When I was in graduate school, my classmates/labmates and I always talked about the light at the end of the tunnel. We hoped that we would attain happiness, wealth and an easy life once we got our degrees. Now I am at the other side of the tunnel, a scientist in a pharmaceutical company, and life is easier, but far from hurdle-free. I am continuously challenged by scientific questions, as well as the management of work-life balance. In this blog post, I will highlight the adjustments I had to make as I transitioned from academia to being an industrial scientist, and I will emphasize how my experiences from graduate school are supporting me in my current role.

As someone who was an academic at heart and had never worked at a company, I found that adjusting to the corporate pace was the biggest challenge. In graduate school timelines were long: weeks, months, even years. There was little progress on a day-to-day basis. I now have deadlines that are days or just hours after I get initial notification. I used to check email only 3 times a day in graduate school. Now I do it hourly. Due to the high volume of emails I get, it can take an entire day to sort them out when I return from vacation (although some of the issues actually resolve themselves very nicely without my input).

In graduate school I networked with industry professionals and they all had one thing in common. I remember hardly being able to contain laughter since they had the same answer to the question: "What is one of the things you do not like about working in industry?" Their reply: "Too many meetings." In my experience, meetings do indeed take up quite a bit of time. Most PhD-level scientists in industry have several meetings every day and they need to squeeze in experiments and writing reports during the "breaks." What is the purpose of the meetings? This brings me to my next point: teamwork. As a graduate student I collaborated with others, but I was an independent researcher responsible for my own project. Now I am involved in several projects simultaneously, but I am only responsible for a portion of those projects (the portion that is within my expertise). During meetings, team members discuss their results and then the project leader makes a decision on the next steps.

Despite these adjustments, my current job frequently brings up fond memories of graduate school. As one of the younger scientists, I still spend considerable time at the bench as well the lab supplies stockroom. I still have to develop experimental methods and contend with results that do not make much sense until I tweak the setup several times. In that regard, if I had to name one skill that I brought from graduate school with me that has been essential in the corporate world, it would be resilience or the ability to bounce back from failure and start fresh. Or, in more common terms it is the "pick yourself up and keep going" mentality.

This phrase rang in my ears every few months in graduate school. I believed that I was back to square one several times, even half-through my program. I contended with a difficult experimental setup, irreproducible results, and tendonitis in my arms, which left me unable to type or do experimental work for months. Yet, every morning I got up and went to work. Okay, not every morning, but definitely 6 days a week. Those of you who have been in graduate school probably know what it is like to force yourself to keep going even when the outlook appears dim.

Now I have different obstacles. I have a long commute, which brings up a whole spectrum of issues when one lives in New England. I am a mom, so I am lucky to have many fun family-related challenges too (and no more sleeping in on weekends!). To satisfy my job requirements, I have to meet tight deadlines, manage relationships with coworkers and contribute creatively to projects. Just like in graduate school, a lot of my efforts seem to be wasted (but they are actually not!) when projects or experiments fail. This is when resilience, that invisible force that gets me up at 5:30 am every morning, kicks in.

Resilience goes hand-in-hand with perseverance. To get through a PhD program, you need to be able to bounce back from failure, and you need to have the tenacity to continue making tangible progress every day. If you enter industry as a PhD-level scientist, the expectations are high. You will not just be doing routine work, but you will also be expected to lead projects, develop new experiments, research the literature and write manuscripts. I have many short deadlines, but also several long-term projects that I need to address daily or at least weekly. The habits of resilience and perseverance that were in instilled in me during my journey to a PhD have become the cornerstones in my career as a research scientist in industry.

To sharpen your resilience skills, I highly recommend "The Resilience Factor" by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte.

Are there any topics you would like to see on Grad School Net? I look forward to hearing from you at dora@gradschoolnet.org.

