Are You Overthinking Your PhD?

By |2024-09-30T16:07:35+00:00September 30th, 2024|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Earlier this year I ended up in a strength assessment workshop for professionals in a social club in Cape Town. Think tennis courts, bowling and croquet greens (really!), a cricket pitch, a ballroom, a swimming pool with a view of Table Mountain, a sushi bar, palm trees, the works!

I was invited by my friend and Cape Town host Gen. After a fantastic visit in 2023 I am trying to make my trips to Cape Town a regular feature, and this year I succeeded and I was back in town. A place had opened up in this workshop she was attending for work: would I be interested in going? Well yes, I would!

Now to be honest I wasn’t expecting much from the strengths assessment test. I thought it would be something like the Myers-Briggs assessment, or any of the many tools for personal development out there. I was there more because it was a unique invitation, and I wasn’t going to let that opportunity to taste a bit of SA life slip. But when I dutifully filled out the test to my surprise a profile popped up that described me pretty well!

(So much so in fact that I have ended up in some of the promotional material of the lady who organised the event, as they were recording when I was telling her how well!)

What I naturally bring: agile mind, excellent thinker, enjoys musing, brings new and fresh perspectives, finds life intriguing, understands and appreciates the uniqueness in all individuals. Check, check, check and check!

But equally interesting was what they call the ‘basement’ of each of these strengths, and this is where I will get into the PhD bit.

Four out of five of my top five strengths according to this system are in strategic thinking. These strengths are mostly conceptual. I am very good at thinking, as probably you are too!

However, the negative side of these strengths read something like: slow to act, wastes time thinking too much, lacks focus on results, learns a lot, produces little! (I am only a little offended here.)

Now obviously, compared to any other profession, academics need to err on the side of thinking too much, rather than thinking too little! But I realised looking at these results that ‘thinking too much’ was one of the main habits I changed to successfully finish my PhD in the very few hours a day I had available.

At the time I realised I had to get out of my own way. I had to trust myself and just get it done, rather than spend more time thinking. Or worse: spend time worrying about how it was going! You can even start worrying that you’re worrying too much etc. There are endless meta levels here!

The muscle I had to train was that of being disciplined in consistently doing the next task, write that next paragraph etc. which would allow me to keep the PhD moving towards completion. I had to decide to become unapologetically forward-moving!

Interestingly, as a result the whole process started to flow and just work better.

It was an epiphany, honestly. Not overthinking my thinking. And making sure I didn’t get stuck there, but rather to keep it moving.

What about you? Are you overthinking your PhD?

If you’d like to know exactly how I stopped the pattern of overthinking consider getting my course, as I walk you through the process step by step.

As a start: observe and start recognising when you’re in this pattern, and choose to finish something tangible in your next work session. It could be just a paragraph. But make it real – get it from your head onto the page.

You can do this!

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