About This Episode

Have you ever wished that someone told you about some important things before starting a Ph.D.? Well, in this episode, I’m sharing 5 things I wished someone told me before I started my Ph.D.

1) Learn how to ask for help.

Even though you might not have many resources, budget, or cash flow to be able to acquire help but you must be able to ask for help from people around you. Learn to know when to ask for help. Learn what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses.

You can’t do it all by yourself, therefore get the help you need.

2) Make backups!

How frustrating it is to prepare everything ready before your big presentation or deadline, but find it crush at the last minute? This happened to me many times and I since then invested in using Google Docs as my backup storage. Use any cloud storage services and make sure to always have your important documents sync to the cloud.

The last thing that you want to happen is to lose all your important work before a big deadline.

3) Self-discipline

Self-discipline is more important than ever
When we’re on a Ph.D. journey for ourselves we don’t have someone telling us where we need to be, what we need to do, what we need to focus on all of the time. We as a leader, Ph.D. candidates have to decide all of those things by ourselves. Decision-making muscle is something you need to learn to flex in every way, not just for your Ph.D., but in life. It can be really confusing when all of sudden you found that you can work on your own terms, on your own hours, this is when that discipline comes into play.

How do you keep track of your time? how do you make sure that you are optimizing your time to get the most important things done every day?

4) Who you surround yourself with will make or break you

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”.

– Jim Rohn

Who are you talking to on a daily basis as well that understands what you are going through that might also be helping with what you’re going through. Is there anyone who works on your team, or maybe it’s a mentor or a coach, or someone that you can talk to who really understands the struggle?

Your closest friends and family members are gonna be supportive in the best way they know-how, but that’s not always in the best way that you need. And understanding that you need both is really really important.

5) You are responsible for your own success

Celebrate every milestone. Success on you’re journey doesn’t mean your loved ones will “get it”, therefore when you get to the milestone that you want to reach, wherever it may be, celebrate it!

Start with the right mindset. Remember that your journey is for you. Use whatever challenges that you face and fuel you to figure out your journey.

Over to you…

What something that you hoped someone else have told you when you started your Ph.D. journey? 

Comment below or let’s talk about it over Instagram yourock.podcast in the comments.

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