Best wishes,

Dora Farkas, PhD
Founder Grad School Net
Author:"The Smart Way to Your PhD:200 Secrets from 100 Graduates"
dora@gradschoolnet.org, www.gradschoolnet.org

After the publication of my book in 2009 I began writing blogs for online graduate student communities such as Gradshare. Over the years, I have published over 100 articles, Q&A columns and newsletters. Since these articles covered a very wide variety of issues, I decided to organize them by topic to make it easier for graduate students to find the information they need. My new site, www.gradschoolnet.org, will help you to:

-Decide whether to pursue a PhD,

-Fund graduate school,

-Stay focused and motivated to complete your research,

-Write your thesis,

-Improve relationships with your professors and coworkers,

-Nurture your health and personal relationships, and

-Pursue your desired career path

The skills and resources presented on my site are based on interviews for my book, with more than 100 successful former graduate students, as well as professors, deans, writing coaches, and industry professionals.

To provide you with free online tools at your finger-tips, I also have special sections for:

-Women

-Minorities

-International students

-Students with disabilities, and

-Student suffering from repetitive strain injury, a debilitating condition that can occur from excessive computer-use and pipetting.

For additional inspiration, I also have stories from current graduate students and young professionals.

Are there any topics you would like to see on Grad School Net? I look forward to hearing from you at dora@gradschoolnet.org.

Best wishes,

Dora Farkas, PhD
Founder Grad School Net
Author:"The Smart Way to Your PhD:200 Secrets from 100 Graduates"
dora@gradschoolnet.org, www.gradschoolnet.org

I have a Q&A column on Benchfly.com and it is clear that career options for PhDs is definitely the number one concern for doctoral students. Some students wonder whether it is worth getting a PhD or if they should just settle for a Masters. Senior students and postdoctoral fellows, who no longer question the merits of a PhD degree, have approached me for advice on alternative career paths given the fierce competition for academic positions.

If you are absolutely sure that you want to become a professor or an academic researcher, then there is probably no question in your mind about getting your PhD. If you are considering alternative paths, then it is worth evaluating whether the doctoral degree is a good investment of your time, money and energy. I spent six years in graduate school and I realized about half-way through that I was more excited about the pharmaceutical industry than academia. As many other students I began having doubts about whether it was even worth finishing my degree. First, there was no guarantee that I would finish within 6 years. My experiments had not produced the results that were expected and there were no publications on the horizon. Second, many research positions in industry only required a Master's degree. Some of my class mates had decided to leave (even 3-5 years into the program) with a Master's degree to pursue industry careers or even more exotic paths such as law school.

While the prospect of a Master's degree and an industrial job was alluring, there was a little voice inside of me that insisted that I should stay. I enjoyed my field of research, and it was highly applicable in the pharmaceutical industry. I had not generated publishable data yet, but I decided to tough it out until I had a nice story to tell in a manuscript. The next three years were grueling, with long nights at the lab and battling repetitive strain injury (RSI) that left me unable to type for months. Yet, I knew I was on the right path because everything that I was learning along the way (even fighting RSI) would prepare me for the career I desired. Now that I do work in the pharmaceutical industry I know that I made the right choice. I learned to do independent research, gained scientific writing skills, and self-confidence that I could learn anything that I put my mind to. I remember that as a fresh postdoctoral fellow I was asked to write a book chapter on a topic that was only tangentially related to my area of expertise. I knew I would need to review about 100 papers to do justice to the topic. "Well", I thought, "I have a PhD, so I could learn anything." Okay, not everything. But I certainly learned how to review the scientific literature within my general field of study.

For those of you who are money-savvy and are looking to evaluate whether earning a doctoral degree is a good financial investment, I listed several references below detailing salaries for PhDs. As you will see, most people do not earn a PhD for the sake of money. There are easier ways of getting rich (that's beyond the scope of this blog, but most wealthy people own their own businesses.) The real value in earning a PhD is to prepare you for a career path that truly excites you. Competition for academic positions gets tougher every year, and assistant professors have very demanding schedules. Work-life balance is a challenge, especially for parents of young children (although I heard that dealing with teenagers is even tougher than taking care of newborns). As a working mom, my experience is that balancing work and family is a challenge no matter where you work. If you are passionate about what you do, you will find a way to excel at your job, find the necessary support for your household and be a great role model for your children. (Strategies for working moms are beyond the scope of this blog, but stay tuned, there will be an article focusing on that topic in the next few weeks!)

