I have had a number of people look me in the eye and ask this question. I asked myself this question numerous times during my dissertation. If you are reading this article then you are part of a very small group of pretty smart folks. Plus to get to this point, you have to be persistent, hardworking and determined. So why don’t you feel successful, full of vigor and looking forward to every day? 

About a month or two into the dissertation things change for many people. Classes were fun, regimented and you knew what to do. The new information in the textbooks and class discussions set your imagination on fire. Problems were your meat and they had better bow to your intellect. Someday soon you would walk down that hallway at work and folks would say “Good morning Dr. Thomas.”

Fast forward to now and what has happened? OK some of you do not want to go any further with this so just bear with me while I talk about those other people that need a little help (but not you). Go ahead and read more so maybe you can help a struggling Ph. D. bound friend. Let’s look at some facts. 

First of all every one of those folks who failed to earn the Ph. D. were just as smart as you. Let that sink in for a minute. They were just like you and had brains and ability beyond the norm. A mental trick you may pull is saying that they were not quite as skilled, intelligent or lucky as you. Your mind will try to put them into a different category and give you an assurance that you are much more wonderful. Wrong! Over and over I have heard bewildered successful docs tell me that they were amazed that they graduated since so many of those who did not in their group were much greater in skill or intellect. Many times I felt like a grasshopper surrounded by giants especially in the statistics/research classes. Yet I was one of only a few in our group that did graduate. The other two graduates were very smart and I was back in the pack, to be honest pretty far back in the pack.

So we start with you realizing you are no different and that means you have to figure out what landmine they stepped on and make sure that you do not. Do not blind yourself to the truth that a lot of folks just as gifted as you wiped out. Grounding yourself this way helps you to open your eyes and look at the actual situation. Then you test each hypothesis and figure out what works and what does not for you to succeed. Otherwise you cloud your thinking and figure you will succeed just because of who you are. Remember a lot of other folks felt that same way and they did not graduate.

Once you understand all of this then you want someone to give you a list of the five things to avoid so you can succeed. That does not work since each person has different weak areas. Some folks are perfectionists who load so much upon themselves that they literally wear out. They start out fast and look awesome but a doctorate is so complex that they end up buried in plans, data, complex presentations and back up plans for their back up plans. The disorganized that always managed to pull it off at the last minute cannot find things and misplace so much they drop out. The self-important suddenly realize they have no one around to impress and they shrivel up from a lack of constant admiration from those around them. Constant rejections and rewrites of dissertation chapters also does not help. 

Folks stray away from family and friends and that weakens resolve and support. Reinforcement drops and doctoral students can become a bit bitter. Huge sums of money are borrowed or diverted from other family members so that has its own side effects. Many former doctoral students talked about how secretly angry they were at friends or family member who came home from work and relaxed, watched TV or had time for shopping and fun stuff. You choose to work for the doctorate but as it grinds on everyone else sort of moves on without you.

So the skills you may need to master are in these areas not in advanced statistics, chemistry or mathematics. You realize other very qualified folks failed at this and you begin to watch your own responses and feelings. When something pops up from one of the areas above then you use that overly large brain of yours to analyze it and to put solutions in place. Fix these weaknesses and let your intellectual skills do their thing and get you through the degree program.

The dissertation process may seem so hard because outside of education variables are bringing you down and slowing you down. It is like being part of a 40 mile hike and deciding that you are going to ignore that large piece of gravel you can feel in your shoe because you have more important things to do. I am asking you to watch out for pieces of gravel in your life that suddenly pop up and to deal with them. If your spouse is not talking to you much or giving you angry looks then deal with it. Solve the problem and don’t just apologize, figure out what is not working. If you are exhausted and after 4 months of writing your dissertation have 3 rooms full of boxed material and two full hard drives, that is a problem. Step back from your degree and look at your life as a whole. Figure out what is out of whack and what needs to be fixed. This may help you to avoid some of the pitfalls that took place for other doctoral students.
Mind your goals,

Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Student Association

Sound crazy? It’s not. For some reason getting a doctorate becomes the center of your life. Many couples end up divorcing. It is always on your mind and you feel as though you can never relax or have fun. You expect everyone else, especially your spouse to understand what you are going through, yet you are constantly tense and angry which pushes them away. As working on the doctorate goes on and on and on, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It seems like it will never end. It feels like hell and you are never going to get off this treadmill. Fun is not even a word you remember.

