The down side of achieving

So I realised my blog has become sort of a psychological analysis of scientific career. This is ok - I've been told to write about stuff that genuinely interests you, so I will keep going as long as I feel I have anything to say :).

So far I've scratched the surface of such topics that all deal with staying on top of things: e.g. how to deal with competition at work, and how to raise your self-esteem to make the best of your capabilities. However, there is a down side that goes with whenever you accomplish something. When you have spent much energy on achieving a certain goal, and you actually achieve it, you expect to be happy. However, this is when you might also get feelings of loneliness, emptyness and lack of purpose.

I guess this is quite common. Your expectations are often high for whatever-it-may-be, and achieving is no exception. I bet we've all been there at some points of our lives when you become surprised of your own emotions. After putting all your efforts into becoming successful, be it the dream job you are hunting for (and getting it); finishing a degree; getting an excellent grade in exam. Anything that involves huge commitment and loads of work that gets you where you want to be is extremely rewarding - and completely worthwhile - includes this most likely a hidden thought which only occurs to you when you have reached the goal. What now..?

Always plan a few steps ahead

It is quite evident, but maybe not always easy to remember that when you are busy working you should not stay in that comfort zone. Nothing is forever - this is why it is good to sometimes stop and think through your plans. What am I aiming for? What if I don't get it? What if I do get it? Making things concrete often help your thinking process.

It may not be wise to focus only on one thing. No matter what will be the result - you get or don't get what you want - there will always be the time that comes after. Visualizing that time (and how you embrace it) is as important as how you plan your way of getting there.

Accept that you may not be fully satisfied with your achievement

This is often most powerful way of dealing with almost anything, at least for me: accepting. It may not be easy but it works for almost any discomforting thought you may have. Just by visualizing the current situation as realistic as you can with all the flaws (in you and in the surrounding) you come to terms with it. It may seem depressing but oddly, after doing this you feel relieved and can move on.

Get ready for surprises

Training your brain for something unexpected is probably the skill I would most want to have. There will always be surprises, and things never turn out exactly the way you imagine and dream they would. Understanding this will save you a considerable amount of time and energy.

What are your thougths? Have you ever felt empty or in discomfort when you should be feeling happy - and felt bad for that? What did you do?

Thougths about self-confidence

On a Sunday (The day off of the week), I came home after doing all the "compulsory" day-off activities (including an afternoon nap, nice dinner, the gym class I forced myself to go, and also some housekeeping tasks) I felt the sunday-mood, and realised that it's been exactly 10 days since I wrote anything in my blog! So, I wanted to think of a topic, and the first that came to my mind, and most likely one of my favorite topics (all my friends probably know this) is self-confidence.

To me it has almost always been quite obvious that my self-confidence is not at the level where it ought to be. Be it the Finnish modesty, having amazingly accomplished friends, or choosing the career with low success rate (we can discuss this point, though), I always had this feeling in my head that I will not accomplish anything really great.

Thinking about it I realised this is quite crazy! I live in one of the best countries of the world (with that I mean education-wise, social system-wise, and standards of living) - so I have the best opportunities to accomplish anything I ever want - and I told myself I've got to work on these thoughts of my low self-image. Here are some points I came up with.

1. Compete with yourself, not with the others

I talked about this in my previous post too, but it is so easy to compare yourself with others. I don't want to repeat what I already said but I thought listing this point here is important in the context of self-esteem. The only thing that ultimately matters is how you yourself view your accomplishments. Setting goals that work for you are the key thing here, and making yourself work for them (they should be such that they matter to you and you genuinely want to fight for them).

2. Eating, excercising and sleeping

Ok - you can disagree. Maybe these things have absolutely nothing to do with self-confidence thougths. But I realised that whenever I am putting myself down, I have probably forgotten one of these (either slept too little, eaten unhealthy or haven't taken the time to excercise). So I would list them here as those pillars that set your mind to the right place.

3. Positive self-perception

Easy to say but how to do this? Some things to try are to list things you have done today that you are proud of. It does not have to be something big, simple things will do. It's surprising that actually there are quite many.