Best wishes,

Dora Farkas, PhD
Founder PhDNet
Author:"The Smart Way to Your PhD:200 Secrets from 100 Graduates"
dora@phdnet.org, www.phdnet.org

References:

If you are thinking about a PhD:

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Future-of-the-PhD/131749/

Faculty Salary Data

http://chronicle.com/article/faculty-salaries-data-2012/131431#id=144050

http://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/

Is a PhD financially worth it?

http://gradschool.about.com/od/financialaid/a/worthit.htm

Articles on job search and alternative careers:

http://www.phds.org/jobs/ -

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/tools_tips/outreach/events/2010_06_17

http://acswebinars.org/carlo

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Alternative-PHD-Careers-3404777/about -

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/08/what_is_the_value_of_a_science_phd_is_graduate_school_worth_the_effort_.html

How can significant others (or spouses) support each other if one or both of them are graduate students? I can certainly relate, since my fiance and I were graduate students at the same time, and we got married during my last year in graduate school. (For simplicity, I will use spouse and significant other interchangeably.)

While the pressures in graduate school can put the best relationships to a test, they also present an opportunity to deepen your support and commitment to each other. Your relationship might be strained financially and emotionally as you pour every ounce of energy into a thesis that will only materialize in a few months or years. However, it is no secret that one of the most important factors influencing personal happiness is the quality of your long-term relationship. So the question is how can you and your spouse support each other to give your work the attention it needs? The strategies I share here are from couples I knew personally where one or both of them were graduate students or post-docs.

Commit to your relationship

A strong relation can endure financial hardship, long-distance, and any other personal or professional challenges brought on by life. If you want to create a mutually supportive environment in your home, you first need to strengthen your commitment to your spouse. Be proactive and give him/her the kind of support that you desire, by doing as much as you can to make his/her life easier. No matter how busy you are, there is always time to do something nice for your spouse. Your spouse will surely appreciate it, and probably return the favor doubly.

Spend quality time together to create a mutually-supportive environment

Knowing how busy graduate students are, I am sure that this suggestion is raising some eyebrows. "How can I spend time with my spouse every day when I hardly have time to work?" you might ask. Remember that you are not in this boat alone. You are part of a team. If you function as part of a team you can come up with better strategies than if you tried to row alone. No time or money for elaborate dates? A simple 15-20 minutes of connection every day (over tea in the evening, or an ice-cream during the day) will probably strengthen your relationship orders of magnitude more than an expensive get-away once a year. Use your 15-20 minutes together to solve challenges together as a couple, and soon you will come up with more creative answers than if either of you had ruminated alone.

Besides the daily 15-20 minute check-in, students have found that a weekly date can do wonders for re-energizing their minds. Once again I would like to emphasize that elaborate dates (although fun occasionally) might not be the best investment of your time and money. Simple activities such as watching a movie together every Saturday (perhaps at home if you cannot afford movie tickets or find a babysitter), going on a hike or working out together can do wonders for opening up lines of communication so you can provide each other the support you need. Keep in mind that the date is about being together. Having the certainty that there is always a person you can count on is the most powerful support one can have, especially during a challenging time such as graduate school.