I am here to tell you that you can make it. You can be successful. You can complete your doctorate and your marriage can survive and become even stronger through this process. I am Dr. Randy Parker’s wife. I have been there, done that. If we could survive this process so can you. There is no magic answer but there are some techniques we put in place after many years of struggling.

One night, after years of working on his doctorate, I caught Randy carrying his dissertation and all the research out to the burn barrel. He had seriously had it and was going to destroy all of it and be done with it. Hours and hours of work that could not be duplicated. Even though I was at the point of hating the dissertation, I told him to put the paperwork down and to wait one day. If he still felt the same, then he could burn everything and be done with it. Obviously the time paid off and gave him the space he needed to work through things. I have to be honest. I was so sick of the dissertation that it was tempting for me to let him burn it but then all the time and money would have been a waste. Needless to say he would have felt like a failure the rest of his life.

Ok, so how did we do it? Randy has put a number of techniques in his book but one that really stands out in my mind is what he calls the “hot potato” technique. For years, working on his dissertation was very aversive. You really don’t anticipate receiving tons of feedback and correction. Later, after you leave the meeting with your advisor you look at all the red correction and feel totally lost and defeated. Like you put in all those hours only to have to basically re-write everything again.  It became the norm to come away from the meeting feeling very frustrated and confused. He had no idea what direction to go in and the confusion just brought on more fear (of failure) and anxiety.  

What you have to remember is that this is a new learning experience for you. Up until this time, you have been a student following instructions. All of a sudden the ball is in your corner. On one hand you are supposed to be the expert on your dissertation but really you are still a student learning to put all the dissertation pieces together in a manner that makes sense and has a purpose.

We finally decided that if we did not make some changes and set some rules down that he would never finish. So whenever he met with his advisor, he would have one week to make the corrections and resubmit the work. The goal of the “hot potato” technique was to get the paper back to the advisor as fast as possible. If you wait months between submissions, they won’t even remember what you presented the last time. This can cause more confusion, change in direction and in the end taking much more time. Your advisors are very busy professors and it takes a lot of additional time to work with doctoral students on their dissertations. 

Once the dissertation was in for corrections, Randy would do nothing more on it until he received it back.  Now it was the advisors turn to work on it. This was Randy’s time to relax, watch a movie, play with the kids and enjoy his life.  Basically, after many years of the dissertation controlling his life, he finally took control and was able to not only enjoy his life again but become more productive. To go the distance, you must have down time where you are not thinking or working on the dissertation.

Do not work beyond the corrections you submitted. If you do, most likely it will be a waste of time as your advisor could have you go in a totally different direction. When it is in the advisor’s hands, it is your time to rest and recharge. When you get the corrections back, work hard, make the changes and move on. If your spouse understands the procedure, then they can be supportive during this time knowing that as soon as you are able to send the paper back in, you can enjoy family time again.

Remember the goal is to end up with your marriage and the doctorate. Include your spouse in the process. Have them review your work and make suggestions. Listen closely and accept their feedback. Don’t think that they are not smart enough to help you. This is a time to be humble. If they cannot understand what you are writing then it is not going to make sense to anyone else. Be positive and thankful for the time your spouse is willing to give you. Believe it or not, it can bring you closer together. On one occasion, Randy had to switch advisors after working on his dissertation for many months. His paper was so confusing after the feedback, I told him he would be better throwing out what he had written and start over. It was the hardest thing to tell him to do yet it gave him the fresh start he needed and put him on the road to completing his dissertation. 

So when you are struggling, do not give up. You are not stupid. Look how far you have come in your education. Most people never reach this point. Get help wherever you can and learn from those who have done it before you. Everyone has survival tips. Keep trying things until you find what works for you. Never lose sight of the fact that your family is the most important thing in your life. Getting your doctorate is not worth losing your family over. The good thing is that you can have both if you don’t let the dissertation become the center of your life.

