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Nathan

Evidence

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Confidence follows your actions. If you don’t feel confident ahead of your viva it’s not because you’re lazy. It’s not because you don’t have anything to show for all your work. It’s probably because the length, difficulty and circumstances of your PhD have made it hard to appreciate what you’ve done.

When you go looking you’ll find that the evidence of your capability is everywhere. As soon as you start to see the evidence you’ll feel capable – and in turn you’ll start to build your confidence.

Look at the hundreds of days when you’ve showed up to do the work. Look at the thesis you’ve produced. Think back over the many, many papers you’ve learned from. Remember the meetings, the seminars, the posters, the presentations and maybe the papers you’ve produced too.

None of this simply just happened. All of it exists because of you: your time, your effort, your determination and your willingness to grow and learn.

A PhD is hard for a lot of reasons. When you stop and reflect you’ll see evidence of your talent everywhere. Use that as evidence of your confidence as well. Then go and succeed at your viva.

 

PS: the Viva Survivors Summer Sabbatical starts tomorrow! A daily post from the archives all through the summer while I take a creative break after seven years of Viva Survivors 🙂

Nathan

How You Find Confidence

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You have to look for it.

If you want to feel confident for your viva it’s not enough to hope that you will feel good on the day. You have to do something before then to feel confident.

Reflecting on your PhD journey is a good start. Remembering and reminding yourself of the successes you’ve made and the growth in your knowledge and capability.

Highlight your particular achievements. Make a list and write about why these things matter and help you to feel good.

Explore viva expectations to get a sense of what happens in vivas. Consider how suitable you are to thrive in that situation: talking about yourself and the work you have done.

Decide on specific actions to take in the days leading up to your viva to feel better. What can you do to prompt confident feelings? What can you do to remind yourself of the many successes you’ve had?

It’s not enough to hope you feel confident. You have to search for and find confidence.

Nathan

Make A Timeline

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Go back through your calendars, diaries, lab books, log books and records for the last few years of your PhD. Your memory can trick you sometimes. Sometimes you can forget what you did when – or even what you did at all.

Map out the years of your research. When did you ask that question? When did you complete that project? When did you give that great presentation? When did you find yourself becoming talented at something?

Mark it all down. By doing it you’ll help yourself in two ways. First, you’ll have explored more detail that you can share with your examiners in the viva. This will help you answer questions and engage in discussion.

Second, and in my opinion, more importantly, you’ll see just how far you’ve come. You’ll see the story of your talent: this is you. This didn’t just happen. You did this. You made all of this happen. You’ve had success. And you can continue that success in your viva.

Nathan

Five Minutes

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To prepare for your viva you need time. A significant number of candidates may have a job or be applying for one when the viva comes around. Time is always a precious resource, but can feel quite pressured for some. While it’s still important to organise and have a decent amount of space to think, there are some valuable ways you can use small blocks of time in preparation for your viva.

  • Tidy your workspace.
  • Make a list of bigger tasks you need to do.
  • Write a 100-word summary of a chapter.
  • Make a list of papers you need to review.
  • Message someone to tell them how you’re doing.
  • Listen to a song that helps you to feel happy.
  • Write down what you’re going to do next and why that’s going to help.

Viva prep takes time, usually in blocks of more than five minutes, but little things add up. With five minutes you can make something to help yourself, setup future progress or prime yourself for the next big task.

What could you do?

Nathan

My Good Day Socks

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I’ve noted before that I wore a pair of my “good day socks” to the viva. There’s no magic involved, just a little boost. An association I’d built up in my mind with particular socks and the state of “having a good day”.

I’d done the work, read my thesis, made notes, met with my supervisor and more. I was as ready as I could be for the viva.

So on they went: cushioned, comfortable, secret pattern hidden at my toes and heels. It put a smile on my face and stilled the wings of one of the butterflies in my stomach.

A little boost.

When you’ve done the work, when you’ve read your thesis, when you’ve made your notes and met with your supervisor – what else can give you that little boost in confidence?

Is it silly? Does that matter?

Postscript: For the longest time I had three or four pairs of good day socks and all of my other socks were normal. One day it struck me… If I had more pairs of good day socks, then every day could be a good day! Or rather, I could prime myself every day to think of the day ahead as a good day. Socks, songs, routines, whatever makes a difference. For the viva or everyday, what could make that difference to you?

Nathan

Primers

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A pat on the back. A thumbs up. “Good luck.” Motivation, encouragement and reinforcement come in many forms. Sometimes you have to look to your memory and your experience. The words you choose to use can help prime you for confidence.

As the viva gets closer, try these phrases out and see if they help:

  • I did the research and wrote the thesis: I can do this.
  • I’m the expert in the room.
  • I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready.
  • Per Scientiam Ad Meliora.

It’s a reminder, not magic. What words could prime you to be at your best?

Nathan

Fear Doesn’t Matter

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It’s alright to be anxious or afraid of the viva. Maybe you feel it, maybe you don’t; maybe a little, maybe a lot. It could be specific or vague, keep you awake with “what ifs” or sound asleep with uneasy dreams.

Do nothing and let it fester, or explore why you’re afraid and figure out what to do about it. Viva fear is a sign you recognise the viva is important. Once you figure out the root of your fear you can do something to help.

Fear doesn’t matter; your actions do.

Nathan

Scary

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Werewolves can be taken out with silver bullets. Vampires fear garlic and the sun. To kill a zombie you go for the brain. Scary things all have weak spots.

Scared of the viva? What scares you? What can you do about it?

Confidence can be built. Answers can be found. Read more, think more, learn more, talk more.

Applying the same talents you’ve built up during your PhD can make the viva seem less daunting.

Nathan

Work Past Worry

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I think most people feel nervous before the viva. That’s normal. But feeling nervous is different from feeling worried. Feeling nervous is a signal you know something is important. Feeling worried is like an investment in fear. What can you do?

  • Ask yourself why to figure out the root of the worry. Reading your thesis won’t help unless the worry is all about being sure you know your stuff. Even then, by asking why you could trigger an idea that will help more than just reading.
  • Make a plan for yourself. Sit down and at a minimum write down three things you can do to be better prepared. Now write down when you’re going to do them.
  • Think about situations where you’ve felt in control, when you’ve felt confidence. What were the circumstances? Can you recreate some of them now to damp down your worries?

Worry won’t help. Your response to it might.

Nathan

Find Confidence

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There’s a great TED talk from five years ago by Amy Cuddy. In it she describes how adopting certain kinds of physical poses can influence how people feel. The shorthand sometimes used is “power-posing,” an archetypal pose of confidence, a display that shows power. Research at the time suggested that adopting certain poses made people feel more confident, and also made people they were interacting with judge them to be more confident.

In the intervening five years there have been attempts to replicate the study or to look more deeply into the subject; they’ve raised questions, and that’s what science is supposed to do. But the core is still there: adopting physical poses can change how confident you are.

Now, I’m not writing today to say “pose like a superhero and you’ll feel awesome in the viva!” My main takeaway is a thought that has been in my mind for some time now, and which I’ve explored on the blog before. Confidence is not about hope: it’s not something you have or don’t, it’s not something mercurial that just comes and goes and you don’t know why.

There will be lots of things that trigger you in one way or another when it comes to how confident you feel. I think that for the viva you owe it to yourself, if you’re worried at all, to invest a little time exploring what could make a difference to how you feel. What can you do to make yourself more confident? For you it may not be about expansive physical stance, but there will be some conditions that help you more than others. Find them. Use them.

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