Get creative with your finances

Graduate student relationships are frequently under financial strain, due to low stipends and student debt. I would like to share a story about how one spouse turned her hobby into a small business. My friend Stephanie was a working mom and wife of a postdoctoral associate, and they were just barely scraping by. She was artistic and while her husband traveled, she enjoyed doing crafts with her children. She especially liked decorating scarves and jewelry boxes. Around Christmas time she showed her crafts to her friends and they were eager to buy them as holiday presents. Soon she was generating income all-year round, and even built a website to sell her art. For other ideas on managing your money and investing in your future, I recommend the following articles:

http://www.mint.com/blog/planning/graduate-school-expenses-102011/

http://www.mispp.edu/downloads/finaid/money_management.pdf

Reach out to a support network

While your spouse is (hopefully) your best friend, it is not realistic to expect him/her to provide you all the answers and support. If you connect with graduate student organizations in your department or hobby group, you can find out how others have solved problems similar to yours. Some schools have groups for spouses, which can be especially helpful for internationals, who do not have a permit to work or study in the United States. Besides getting answers to practical issues such as obtaining visas and student discounts, you will probably significantly improve the quality of your life and your relationship by growing your circle of supportive friends.

Be proactive about planning your future together

The two-body problem can be one of the most significant factors influencing your job search. Take comfort in knowing that thousands of students have found solutions to this problem without sacrificing their professional aspirations. It does take creativity, determination and commitment, however, because the job market is so competitive. Specific job searching strategies are beyond the scope of this blog, but I can recommend books and articles on this topic. In fact, I have devoted an entire chapter to career planning in my own book, because I believe that it is never too early to begin networking and exploring job opportunities, especially if you and your spouse will be looking for employment simultaneously.

Reference Books and Online Articles:

- http://www.aps.org/programs/women/reports/gazette/upload/fall06.pdf

- http://gender.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/DualCareerFinal_0.pdf

- http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2010/100826/full/nj7310-1144a.html

- http://www.phds.org/jobs/the-two-body-problem/

Best wishes,

Dora Farkas, PhD
Founder PhDNet
Author:
dora@phdnet.org, www.phdnet.org

Welcome the final part of my productivity-boosting series: “Inspire Yourself and Fulfill Your Potential in Graduate School.” In the first three parts, I showed you how to discover your true purpose, set up long-term goals, and increase your focus. To optimize your time-management skills, today I will share with you one of the top efficiency-enhancing strategies.

It has happened to all of us. We go to work committed to get a really big project done. We might get some of it done, but before we know it we get distracted by emails, text messages, coworkers or our own internal worries. It is not possible to eliminate all distractions or to stop random thoughts from popping into your head. But you can maintain such a high level of focus that you will be able to function at top efficiency in spite of continuous interruptions.

I have read many time-management books and a common theme I have observed among them is that motivation comes with doing. In other words, you have to start to do something before the real motivation comes. This is why it is so important to devote time to your long-term project every day even if it is just 5 minutes on Thanksgiving Day, for example. When you commit time to your goal every day you will build up momentum and focus and produce high quality work. There is more to the story, however.

One of my favorite productivity enhancing tools comes from the book “Eat that Frog,” by best-selling author Brian Tracy. According to an old proverb, if you begin your day by eating a live frog, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that that’s the worst thing that can happen to you all day. To apply the metaphor to a work day, your frog is the action that will have the most impact on your results, one that perhaps you have been procrastinating. Examples include learning a new software, getting your workspace organized or writing a manuscript. Think about which frog you would need to eat to make the biggest leap in reaching your goals.

If you want to jump-start your productivity, try the following strategy every day for the next week. At the end of the day, spend a minute or two writing down what you have accomplished that day, no matter how small. Then, write down 3 realistic outcomes for the next day. Decide which one is your frog and commit time to work on first thing in the morning. If you have trouble deciding what to work on first, pick the most that seems the most intimidating, the one that you are most likely to put off unless you get it out of the way. The next day (here is the important part), begin working on your frog before you check your email, text messages or anything else that can distract you. Work for 30-60 minutes (until you have made measurable progress) before checking your email.

This strategy will guarantee that you will have a sense of accomplishment before you burden your mind with emails, text messages etc. At the end of the day write down what you have accomplished, what your 3 desired outcomes are for the following day, and pick the toughest one to be your frog the next morning. As you will discover, there will always be frogs, challenging tasks that you would rather put off until later. But the more frogs you eat, the better (and faster) you will become at it. Soon, you will surprise yourself and others around you by becoming truly focused turning assignments much around faster.