Deborah Parker
National Doctoral Students Association

I urge you to stay away from thinking this way. You are in the degree process which is a long slow process. Your professors are off as well as the people running the college.  You need to walk away from your paper even if you are behind. In fact, hide the work so you do not see it every time you walk past. Others have told me they tossed a bed sheet over the desk and did not go near it for the duration of the holiday. Just the sight of the study materials is aversive and can cause stress and worry. A holiday is a time to relax, enjoy loved ones and recharge.

You get your strength from your relationships so this is a time to renew them.  So husbands,  go to that “girl movie” with your wife and take her out for “comfort” food afterward. I am talking about burgers, fries and milk shakes.  Throw in plenty of chocolate and TiVo a few of the Hallmark channel movies, some romantic westerns or contemporary movies with a struggle and a happy ending. Have fun, share some intimacy and sprinkle in some flowers and small gifts. Act like you are dating again, only this time do a better job of it.

For the wives, take your husband to a police, science fiction or zombie movie (even if it is not your kind of movie). Eat the comfort food noted above and TiVo the same Hallmark channel movies. I am a guy and I hated them at first but they grow on you and they are one hell of a husband trainer. I really enjoy them now and each week we have an at home date night and watch one with buttery popcorn and later some wine in front of the fireplace.  Share some intimacy and quiet time with no other distractions. 

If you are single, sometimes holidays can make you feel even more alone. Plug in the same ideas as mentioned above with friends, family or significant others. Remember, if you have been ignoring family, spouses, or friends they may not be able to shift gears as quickly as you might believe. So go slow, be supportive, and give them a little time to adjust to you being more involved again.

For many of you, if you are behind and you are mentally and physically exhausted, no quality work will be done over the holidays. If you recharge then you can hit it hard once the holidays are over. Your quality will be higher and you will have added to your stored energy that will get you to the next holiday.  You have to have joy and energy as you move forward. If you make every day the same as the last it gets dreary and you forget the excitement of the degree and what you want to get from earning it. You will lose the big picture and one day you may wake up and wonder why you are doing this? I mean you will really wonder “Why the hell am I doing this to myself?” It is like stepping into quicksand and the more you struggle with it the deeper you sink into confusion and depression. Let’s avoid this whole situation.

You have to have something to look forward to and holidays can be one of those glorious things on your horizon.  But the holidays must be a time of fun, adventure and release.  They must be full of exciting things, long hours of sleep and then wearing your pajamas all day and drinking expensive coffee or hot chocolate. If you are single this goes double for you.  Reconnect with friends and pamper yourself. 

You want to have so much fun that two things will happen. First you will dread the day your holidays end and you will be angry it is time to get back to work. This is a good sign you had some fun! Second you will look at the calendar and wistfully dream of the next holiday. That also is a good sign! You have something to look forward to, a point of rest or an oasis ahead. It will add to your motivation and it will be one more thing to carry you forward.

The Poindexters will have a flow chart of jobs to be done over the holidays each with an attached completion time. This will probably be color coded and referenced. As you march towards your degree it is like walking through a desert. You will see the bleached bones of these super smart Poindexters all over the desert trail. Each will have this very large color coded project notebook in the sand next to their bones. The truth is that many of them will burn out long before the end is reached like the guy in the western movie that drinks all his water too quickly.

This advice is not right for everyone but I give it as something to think about and to compare to your present plans.  Reconnect with loved ones/friends and engage in interesting things over your holiday. Schedule mini holidays a couple of months out and take a four day vacation.  Use the hot potato technique and stay strong my friends!

Mind your goals,

Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Students Association

Several folks who were working on their doctorate interested me because they were so focused. They were motivated despite all the setbacks. Each one I asked had the same answer that they described in different ways. They were being drawn upward by their goals.

 While I felt like I was carrying a large sack of heavy rocks up the mountain, they were being pulled up the mountain from above. We were all carrying the same big bag of heavy rocks defined as tough doctoral committees, missing research, computer break downs, lost data, lack of sleep and feelings of insecurity. Yet these folks were happy and filled with energy. OK I have to admit at first they kind of pissed me off. I mean I felt like they should suffer as much as I was. 

But these folks took things in stride and seemed a lot happier than I was. So I asked them a lot of questions. Later after I graduated when I talked to doc students who were like this I continued to ask questions. I had this idea if I could bottle whatever their secret was I could make a lot of money. If I couldn’t bottle it then maybe I could make it into some kind of book or training course. 

