at the prospect of writing the required dissertation, people who have given up their day job to write a novel, people who have made promises and commitments and still haven’t done the writing.

Some put off the writing for years, straining the good will and trust of family and spending the capital of advisors, bosses, or colleagues.  And now they are paralyzed with fear when they face the computer screen or empty page.

Writing, with its rattling chains, terrifies.

But in order for you to write, your goal is not to be fear-free.

The goal is to feel the fear and manage it. You don’t have to do what the fear says—you don’t need to flee or abandon all hope. Listen to what the fear is telling you to do and then ignore it.  Move past it.  You ignore that negative inner chatter of your being an imposter and that you don’t have what it takes. You tell yourself that you have everything you need to move forward with this work.

If you haven’t already, you will most likely someday have a nightmare of being unprepared for a test or not having written a paper (or your dissertation), but you can take the steps now that will make that nightmare nothing more than a dream.

How are you managing your fears and your goals?  I’d like to hear from you.

My best to you,

Nancy

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
www.nancywhichard.com
www.smarttipsforwriters.com
nancy @ nancywhichard.com

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Writing is not for the weak of heart.  Writing is often a dangerous act, requiring all of the mental toughness and grit you can muster.

And no one knows that more than my clients—those writing dissertations and those who are now pushing on with writing their books or writing grant applications or articles.

Some of my clients feel like imposters who think they somehow got to where they are by luck.

Others are exhausted by the effort and by the stress of so much riding on this one piece of writing that they’ve become apathetic.  To protect them from the pain of feeling incompetent their Lizard Brain lets them think: “I’ve stopped caring.”

One client has who has been published in well-received journals and who has presented internationally now is writing an application for an important grant.  She’s leery of her ability both to market herself and at the same time offer the supporting evidence that would clinch the application for her.

This is the client whose wisdom has served her well. But now she needs to be five times bolder than she’s been in writing her dissertation or in sending articles to journals.

She felt unequal to the task until she recalled that she had been interviewed after making a presentation outside of the U.S.  She remembers the exuberance she felt as she was explaining her position and her research to the interviewer.  Fortunately, she has a transcript of the interview, and reading it gives her the push and mental energy she needs to move into this new task.

Similarly, a client who feels she hasn’t performed well on her dissertation has been surprised to hear that she’s been nominated for an award by her committee.  Initially, she felt like hiding, sure that her work would  reveal herself to be less capable than what they would expect. She thought of what they might say to her when they learned that she isn’t as far along with her work as she thinks she should be.   But she also knows that she has been catastrophizing.  Talking about the lack of evidence she has for any of these destructive beliefs gives her the will to pull on her inner resources of mental toughness and grit, and the will to plan strategies that will help her to get back on track and to stop with the self-sabotaging.

When talented, skilled, successful people are again and again pushed to produce, they can start to question themselves, question whether they got to where they are only by luck, whether they have what it takes to keep going.  It takes boldness and courage to keep trudging, but it also takes a willingness to be vulnerable and to trust those around them, to show work to others when the work is not the best, and to ask for help.

As one brilliant woman told me, “I have to do that thing where I feel like I’m typing with two fingers.”  Instead of turning on herself when she feels fear or uncertainty, she has to manage her feelings and keep plunking away, boldly and bravely.

Writing is scary, but there are ways to move quickly past those fears, and then to keep going.

How are you doing?

All good wishes,

Nancy

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach
http://www.dissertationbootcamp.net
http://www.usingyourstrengths.com
http://www.smarttipsforwriters.com

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If your goal is to finish your dissertation during this new year of 2010, be bold, be optimistic, and persevere.

Positive psychologists for several years have said that the strengths most important for happiness are curiosity, optimism, gratitude, zest, and loving and being loved.

My experience as a dissertation and writing coach tells me that perseverance is a predictor of successful writing. Even if interest in a topic wanes or times get hard, perseverance, mental toughness, or grit keeps the writer writing. 

Frequently ABD’s resist a self-assessment that suggests they have perseverance as a strength.  But there are ways to build perseverance.

Leveraging the strengths of boldness and optimism can help ABD’s acknowledge or access their strength of perseverance.

If ABD’s or other writers recognize situations where they have been bold in the past and identify current opportunities for boldness, they can also generate optimism.  With boldness and optimism, ABD’s can refute the self-sabotaging belief that they lack the necessary perseverance to finish the dissertation process.  

Adding boldness and optimism to perseverance is a wining combination.  These strengths hold the answer to the question: What do I need in order to be a successful writer?

Where can you be audacious and bold? 

• Start with your writing goals – both long-term for 2010 and short-term for this week and this month.  Commit to a reasonable goal for the next two weeks.
• Draw boundaries to protect your writing time.
• Revitalize your relationship with your advisor.
• Invest in a dissertation coach.

Where will you move out of your comfort zone for the sake of your writing?