Wishing you the best,

Dora Farkas, PhD, Founder, PhDNet

www.phdnet.org

dora@phdnet.org

Author: "The Smart Way To Your PhD:200 Secrets From 100 Graduates."

Greetings! This is the third blog in a series of four blogs Inspire Yourself and Fulfill Your Potential in Graduate School. In the first two parts, I showed you how you can inspire yourself and jump-start your motivation by realizing your true purpose and long-term vision. Today I want to show you how to keep your mind focused throughout the day, every day, to bring you closer to your desired results.

One of the advantages, as well as challenges, in graduate school is the freedom offered by a loosely-structured lifestyle. When you are in college, or working at a job, you are constantly pressured by external deadlines. There is not much chance for slacking off, or taking a breath for that matter. Once you finish your coursework in graduate school, however, you might find yourself with an abundance of unstructured time, and little guidance on managing your project. There are exceptions, of course, if your PI is a devout micromanager, but even then you probably have some authority over the direction of your thesis.

Many students thrive in a hands-off environment. Others, however, lose focus and motivation. Being isolated without a regular support network can be especially tough on students who excel in a structured, social environment. Take for example a day that was supposed to be devoted to writing your thesis proposal. .You might come in the morning with eight hours ahead of you to focus on writing. With the best of intentions, you begin writing but after an hour you need a break. Perhaps you take a walk, or get a snack and then get back to writing. Later on you decide to spend some time on social media, but before you know it half the day, or the whole day has gone by with little progress. You beat yourself for logging into Facebook or texting, and decide to be more focused the next day. The next day you try harder, but as soon as you start writing your mind begins wandering again, and you feel like an underachiever for not being able to focus long enough to attain your writing goal.

Now here is another question. Let's say that instead of working on a thesis proposal that's due a month from now, you had to study for a final exam that was the following day? What if you found out today that the exam was tomorrow? How focused would you be? Would you still respond to all your texts?

The level of focus that can be attained by external deadlines is enormous. If your mind is focused, you can write more in 1 hour than during in an entire unstructured day. What if you could bring a high level of focus to your thesis work every day? There is a simple strategy available to all of us to raise our level of focus almost instantly.

In the first blog of this series I discussed the importance of remembering your true purpose and long-term vision. The graduate student in cancer research had a picture of her grandmother on her desk as a reminder of the importance of her work. Another student had a picture of a graduation ceremony as his screen background, knowing that every productive day would bring him a day closer to his degree. Another student had a picture of her children next to her computer. Every time she lost focus, she glanced at her daughters. She knew that the more productive she was the sooner she could go home and be with her children. What immediate or long-term benefit would you gain by increasing your focus?

The key to maintaining your focus throughout the day is to remind yourself of your purpose and to imagine how you will feel when you achieve your goals. Just think for a moment how relieved you will feel when you get your diploma while being surrounded by your family. How excited will you be when you receive your job offer and a more secure financial future? If you give yourself these positive feelings daily (or better yet, many times daily), then the avalanche of text messages or friend requests will seem negligible in comparison with your true purpose. Give yourself this feeling every morning when you get out bed, on your way to work and when you get ready for bed. Soon your productivity will turn into a positive upward spiral. The more excited you are about your goals the easier it will be to wake up, and the more productive you will be. Of course, the more productive you are, the more excited you will be and eventually your productivity will sky-rocket.

The strategy of visualizing your goals and reliving the sense of accomplishment daily has worked many students and professionals, and I sincerely hope that it will help you achieve the level of focus that you desire. Please let me know how it goes!

Your feedback is always appreciated at dora@phdnet.org.

Wishing you the best,

Dora Farkas, PhD, Founder, PhDNet

www.phdnet.org

dora@phdnet.org

Author: "The Smart Way To Your PhD:200 Secrets From 100 Graduates."