Their secret was pretty simple, so no great money making training course for me. These folks had their eye on who they would affect once they graduated.  I mean when they talked about it I felt like I was there in their future. They could see the next big job, a well-paying job, once they graduated. They could see the toys for their kids, the bigger house, the gift for their sweet heart, husband or wife. 

They saw how their getting the doctorate would help their children. They saw specifically what they could do more for their kids, spouse and extended family. Those who were single thought about a future family. They saw it clearly in their minds and they lived it now in the middle of the struggle to finish the degree. They also saw the folks who would benefit from the better battery they would design, the improved social services agency or the future students they would teach as they stood at the front of the classroom as doctor such and such. Big powerful dreams. 

They even saw the people who would benefit from the doc student graduating. Talking to these doc students they had their own built in internal cheering section. They talked about future co-workers who would be working together with them. Some talked about the clients they would help or the devices they would design, improve or invent. I always felt better talking to these folks and was motivated myself for a few days after the interaction. I love getting calls or emails from folks like this. 

Does their style work? If you are in a doctoral program now does reading about this way of thinking anger you a bit? If so then you may be using the system that I used. To me I grumbled about a lot of what I had to do. I had a great doctoral committee and a supportive family but I sort of felt like the university ought to have just recognized my brilliance and given the degree to me. You can see I was focused more on me and grumbling. The people above focused on how they could impact their family and coworkers and also their field of study. I struggled upward and these folks were pulled up a bit by their clear positive goals. We all faced the same struggles but they had an easier trip. My friends I would suggest that you try their way.

Mind your goals,

Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Students Association

The perky and somewhat aggressive young doc student looked me in the eye and asked “the” question. I hear it from time to time and sometimes I answer it differently depending on my mood. She wanted to let me know that she was too busy to read some blog or website. She wanted me to cut to the chase and give her the one or two things that she needed to know to graduate with a doctorate. 

I had to laugh since she was the perfect example of what not to do. I waited for the expected mini explosion when I gave her the answer. Instead of an explosion or bad words directed at me she settled for scorn. And an “Icy Scorn” at that. I would apologize for making her so mad but let’s face it she won’t be reading my website again. To her I am some sort of moron.

I see these eager young doctoral students on one hand and then I run into recently graduated doctoral folks. One group is so sure of themselves and the other group is tired, unsure, deeply in debt and in a bit of a fuzzy state. After about a year the graduated docs are feeling their energy return and have new job offers and are looking forward to new excitement in their lives. The newly graduated docs all say the same thing “How in the hell did I manage to graduate?” They all talk about people who did not make it and dropped out. 

What I told the perky young graduate student was something found often in our website. We warn folks that many people have started the same degree program and have not completed it. We warn that many folks go far into debt and do not finish and have little to show for it. Then we try to get the students to see that the people who failed were just like them. 
What I hear then is a lot of yes but statements. Yes but they did not have my drive, looks, connections, brilliance, preparatory education etc. I calmly tell them they are not hearing me and remind them that yes the folks that failed were just as bright, connected, good looking and many had exceptional tutors and schooling. Yet they failed. 

I have no clue what the percentage of folks that start a doctoral program and fail actually is since it is counted in so many ways. Worse I think the actual numbers are sort of hidden away or folks would not pay all that money. I saw an article a few weeks ago in a financial website saying only about 2% of the doctoral students who start actually graduate. I have no idea if that is right or not and I am not pushing it. I know in the end about one percent of the population in the United States have doctoral degrees. I teach that in one of my courses from the textbook. About seven percent have masters’ degrees and around thirty percent are bachelors’ level. 

So my advice to the young doc student was to try to figure out why so many folks drop out when so many are the cream of the academic world. She should focus on how much like her they all were instead of smugly figuring how much better she is than them. You go into rugged unknown terrain with a map and a compass and a GPS but still take the other things just in case. 

She was banking on how awesome she was and ignoring how awesome those who did not make it were also. She did not like my approach, my clue to this was the word moron directed at my humble self. Let me give you my side. 
If all of you are pretty much gifted then it is something that causes you to not use your skills that causes failure. That is why we go over and over the same general stuff in this website. We teach you how to pace yourself, overcome your fears of your committee and small tricks of the trade for keeping your support people. It is along the line of what do you want, what are you doing and do these things match up? It is a lot of common sense and not much sparkle. The articles are things I learned from my own trails and from many others who share with me. These past doctoral students sharing their ideas are ones who made it and also those who did not graduate.  