4. Courage to be exactly who you are - and at the level where you are

Some things that I think many young people starting their careers experience is the feeling that everyone else is faster, better and smarter than you are. Then, to compensate for this, oddly, you might start to act like you know more than you actually do - and this is not a smart thing to do. Instead, the person who dares to admit the mistakes they make (and everyone makes them, no matter how experienced you are) is actually viewed as a mature and genuine colleague at work.

I am hoping to get a comment, please tell me what are your experiences on these points listed above. Did I forget something?

Persistence - and the lack of it?

Thanks guys! 320 reads by now, wow: that's way more than I ever expected! Please tell me, who are you? Don't be shy to comment :)!

Tonight I thought to write a short comment on persistence. This is what I heard from a good friend at the uni: talent=10% and persistence is 90% of the work, and the possibility of getting your PhD done one day.

Trust me. This is truly something I struggle with! And no, I don't think I can blame my parents for my difficulties - they provided me a childhood where I could get almost anything (my older sister says I was a princess in her eyes, which probably is partly true) but it really comes down to my own personality. I must say this is not one of my natural characteristics. I really want things easy. I want to feel content, I do not like uncomfort and feeling of being on the edge. Nope, I am truly a comfort-looking person and selfish in that I think the world is there to satisfy all my needs.

Well, making a PhD is not what I just described. There are days you feel you have no idea if any of what you are doing is any good (you are in the end the only expert in your business, and nobody else knows whether you are in the right track or not). You have moments of desperation when you feel like you want to quit right that moment and do something "more important". I bet I am not the only one who's struggling with this kind of thoughts.

In the end I have chosen this path. I have voluntarily accepted of working long hours for very little money. And there is lots of talk out there on how in Finland the number of unemployed doctors is continuing to grow. So I ask, where does the motivation come from?

About time I give some constructive tips on how to deal with this:

1. Do not listen to your negative thoughts

We experience many thoughts at all times. They come and go. When you decide to do something, there is no point listening to the thougths that go against that plan. So, don't give these kind of thoughts too much power!

2. Remember to remind yourself that you have already gotten so far, and that was by your own means!

There is nobody (except maybe sometimes your mum) who will tell you how great you are and that you are making progress. Take a habit of looking at your accomplishments - no matter how small they may feel to you. Embrace all of them, or write them down, even. You are the person who has brought yourself to this point, and it has taken a lot of work!

3. It's ok not to be productive all the time

When you read facebook, talk to people and observe: everyone around you appears so productive! They have families to raise, they are great at their jobs, they have several demanding hobbies (and they look great too!). This is not necessarily true. It is common to people to give a good impression on themselves. When you are putting all your efforts in your work, it sometimes feels as if you are not as productive or as successfull as everyone else. So first of all, this is not necessarily the case, and being hard on yourself is not helping you to accomplish anything. So it's ok - your work is progressing, and you are doing well, although you may not always notice it.

How to deal with competition

So far my blog has received 131 reads! Proud of that I wanted to write some more.

Now, a slightly different topic - and at a first glimpse maybe a bit depressing one: competition in the academic life. I thought to embrace this, often quite controversial issue early in my blog. I find personally that this is something that you hear almost everyday at work, from your colleagues and friends. I cannot name anyone who has not experienced it. But how to deal with it? It's not always easy, and there is at least one day in everyone's career when I'm certain that even the most successful people question whether they are in the right field. I have seen so many books and other writings on the topic but rarely the advice is so practical or honest. Here's my thoughts on competition.

 

How can you deal with your friends being your competitors?

In a field that's highly competitive, it is almost inevitable that some of your best friends become your worst competitors. What to do then? My advice would be that when your self confidence is in place, you will be happy if your friend succeeds. If your friend gets just the job you wanted, maybe that job wasn't for you in the first place. Or perhaps she/he will be able to speak for you if another position opens up in that organisation.

The worst fear - what if I am not good enough?

I think there are two kinds of fears in this category: you feel that you are not good enough compared to others or that you are not good enough to yourself. Comparing is easy so here it's good to look in the mirror and ask yourself, why do I compare myself to this or this person? I would say it's healthy to have people to look up to, and in these cases I'd observe and learn the most I can from them. In the case of jealousy. it should go straigt to the garbace - it's only destructive.