Welcome back! Last week I started a series of four blogs entitled Inspire Yourself and Fulfill Your Potential in Graduate School.In the first part of the series, "Find Your Purpose" we explored how finding your true calling can drive your motivation in graduate school to help you accomplish your goals.

In this blog I want to share some simple ways to build up momentum so you can turn your goals into reality. A purpose such as "I want to help find a cure for cancer, " or "I want to write a book" might come easily, but it takes some thought to set up a realistic plan and then to follow through.

Once you have a very strong purpose that resonates with you, the next step is to define the "what", or the actual goals and sub-goals you want to accomplish. Notice we are not talking about the "how" yet (the technicalities of completing the tasks). That comes later.Many students make the mistake of immediately jumping into the "how", before clarifying exactly what they want to accomplish and why. This approach is very short-sighted, and can lead to discouragement as soon as you hit an obstacle.

In his book, "The Flow", Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes a state where a person is fully immersed in and enjoying in their task at hand. Imagine if you could be in that state all of the time, when actions and inspiration come naturally, almost effortlessly. Many graduate students are in this state during their final semester when they are writing their thesis. By that time most of their research has been completed and there is a straight path to the hooding ceremony. There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel and these students need little external motivation to put in the 12-14 hour days needed to make the thesis deadline. I am not suggesting that you work 12-14 hour days; that would lead to a burnout quickly. But you can get into a state where your internal drive supersedes any external distraction or hurdles that you encounter.

The reason that final-term graduate students are so motivated is that they see the end of the journey very clearly. They have a crystal clear vision of their diploma being handed to them. I remember the first time (probably around my fourth year in graduate school) when I "saw" the table of contents of my thesis in mind. After that point my motivation skyrocketed, because I knew exactly where I was going. Of course, I ran into bends in the road as well as dead-end streets, but I had a final destination, and I refused to stop until my journey was completed.

You don't need to wait until you are a senior graduate student to make a road-map. Draft your table of contents as soon as you have chosen an advisor and a general area of research. Then, make a 1-year goal. What can be realistically accomplished within the next 12 months? Be ambitious, but take into account the 3x rule (everything is research takes on average three times longer than planned). Once you have a 12 month goal decide what can be realistically accomplished in the next 6 months? How about 3 months or 1 month? A 1- month plan is very powerful because once you have it you can break down into 1-week plans and then decide what you can do today to get closer to your goal. Then write down what you can do tomorrow, and so on. The key is to make measurable progress every day. The beauty of working every day (even if you can only set aside 15-30 minutes on weekends and holidays) is that you pick up momentum. Ideas will come easier, your writing will speed up and before you know it you will have accomplished more than you had planned.

If you ever think "Not today, I am too tired", think of senior graduate students who only have only a finite number of days until the thesis deadline. Do you think they work every day and make use of every little pocket of time (be it 5 or 10 minutes) that they can find? You bet they do, even if they have a full-time job or if they just came home from the hospital with a newborn (yes, I have known students to work between newborn feedings).

As you can see, the most important phrase I have used in this blog is "every day". In the next blog I will show you some strategies to help you follow through daily on your long-term plans.

Best wishes,

Dora Farkas, PhD,

Founder, PhDNet

Author: "The Smart Way To Your PhD:200 Secrets From 100 Graduates."

www.phdnet.org

dora@phdnet.org

Happy March! Okay, we're not quite there yet, but March really is around the corner. As winter slowly turns into spring and many of us shake off the winter blues, it is a good time to evaluate your professional and personal goals. Do you ever wish that you were more productive work? We all carry the power to inspire ourselves and those around us at any time. In the next few weeks, I am publishing a series of 4 blogs (one a week, posted by Wednesday of every week) that include all the tools you need for inspiration, motivation and maximizing productivity.