So pay attention. The people who did not graduate from a doctoral program were just like you.  Read our articles and see what they want to share with you. Read the articles over and over from time to time. What worked and what tripped these folks up? Pay attention!

Mind your goals,

Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Students Association

To succeed and get your doctorate you must have a lot of motivation. You must reach deep inside yourself and pull off what few other folks can do. Just reading the news today I have found out we are heading for inflation, deflation, a worldwide depression, race wars and economic collapse. I will not even get into the social injustice claims, supposed incompetent if not evil folks running for office in both parties or the gaggle of experts telling us we supposedly eat the wrong things, are too fat, lazy and most everything causes cancer. My favorites were the articles about our money turning worthless due to massive worldwide debt. So do you feel motivated after reading all that hyped up drivel? 

Now some of this stuff may actually be true. My point is that it is hard to tell with so many folks pushing one thing or another. Most of it is emotion grabbing and crafted to grab your attention. Do you feel any stronger after reading all of this or do you suddenly want to take a nap? So how is your motivation? Ready to take on the world and whip up one heck of a magnificent doctoral dissertation. Ready to cat wrangle a few unruly and surly doctoral committee members? Why not?

Many folks who start a doctoral degree do not finish. If you want to be one of the ones who do finish then you need to get control of you. I’d like to tell you that those of us who made it are the smartest, best looking and best performing folks in the world. I’d like to tell you we (at least the males) are a cross between James Bond, Albert Einstein and McGyver. I tell myself that all the time. But for you my readers I must be honest. What we did was control the environment around us. We did not leak our energy into worrying about any of the stuff noted above. 

The news and other people will tell you there are no jobs, economic times are hard and failure is ahead. You do not have time for that type of crap. You keep all of that away from you and focus on your goal. You have fun and take time off. You spend time with family but you stay away from the negative and work on what you know that you can do. You rest when you can and then you pound away at the next segment of your goal. If a close friend is against you then you shut him/her out as much as possible. They may just be jealous and want you back in the pack of friends like you were before. Time to leave them behind (or minimize interactions) and pick up the friendship when you have graduated. 

You have only so much energy, both emotional and physical. Yes you can use goals to pull you along. I talk a lot about that but this message is about conserving what are your core beliefs. There are so many psychological studies about folks will and responses being bent by the social setting around them. So choose your environment so that you are supported and stay away from the constant onslaught of news, people and relatives that drag you down. Negative news sells and people click on it or turn to the flashy negative message. After reading all the negative drivel you start to wonder if you will ever find a good job. Next you start to wonder if you should just stop chasing the degree. Time after time this happens and you start to wear down and one day you just walk away from the degree process. 

Do not let that happen to you. No one can read the future and most of this negative crap is just “experts” predictions. So many times predictions are just wrong. They are basically people’s guesses. When you stand up there in front of hundreds of people and are given your degree that is real. When you apply for a job and are qualified and get hired that is real. If bad times do arrive then you will be one of the degreed experts who help solve problems. Focus on the real and ignore the hype. If things weaken you then cut them out of your life until you have graduated. Do not let the internet and news services shape your dreams and your future. Arrange your environment to support and strengthen you. 

Mind your goals,

Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Students Association

Do you? Do you really? Did you write down your goals when you started the dissertation or way back when you started your doctoral classes? Are your goals specifically about what you want to accomplish with your dissertation research or are they general goals? I remember one student telling me his goal was to get his doctorate. That was it. That was his goal. 

It became clear to me very fast why he was totally lost and sinking out of sight on dissertation completion. He had done quite well completing his classes. He had specific instructions from each professor on what to read and write. He knew what chapters to study for his examinations. Now writing the thesis he was lost. He had no starting point and no end point in mind. He could blab on and on about the chemical reactions and science stuff that made my head swim. But he could not explain to me in a few sentences what the heck he was trying to do and how he would measure it. 