The worst fear, however, is that you will fail yourself. What if you cannot accomplish what you have pictured yourself accomplishing? I have experienced this type of thoughts, and I bet everyone has (who has a normal self perception). To me, here it helps to think that what is my true ambition? And is it what I want to do coming from my heart? Then, even if I fail it does not matter. It's the cause, not my own accomplishment, that counts. Some good teachers have told me (this was actually from a violin lesson, though) "play the composer's music, not the instrument" - and I think this works for science as well.

How can I balance my life so that I don't get a burnout?

I have been there too, on the verge of a burnout. I had a momentarily feeling that I'm losing it and what I'm doing is pointless. Nowadays, I have comletely different attitude towards work than what I used to those days. No matter how hard you are working, there will always be people who are better than you, more hard working than you and people who will tell you that you are not working hard enough. Even if you work 24/7, you will hear this. So - don't listen to them. Make your own goals, and even if you don't reach them, it doesn't matter. Just make a new goal! It's only work after all. There's so many other things in life as well, don't ever forget that. If it starts feeling like work is too big a part of your life, take a vacation. Go to a trip, or whatever that makes yourself happy. The mind cannot be creative if we don't listen to it.

Also, rarely you will get compliments and thank yous in working environment that is very competitive and short of funding. There's no way around this, except just to get used to it. It's good to tell yourself everyday that you have made it this far, and thanking yourself for the great job you've done.


I would like to hear, what are your worst fears? How have you confronted them? Thanks for sharing!

How to write science?

I'm lucky to have access to great teaching at the University and to receive comments from colleagues along the way. I hope I'll be able to make use of all this information!

At first it seems quite a challenge starting to write a scientific article. What makes it scientific and how can you write so that my message will be understood? I thought I'd list here some of my favorite writing tips I've gotten so far. What are your tips? I'd be happy to hear them.

Getting to the point

It seems to be common among researchers to write long (and often, to be honest, boring) texts. In my opinion, if you want to write descriptive stories you should perhaps sign up a creative writing class, not a doctoral school in science.

Whether I will remember to follow this tip in my own article, of course, remains to be seen... Easily I can write several paragraphs to describe something - just as I think it's so interesting what I'm working on. But the truth is that not everyone thinks that way. To be scientific one should be precise and to the point, at least that's what they say.

 

Well planned is half-way done

To be honest, I did not really follow this one through. I started my PhD in a research group with a ready-made research plan where I could just jump in and bring in some of my own thoughts while most of the plan was already "carved in stone" when I started.

If I could start over, I would first sit down and think what topic fascinates me the most in the field, and I'd pick a research idea that is truly something I'm ready to put all the hours in for. However, I still think it's good to be part of a group. You get to share ideas and work on things together. That's what I personally like a lot - you know you are not alone even when you get stuck.

 

Correcting the "speling mistakes"

To be able to follow one's text, and to be taken seriously, it's important to write in proper English. It's surprising but I have found myself reading (even published) work that's really hard to follow. No matter how exciting the topic would be, I will probably stop reading before reaching the main point of the text.

Learn from the experienced

I have read several articles by an evolutionary biologist in my field, Andrew Hendry, based in McGill, Canada. He has published his tips about writing and I like his ideas. They can be found here: http://redpath-staff.mcgill.ca/hendry/writingtips.pdf

Day one (creation of the blog)

Writing - how to start..

The life of PhD student can become quite lonely at times and I thought it's time I found my own blog! I have no idea yet as to who will potentially read it but I am hoping that fellow grad students might like to share their thoughts about making it through their PhDs - as they most likely also have days when they would like to have their ideas commented and refreshed with new input. I will start by telling what it's like to write my first manuscript!! Exciting!



This is how it looks outside my house while
I'm trapped inside with my computer,
a huge cup of tea and a blanket.

First, I started with the introduction. I do have a general idea what will go there: I want to first explain why my topic is important. Although there are many who research the field I do, there are not many (or maybe any) who's doing it exactly the same way I am. So there is a need for this work - this is my main message in the introduction.

Then a technical thing: putting the citations in place is a tedious task..! But luckily I am learning to use EndNote, and managed to download my citations there. Now this task is a lot easier!

Together with the intro I am building the materials and methods. This is meant to be there so anybody can reproduce the study I did, and so enough detail is needed.

Let's see how it goes from here onwards!