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Nathan

Getting The Platinum

Daily Post

A little over a month back I got my 40th platinum trophy on my PlayStation account.

(please keep reading, I promise this is really related to the viva and getting ready!)

PlayStation games typically have trophies of various kinds: bronze, silver and gold. These might be awarded in parallel to progress through games for simple things like finishing a level or reaching a certain stage. Some, typically gold or silver, are awarded for doing difficult or time-consuming things in games.

A platinum trophy is then awarded for successfully obtaining all of the other trophies possible for the game. It’s common for a trophy list to include a variety of achievements: some linked to simple progress and others to more difficult or time-consuming aspects. Some involve incredible demonstrations of skill and dedication.

Typically you don’t need to collect the platinum to complete the game.

You don’t need the platinum to have enjoyed the game. The platinum is just another layer of self-imposed challenge. You don’t need to have done everything to succeed.

 

Which is how we get to vivas, viva prep and PhDs.

The thought of getting everything right, collecting all the results, reading all the papers, answering every question, getting no corrections and being finished in under 90 minutes can be really attractive to some candidates! This is the platinum trophy equivalent: I’ve got it all!

But you don’t need that. You don’t need that to succeed. You don’t need to focus that way to be ready.

You can do that if you want to but it’s most likely a distraction from being able to prepare well and engage well.

Nathan

Airbrush

Daily Post

There’s a lot you might need to focus on from your PhD journey as you prepare for your viva: your contribution, the work you put in, time invested in building your skills and knowledge.

As you take time to prepare consider that it could be time to let some other things go.

Let go of disappointments. Don’t dwell on your failures, except what you learned from them. Airbrush out things that drag on your confidence. Leave behind past frustrations that aren’t helping you get ready.

What do you need to forget from your PhD journey? What can you leave out of the story you tell yourself of how you got this far?

You don’t have to focus on your whole PhD journey to find confidence and feel capable for your viva.

Nathan

Contribution To Confidence

Daily Post

Contribution and confidence would seem to go hand-in-hand. If you make a contribution to your field of research it would seem natural that you would feel some confidence in yourself and for your viva.

The problem is everything else that gets in the way: long hours, setbacks, the years-long time period for a PhD, redrafting writing, redoing research… Over time, the nature of the PhD can get in the way of appreciating just how far you’ve come.

One way to help yourself might be to consider where you put your focus when you think about your PhD journey.

If you focus on the struggle, the hours and the problem you’ll probably not feel so confident. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the volume of hard stuff that can be part of a PhD.

If you focus on your contribution, your outputs and how much you’ve grown then you’ll probably find the confidence you need for your viva. Your efforts have produced results – that’s the only way they could exist.

Your research contribution can lead to confidence, provided that you focus on the right things when you get ready for your viva.

 

PS: confidence is a big theme of my upcoming Viva Survivor session! Join me on Thursday 5th December live on Zoom to explore finding confidence, viva expectations, viva prep and more. Full details are over on Eventbrite and I’d love to see you at the webinar.

Nathan

Not Knowing

Daily Post

The more I do, the more I find I don’t know!

This sentiment was shared by a generous participant at a recent viva help webinar I ran. Before I had a chance to respond the chat was filled with thumbs up emojis, hearts and five people writing “Same!” and “Me too!”

 

A thesis takes years of work. A candidate learns and grows and develops – and discovers that there is still more they don’t know. Despite all the work. More papers. More books. More ideas. More questions and more answers to explore.

Not knowing something might feel pretty bad depending on the day or the situation. The viva is perhaps a singularly uncomfortable environment to realise you don’t know something. The weeks and months leading up to then could be pretty hard too. Knowing you have done so much and knowing that there is so much you still don’t know.

(and knowing, in some cases, that there are things you almost certainly will never know)

 

The more I do, the more I find I don’t know!

If this sounds familiar, focus on the first clause: you’re doing something. You know things. You are making something. You are finding things.

Before you focus on what you don’t know, take a long time to examine, explore and record what you know – and remember that this will be enough for your viva.

Nathan

Games Worth Playing

Daily Post

There are PhD games that people play that are ultimately not fun or helpful. They’re founded in perfectionism and not knowing what’s expected. Playing them seems like a good idea sometimes, but is ultimately frustrating. Don’t play those games.

  • Don’t try to live up to an imagined ideal that doesn’t match the reality of what you need to do at the viva.
  • Don’t try to beat some stellar standard you perceive in other postgraduate researchers.
  • Don’t try to read everything, do everything or know everything – because you can’t.