He was a great technician and would be very impressive working under someone but not as a leader trying to discover something new. He was not going to move science forward, create new processes or procedures. He was not going to measure new relationships or solve new problems. He would do well following a well-travelled mapped out route. 

Doctoral folks are first arrival folks who think outside of the box (at least in their area of expertise). You use that big brain to look around and wonder why things work the way that they do.  You explore how to make things do what others have not been able to make them do before. A good doctoral person can work his/her magic in the hard sciences and the softer sciences. Some will go on to build businesses, enrich companies and maybe even help a lot of folks that they will never meet. 

But to get to this point you have to have goals. Ugh, you say he is talking about the dammed goals again. That is because goal making for most of us sucks, I mean the process really sucks. You sit there and think and it seems unnatural.  You have to make your own map and that is boring, you want to jump in and do things. But a good doc does not use other folk’s maps, he or she has to chart out a new course and move forward. You can use prior researchers work as your starting point but you must design your own. 

Your committee will give you guidance but it can go three different ways at the same time and they may not have a clear idea of where you want to go because you are not sure. If you are not sure where you are going or what you want to do next, then you are not giving them the feedback they need to help you. Yes it all comes back to you….sorry.
 
So how do you come up with goals that keep you moving forward? An easy method was discussed by Brian Tracy in several of his motivational books. Brian started as a high school dropout and went back and got his diploma. Later he finished college and his books are in 36 languages and he has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in training and motivational materials.

He suggests that a person write out ten goals on a plain sheet of paper each day. I think you could do it even with 5 goals a day. Each day you get up and write out the 5 most important goals to you. When I do it I get a mixture of short term and long term goals and they change from day to day. The first two weeks I wrote out the same 10 goals that I thought were important to me but now they jump all over the place. Some are long term goals that I need to remind myself about every couple of days and others are short term goals that I need to do today.

For you, this means every day you get up and grab a blank sheet of paper and write out 5 goals and as the days go by your mind begins to work for you. Instead of avoiding goals you start to think in terms of goals and how to achieve them. You knock off the “for today” goals and think about the ones for later this week. You try to avoid the ones that pop into your mind that you do not want to complete. These are the ones like set up another meeting with your doctoral committee or go to the library and get more research on a particularly hard topic. But each time these unpleasant goals pop up they become easier to approach. You habituate towards them and they become less emotional for many folks. 

The hard goals will pop in from time to time and prepare you for things you would rather put off. But the daily goal procedure keeps you moving forward. It expands your thinking and it is a painless way to ponder the future. It is great to cross off a goal or two each day and it starts a self-reinforcing loop. 

This simple daily goals process (DGP) will stop you from freezing up or getting lost. When the winds of academia try to blow you off course, the goals will help you focus. When the demands of family, work or having fun pull you away from your academic work, the daily goal process will help you to focus on long and short term goals. 

The daily goals process is not quite the same as your long term or step by step formal dissertation goals. But it is a nice way to keep you on task and not running from your daily academic work. Sometimes layering in these simple techniques will take some of the pressure of the whole doctoral process from your shoulders. Several successful doctoral folks used this technique. I hope that it helps you as well. 

Mind your goals,
Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Student Association

One of the main ideas that we hint at over and over is the fact that most doctoral students are pretty smart and have better than average skills. Yet many fail and are not even sure why the dream of achieving a doctorate turns to ashes. Listening to many who fail, one hears the astonishment in their voices as to what happened. They are never quite sure where it all went off track and can point to no one event that trashed their dreams. 

We keep suggesting that it is a bunch of small events that undermine them but many want to point to a bad committee member or stupid university. Our theory is a series of events like an infestation of carpenter ants that invade a home and eat out the support beams and ruin an otherwise well-built home. Small behaviors and habits that you ignore can undermine you.

So over and over we keep gently reminding folks to watch the small simple things. Our work has been called (by a few) simplistic, retarded and even delusional yet we all graduated and have moved on with our degrees to better jobs and lives. So let’s look at another one of those simplistic ideas.

As you move forward in your degree process it is important to watch the clues the environment and your peers are giving you. You become so obsessed with the equations, material strengths in metals, or effects of cross breeding glia cells that you lose focus on yourself. So use your surroundings as a mirror. Are people avoiding you, including you or have you become invisible? Do you only talk about your dissertation work and things going wrong? When was the last time you did something (anything) for another person? 