Part 1 of 4: Find your purpose

When I was a postdoc, I saw an inspiring quote: "Vision is seeing what will be," which is a fantastic reminder while working on a long-term project such as a graduate school thesis. When faced big projects most students begin by exploring "what" they need to do and "how" to do it. Logical, right? In and ideal world all you would need to do is check off everything on your list and then you get your degree. The problem with this approach is that things almost never go according to plan. There will be setbacks, and perhaps you will be back to square one. Your enthusiasm might wane, and you might find yourself puzzled not knowing what to do in order to graduate. You might even wonder whether it is worth staying in graduate school.

There is a better way. Instead of "what do I need to do" or "how can I accomplish this goal" I would like to invite you to ask a more profound question. For a few second, consider the following question: "Why" is it important for you to get your degree? "Why" do you want to answer the question proposed in your thesis? How will your life be different once you get your degree? Why is your thesis important for your field of research?

Take for example a graduate student who lost her grandmother to cancer when she was only 10 years old. Her grandmother had raised her, and as she stood by her grandmother's bedside she made a commitment to find a cure for this terrible illness. She kept her commitment in her heart and mind throughout graduate school, and as a cancer researcher later on, because she was driven by the desire to spare others from the terrible pain her grandmother had to endure. This student's success, as demonstrated by her publication record and career path, was not due to luck or a very high IQ, but to her commitment to save other people's lives.

While most of us are fortunate enough not to have lost a close family member in childhood, we all have a burning desire to accomplish something for the greater good.

To get your thesis back on track, really think about "why" it is so important to get your Masters or PhD? The "how" (the actual technicalities of accomplishing your goal), is secondary. If you are 100% committed (like the graduate student above) you will find a way to make an original contribution to your field, help the greater good and get your degree. There will be no hurdle too big for you to jump over.

Once you find your true purpose (or calling), getting the day-to-day tasks done will come with ease. Over the next three weeks I will continue this series by helping you: 1) build realistic short and long-term plans that are in alignment with your underlying purpose, 2) follow through on your commitments and 3) increase motivation (and beat procrastination) with well-tested tools. I hope that during the next week you will find a few minutes to think about your true purpose, why your degree and research are so important, and how your life and those of others will be different once you accomplish your goals.

Best wishes,

Dora Farkas, PhD,

Founder, PhDNet

www.phdnet.org

dora@phdnet.org

Author: "The Smart Way To Your PhD:200 Secrets From 100 Graduates."

The Power of Intention

Have you ever set goals that you were not able to meet so you decided to just completely give up? Statistics show that less than 10% of people stick with their New Year's Resolutions.Instead of setting goals that frequently lead to frustration, I would like to invite you to set your intentions instead. What in the world is that?- you might ask.

An intention is a mindset and it is much more powerful that a goal. As a diligent graduate student I was hoping to graduate after 5 long years. I set many goals along the way such as "By December I will finish experiment XYZ and by February I will have completed my manuscript." Due to the whimsical nature of research (as I am sure you can all relate), there were forces beyond my control that prevented me from completing the desired experiments by my arbitrary deadline. December, January and February came and went, but due to one reason or another I could not complete the desired experiments.

Realizing that setting goals with strict deadlines did not fit the nature of my research, I changed my focus from a dry to-do list with deadlines (which is demoralizing for anyone) to a big picture plan with a purpose. Specifically, I set my mind to designing an experiment that would elucidate how healthy cells were in culture. Now my days were completely different. When a setback occurred (e.g. my cells died, or an instrument stopped working), I no longer slumped back into my chair feeling helpless. I knew what I had to do, such as get new cells, call someone to fix the instrument etc. Sure, these unexpected things set me back by a week but I was still on track. "What about strict deadlines? Doesn't this strategy lose sight of timelines?", you might ask.