These games aren’t worth playing. They won’t reward you or your progress.

The games that will help are personal games. You set a reasonable target and try to achieve it. You recognise the commitment you have and your growth (as a person and a researcher). You take action and move along the very, very long journey.

Play the games worth playing. Save your focus for what matters the most. Your success does not have to be defined by the achievements of others or false expectations.

Nathan

Who Is It For?

Daily Post

Your thesis is not written for your examiners. You have to write it for your PhD and your examiners have to read it to examine you. It’s not written for them – the goal is to make a contribution to knowledge.

You don’t learn about viva expectations so you have a template you’re trying to complete. You’re learning more so that you can prepare well. You’re not trying to meet some ideal for your examiners.

Your prep is not done for your examiners. It’s for you. You want to be at your best, ready, refreshed, feeling confident – but that’s not for them. You want to to feel ready for you.

Remember to keep the focus where it needs to be for the viva.

Nathan

Mice & Gazelles

Daily Post

A lion is capable of catching mice for food, but if it spends all of the time doing so it won’t survive.

A gazelle could be harder to hunt for but will, if caught, provide everything the lion needs.

That’s a little paraphrasing of a famous business metaphor about focus, but the broader point is on the focus that we give to things. Focussing on the small, little, easy things to do might make you busy, might give you lots to do, but it might not reward your effort or move you closer to your goals. The harder tasks are more challenging, but if you succeed with them then they’ll give you what you need.

You could spend your time in preparation for the viva catching mice. Checking your thesis again and again for typos. You could obsess over sections trying to memorise things. You could look over lists of questions and try to think about what you would say.

But these mice won’t satisfy your sense of readiness for the viva.

You need to focus on the bigger, more challenging tasks: reflecting on your progress, building your confidence, rehearsing for being in the viva, reading your thesis carefully once. These gazelle-tasks take effort, they’re thoughtful, but they’ll reward your preparation.

We tend to get more of what we focus on. What will you focus on as you prepare for your viva?

Nathan

No Peeking

Daily Post

You can’t somehow look ahead and know the outcome of your viva.

You can take a good guess that it will be a pass and minor corrections. You can’t grab hold like a birthday present and give it a squeeze – it’s a book/DVD/socks/chocolates!! – and know for sure what it will be like. You might have a sense that a chapter has a few typos that need fixing, or that a section will need rewriting in some way, but the details will be beyond your reach.

Rather than guess and wonder exactly what will happen, focus on doing what you can to be ready. Get your thesis done, prepare well, find your confidence, be ready to engage with your examiners’ questions. Leave the outcome and the corrections for later. Save your focus for what’s right in front of you.

No peeking!

Nathan

Clear Out

Daily Post

It’s early in the year for spring cleaning, but I have been sorting out my office space and shelves recently.

Last summer I was struck by a notion, I wish I could remember where I read it, but (paraphrasing) it said “The less stuff you have, the more enjoyment you can give to the things you do have.” I like this idea. It really got me thinking about my shelves and storage spaces and possessions.

Rather than have fifty boardgames, each of which I play once a year – maybe I should have twenty I really like which I play more often. Having fewer means I could decide more quickly on what I play too! Instead of hoarding books (because they’re mine!), maybe I could trim down my bookcases to see more of what I actually want. Stop hoarding trinkets of past hobbies just because I used to do this or collect that.

Focus instead on the things I like, or the few things I do want to keep.

Have less, to focus more.

Which makes me think of viva prep (of course).

There are many things one could do, but not all have equal value. Focus more on a few things than spend only a little attention on lots. You don’t need to re-read every paper in your bibliography, but you can focus on the few that will really help. You don’t need to read every paper by your examiners; perhaps focus on the most recent ones to get an idea of current work. You can’t write endless summaries of what you did and why, but you can choose two or three to invest time in.

Focus on what you need most for the viva. Find the few things that will give you the most help.

Nathan

Limits of Control

Daily Post

You’re not in control of your viva and the situation around it. You’re not totally out of control either.

You can’t control who your examiners are, not directly…

…but you can control what you know about them through research before your viva.

You can’t control what questions they ask or what they think…

…but of course, you will influence them with your thesis.

You can’t control how you will feel on the day…

…but you can control what you do in preparation, where you focus, how you get yourself ready.

You couldn’t control everything that happened over the years you did your research…

…but time and again you could steer yourself, change direction when needed, make small adjustments, and lead yourself to where you are now.

Which means, I think, that even if you can’t control everything about your viva, you can do enough to get yourself through it.

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