Have you become gray? Are you a colorless blob of living cells that has no connection with others? Do you see nothing exciting about this day you have been allowed to experience? Have you exercised your body recently by walking, weight lifting or running? Does anything or everything seem like too much work for you to even think about unless it is about your dissertation? Does anything bring you joy anymore? If not, then you are in the gray zone and you are in trouble. I am not sure if you will graduate. 

Steve was a few cohorts ahead of me in our doctoral program. While I was still taking my last courses he had started his dissertation writing. He was in his late thirties or early forties. He ended up working as a contracted expert for my organization, so I worked with him professionally for a year or so. He wore this nineteen fifties type of hat and on him it seemed to fit. He dressed like a professor and was pretty smart with an air of learning and professorship around him. He worked very hard on his doctoral degree and then he disappeared with no reason. 

Six months later in my doctoral dissertation seminar (the class we took as we started to write our dissertation), his wife visited our classroom. She appealed for our help to convince the university to give her husband an honorary doctorate. He had been diagnosed with a fast moving brain cancer and was soon to die. She and his children wanted him to die with the prize he had worked so hard to obtain. What a wonderful wife who loved and honored her husband. From everything I heard Steve was not in the gray zone.

So my warning to you is to make sure you are not living in the gray zone because tomorrow is not promised to any of us. If the degree has pushed all of the joy and brightness out of your life then something is wrong. You can enjoy your life and complete the degree successfully and that is why we exist here at this website. The gray zone is another trap that you must avoid. A small piece of how to succeed. 

You should continue to live a full life and you can do this as you succeed. Just be aware of the toll the degree can take on you and counter this by enjoying your life and keeping your family and friends close to you. Share in the day to day joys of this world because you may not live to the end and the degree should not cause you to miss life. You will miss some things (and some sleep) grabbing for the next educational goal but you can still have a good time as you move forward. You get what you expect in life so expect a good life as you move forward to achieve the doctoral degree. 

We want you healthy and happy as you move forward.

Mind your goals,
Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Students Association

I ran into the unit day room responding to emergency radio call. I found the huge client holding a small staff person tightly with a large butcher knife to her throat. I stopped about 12 feet away speechless. The client was screaming loudly and I looked around and saw the security chief and about four of his team. He was a fit ex-military type who spoke little and carried an air of confidence. Since I had been on the job less than a few weeks I was glad he was there to take charge. 

He slowly moved up to me and said I was the hot shot behavior analysis person hired all the way from Detroit so he and his men would step back out of the way and respond as I directed. He and they then all faded back to the walls and tried to look inconspicuous.  My carefully constructed view of how the world should be sort of fell apart right there.

Everyone was looking at me from the screaming client to the staff and security personnel. Worst of all the staff person was looking down at the floor and then up to me. This my friends is stress and the higher your educational level the more you deny that it affects you. In fact stress changes your body and it affects your mind and memory. Doctoral students who have too high an opinion of themselves deny it has any affect upon them. Doctoral students who fail to plan for and disarm stress may burn out, lose ability or make more mistakes than usual. Too much stress results in a flight or fight response and can make even simple tasks aversive.

My extreme (but actual) example is a mini lesson in what stress does to you. Despite working with troubled, angry and sometimes dangerous folks for years most of my skills and knowledge vaporized in that setting. Staff later told me how calm I looked. Inside I was saying things to myself about needing to polish my shoes. I stopped hearing the client and looked at my shoes and kept talking to myself and asking myself what I should do. Time did slow down and I wondered how far carotid artery blood would spurt out and if it would hit me. I wondered if I would have to go to the funeral or if I could even face the staff member’s family. But each time I grabbed for a technique, strategy or solution all I got was empty conversation in my head.

I taught three types of different physical management systems, had taken basic instruction in several types of marital arts and worked with university experts in behavior control. All of it at this time was gone since one wrong word or action could result in the staffs serious injury or death. I had never faced a client with a butcher’s knife. It was too late to chew out the food staff who had left the knife on the food delivery steam cart. We were in over my head. Stress took a heck of a lot of my memory, problem solving and reasoning abilities in a very short time. It also reduced the feeling of confidence that goes with being a competent professional and resourceful person. 