All good wishes for a very productive and happy 2010,

Nancy

Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach

www.nancywhichard.com
www.dissertationbootcamp.net
www.usingyourstrengths.com

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Is your dissertation making  you moody instead of motivated?
It’s possible that you’re too set in your ways.  Do you believe that things have to be a certain way before you start to write?  What time of day have you been telling yourself is the only time you can write?  How do you think you have to approach your dissertation?  Do you have to have the whole chapter thought through before you write? Do you think that your dissertation has to be amazingly spectacular?

Are your beliefs sabotaging you? 
Maybe your attitudes and beliefs toward your writing are obstructive, unhelpful, and disruptive.  If you’ve never tested or questioned the beliefs, they may have hamstrung you, making you too rigid to be productive.

Of course, some of what we’ve been told is definitely true, such as ‘That paper isn’t going to write itself.”  Your mother may have mentioned that to you once in a while during your teen-age years.

Just think, though, how often you read that scientists and researchers have found totally new ways of looking at the way our brain works, the way our body works, and what affects our mood. 

Case in point:  Over the years, doctors have warned breast cancer survivors to be careful of lifting anything heavy.  Many breast cancer survivors have a problem with swollen arms, due to the removal of lymph glands, but, as it turns out, lifting weights would not complicate the swelling.  Now the New England Journal of Medicine reports that weight-lifting could actually help breast cancer survivors by increasing their strength and improving their mood.

And this:  For a long time, people with back trouble, arthritis, joint and nerve damage have routinely been advised to take it easy and avoid exercise.  Studies and experience now show that exercise, particularly water exercise or walking or weight training, is exactly what has helped people with these problems.

And Now This:  Now, according to the New York Times, researchers say that runners who continue to run as they age, even running marathons, are unlikely to suffer degenerating knees.  Runners who stop running more often suffer knee problems.

So your beliefs about how you write or what has to happen in order for you to write could bear scrutiny, too.

Clear the decks?
Have you been waiting to write until you could pare your schedule down to nothing?  Is that because you believe that once your schedule is empty, you can then immerse yourself in writing, producing page after page?  That could happen, but the writing of one of my clients came to a screeching halt this summer once her schedule was cleared.  She found that with no structure, she just shut down.  Come to find out, she wrote best when she had an active, busy life.  Who would have thought it?

Bits, not blocks?
Many clients tell me that they have to have a big block of time in order to get into their writing.  Since they don’t have a big block, they waste the small bits of time they have available.  The clients who have seriously tested whether they could produce text in 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there have become converts to using whatever time is available.  A fifteen-minute writing session each morning along with that first cup of coffee has helped one client move very close to finishing a first draft of her dissertation this summer.  She works full-time and had almost given up on finishing her dissertation until she committed herself to grabbing bits of time, rather than big blocks, and particularly that 15-minute bit early each morning.

Breakthroughs happen when we shake things up.
How about you? Has somebody been giving you bad advice?  What belief about your dissertation could actually be holding you back? Time for a change! 

Courage!

Nancy

P.S.  Do you believe that you don’t need a dissertation coach in order for you to finish your dissertation? How’s that belief working for you? Email me to find out how a dissertation coach can help.

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation Coach and Academic Career Coach

www.nancywhichard.com

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Have you made up or latched onto a belief in order to justify procrastinating on your dissertation?

Many ABD’s tell me that they are struggling in their attempt to make headway in their dissertation.

In my email and in the conversations I have with people who are writing their dissertations, one word keeps coming up again and again:  procrastinating.

The most active posts on this blog are those dealing with procrastination and also with getting started with writing or re-starting writing.

If you know you need to make a change but you haven’t been able to get started or re-started on your writing, it’s possible that you’ve latched onto a belief that’s causing you some big problems.

What beliefs are helping you to procrastinate?

Do any of these sound familiar?

1. “I don’t know enough—I have to keep reading and researching.”

2. “I can’t move forward in the writing until I feel confident about the introduction.”

3. “I need a big chunk of time in order to get into the work.”

4. “Working at the last-minute before I have a deadline is the way I work best and may be the only way I can work.”

5. “My life is so full that I just can’t get to some things until the last minute.”

6. “I am really trying to clear the decks so that I can get into this project.”

And my favorite:

7.  “I’m at my most creative when I’m working at the last minute.”

Which belief do you own up to?  Even if you know it’s just an excuse, do you still use it to help you avoid writing?

To kick this bad habit of procrastinating:

1.  Ask yourself where will you will be in one month if you continue to do what you’re doing now.

2.  Take an honest appraisal of what beliefs you’re putting in your way.  Start with my checklist of excuses above and add your excuses or roadblocks.

3.  Consider how often you allow fears of inadequacy or  the belief that you are an imposter bring your work to a halt. If you allow the imposter syndrome to plant itself in your vision, you are irrationally blinding yourself to all that you have done to get yourself to this point.

Being honest with yourself is a first step toward getting your writing started.

What other beliefs and excuses come to your mind?  Please share!

And remember to sign up for my Smart Tips for Writers e-newsletter at my website:  www.nancywhichard.com.

Cheers,

Nancy

P.S.  Remember—you don’t have to do everything at once.

Nancy Whichard, Ph.D., PCC
Your International Dissertation and Academic Career Coach

www.nancywhichard.com

 

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