On the contrary. When you focus on the big picture you are more likely to come up with creative solutions. Clarifying your intentions helps you step back and think about the result you are striving for. Once I consciously decided to investigate ways to improve cells culture conditions and design experiments to study the health of the cells, my motivation increased dramatically. I was excited to get out of bed in the mornings, because there was real reason to go to work. I worked 12-14 hours days as I got closer to graduation, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Setting my intentions and clarifying the purpose of my thesis paid off. II graduated just 6 months after switching directions.

Sounds easy, right? Unless you already have a very deep-rooted purpose in life, you will need to work a little on clarifying your intentions. You need to be very clear on what you want and why do you want it (i.e. what's the purpose of your dissertation?) A very empowering visualization for graduate students is imagining their thesis defense. Think about what you will say that day, particularly the take-home message of your thesis, and visualize it multiple times a day (if you want to have some fun imagine the food and the cake at your thesis defense party). There is a good chance that you will need to work with your PI on the specific details of your thesis plan, and you can change your visualization accordingly. To boost your energy, remind yourself every morning of the results you are trying to achieve and watch your motivation, excitement and productivity get stronger!

Wishing You the Best,
Dora Farkas, PhD
Founder PhDNet
Author:"The Smart Way to Your PhD:200 Secrets from 100 Graduates"
dora@phdnet.org, www.phdnet.org

Now Available in Kindle and Softcover:

Receiving Inspiration

Do you ever get a nagging feeling that you need to do something, but somehow it just does not seem to happen? You don't have time, energy or money to get started? After I published my book, I continued to contribute to graduate student communities such as Gradshare and Benchfly and I also published monthly newsletters. It was very rewarding to help students improve time-management skills, communicate with their advisors and write their dissertations. But somehow along the way it became more difficult to receive inspiration.As a full-time scientist and a parent the day-to-day responsibilities started to eat away at my hobby as a writer. Fortunately I never stopped completely. I continued to answer questions on Benchfly and email, but the spontaneity I had for writing weekly blogs in the past seemed to elude me. Yet every Sunday afternoon (which used to be my time set aside for writing) I had a feeling that I was supposed to be writing something, but I did not know how to get started. After all, I had so much to share with the student community, especially now that I have transitioned to a job in industry. Why could I not put my thoughts into words?

All of a sudden it hit me. Finally the inspiration arrived on a Sunday morning. Through the process of writing blogs I was going through the same challenges as graduate students writing their dissertations. What better way to help these students than to show them how I got over my writer's block? Writer's block is one of the most disheartening feelings a writer (or a graduate student trying to graduate) can experience. But overcoming the block and feeling the words come pouring out of you again is so liberating that you cannot imagine being back in the black hole again. (Unfortunately you probably will be, but for a much shorter time).

Everyone who has taken a class in writing has probably heard that the way to overcome a writer's block is to just write. Write whatever comes to mind for about two or three pages a day. After a few days you will have 10 pages and plenty of material to work with. I agree with this strategy, but I would like to add another empowering tool: Have a purpose,that truly resonates with you. When I began writing my first scientific publication I was so overwhelmed that I did not even know where to begin. I typed up a few pages every day, and I had 40 pages after a few weeks. These 40 pages were an incoherent mass (or soup) of ideas. Eventually I put them together into a coherent 10 page document but it was only after answering a few very important questions: What is the purpose of this manuscript? What scientific questions are trying to answer? How will I help the scientific community (and humanity) by writing this manuscript? Once I clarified what I was writing about and, more importantly, why it was so important to write this paper, my energy soared through the ceiling. I woke up every morning with a thought such as: "Today I will summarize the findings by XYZ, and put them into a nice overview table, so that everyone who is working on this can get easy access to this information."

Receiving inspiration for writing is such a complex topic that many volumes of books were written about it. In the next few weeks I will sharing more strategies for harnessing inspiration and motivating yourself to write or to do research or to get organized. I hope you will join me.

Wishing you the best,
Dora Farkas, PhD, Founder, PhDNet
Author:"The Smart Way To Your PhD:200 Secrets From 100 Graduates."
www.phdnet.org, dora@phdnet.org

Available in Kindle and Softcover