As a doctoral student you face stress but it creeps in quietly on many fronts. Examples of stress producers include papers that are due, dissertation chapters, arguments with committee members and borrowing money to complete your degree. The feeling that you can never take time off to rest and time away from loved ones are other stress variables. While I lost ability in a stress filled life and death moment yours may build up due to many small assaults that leave you tired, confused and avoiding instead of running to meet your giant head on. People may say that you do not look or act like you did before. That is a good clue that you are fading a bit from stress or lack of sleep.

Each of you is different so I cannot tell you what you need to do in this post. My job here is to open you up to what is a danger to you and your completion of the doctoral degree. You must face this challenge and to do that you must recognize it and attack it with a wealth of solutions. Instead of reading the negative news each day get a book or two on overcoming stress. Spend your time figuring out how to overcome this issue instead of what bad is happening to the world. When you have graduated go ahead and dive back into the world of crime, politics and gossip. For now focus on solutions for you. 

So the message is that this is a real danger and you need to put your over-sized brain to work on what works for you and your family to beat this monster and put it back in its place. Strolling through life denying that it affects you is a bad move. Get ahead of it and attack it by removing the effects. Lots of sleep, good food, planned time off and recreational time will help you. I have spoken to a number of doctoral folks who tell me that stress is no problem for them. It seems they feel that their big brain allows them all sorts of freedom from stress that the little people do not have. I think they are wrong and do not want you to make this type of mistake. 

To end my story I calmed and remembered some of my training and it turned out well. A couple of techniques were used and the knife went down and the staff was released. The client never engaged in that type of behavior again and no knives were ever accidentally delivered to the locked unit again. I was so shaken up I never went to the staff to ask about her condition and I did not even send her home on paid leave. The stress even with the incident over still had me only using part of my skills. I feel shame to this day I was so callous. But stress can take away a lot of your normal skill levels. This includes how you treat those around you. Watch for stress in your life and learn how to overcome it. This will help you!

Mind your goals,

Dr. Randy Parker
National Doctoral Students Association

Bax, Dren and Chloe,

You are not resting! You think you are but my guess is that you are pushing all the time. What do people want with the Ph. D. program? They want to finish it and they want the work and the waiting to end. After the first 9 months or so of dissertation writing it becomes a real drag. The reinforcement you got from other students in doctoral classes is gone. You are alone. No one wants to be alone. So you push harder and harder. Your believe that your will is going to move this damn thing and it will end soon, only it does not. 

In the past your will, drive and determination moved mountains but not so much here. Those who have had a life threatening illness understand. You cannot force long term circumstances to change quickly. Those people who are one week into a ten week Marine Corp or Army basic training boot camp understand what I am saying. It just keeps going on and on. The challenge continues to escalate and you reach your limits. No matter how great your will or determination the process runs its course and you are burning yourself out.

Those who continue to push on will start to expand their ability. In many cases their skills and work quality goes up to a new level. A number of people drop out and walk away before reaching this point. Some of the folks reading this site will drop out. I hope we help a few of you to make it. That is my dream that I can help a few more to graduate. We do that by preparing you and that makes us sound a little negative sometimes but you are not facing an easy stroll ahead of you. 

So read and reread the various articles here and let it sink into you. Look for other assistance since we are only a small piece of the big picture. Then listen to the suggestions and get some rest! Put weekends on your schedule and walk away from the dissertation. Really rest and have so much fun that you hate to go back to the grind on Monday. Put in rest periods and schedule them so that you look forward to them.

Rested you will attack your dissertation and ideas will flow into you. Being half rested results in avoidance behavior, escape behavior and low quality work. Each of you sound either mad, exhausted or confused. That leads to crappy work! This should be clear but your PRIDE will not allow you to realize you are not managing your selves as well as you could be. Your problems are not due to the college, the professors or an unfair world. You are failing where others have succeeded because you are not managing your own behaviors and thoughts. Walk away (briefly), rest up and return recharged and it will not look so bad.

I want to thank each of you for your communications. I see now folks are hearing the rest suggestions but I am not speaking loud enough about how to respond once you are rested. I will talk to the brain trust and get some ideas on how to make this clearer.  We need an article on that.

Warmest regards, (Keep going!)

Dr. Parker