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Nathan

Manage To Keep Going

Daily Post

Survive means manage to keep going in difficult circumstances.

Just difficult. Not negative. Not a struggle.

I use the definition a lot in my work to emphasise that surviving the viva doesn’t mean the situation is automatically bad or overwhelming, or that chances of success are slim. Survive helps to put the viva in context.

But there are other ways we could apply it to a PhD journey:

  • It could mean that someone learned how to cope with a bad situation.
  • Or persisted despite an awful series of events.
  • Or got through their PhD even when they didn’t enjoy it.

And it could mean that someone simply found their way. They found obstacles, they worked around them. Some were big, some were small, but they made it.

 

I would never encourage someone to forget the hard parts of a PhD. “Put it out of your mind,” isn’t in my toolbox of tips. But if there are harder parts to your progress, more stressful, more emotionally challenging, I would suggest that giving focus to them might not help you – particularly as you get ready for your viva. It could help you more to focus less on how you managed, and instead remember that you kept going. You made it through.

And if you keep going a little longer you’ll finish your PhD journey.

Nathan

This Is Your Year

Daily Post

It’s just begun. Off in the distance is the finish line and there’s no-one racing but you.

You get to decide how fast you will go.

You get to decide when you pause.

You get to plan how you will go, where and when.

You get to decide what obstacles you’ll avoid and what you’ll take head on.

Perhaps your race will include your viva: in which case, you have time to find out what you need to know and what you need to do. This is your year. You don’t have to decide today how you’re going to get to the finish line – but the sooner you decide the sooner you can act well to get there.

I’ll be publishing a new post every day this year to help with the viva. Subscribe and get it sent to you rather than have to remember to check it out.

This is your year. I really hope it’s a great one.

 

(image found at the public domain image site Pixabay and colour-filtered by me using Edit.Photo, a free photo editor site)

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Surviving

Daily Post

Well done! If you’re reading this you did it. You made it through another tough year. You survived 2022. Was it more challenging than previous years for you? How are you coping? And how ready are you for 2023?

2022 was the year I finally got COVID (thankfully not too serious and thankfully long recovered now). 2022 was the year I celebrated five years of publishing this blog. I shared another post marking how different life has become. And 2022 was another year where I continued to share thoughts on surviving on this blog, because I think it helps with the context of the viva and what someone has to do to succeed.

  • Verbs For The Viva – words matter, so it helps to keep the right ones in mind.
  • Not To Plan – an encouragement about what the last few years might mean…
  • Disrupted & Different – …and some more thoughts about preparing for a pandemic-influenced viva.
  • One More Time – that’s what the viva is, one more time after many times before.
  • Keep Going – two words that are worth exploring.

Another year. Again, well done.

Tomorrow we start a new one. You know what you need to do. You can decide how you will do it. Keep focussed on why you’re doing it and you’ll get there.

PS: the Viva Survivors blog celebrated five years of daily posts earlier this year! To mark the journey so far I wrote and published “Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology” – a curated collection of the best of the first five years. If you’re looking for viva help then this blog is and always will be free – if you want to support the blog and get an awesome book as well, then take a look at the options at the link. Thanks!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Confidence

Daily Post

Years of work, weeks of prep and then… How will you feel at your viva?

Feeling nervous isn’t wrong but it doesn’t feel right. It’s a recognition that something matters: your viva and the outcome matter a lot. What can you do to feel confident for your viva? That’s a big question that occupies a lot of my thinking for this blog and for the work I do in webinars. Here are some of my favourite thoughts on the topic for this year:

Confidence is a skill and a story, a journey and a target. It’s how you feel and how you act. There are lots of ways to frame it and lots of things you can do to grow it for yourself, particularly in advance of your viva.

Tomorrow we finish the review of the year with the topic of surviving.

PS: the Viva Survivors blog celebrated five years of daily posts earlier this year! To mark the journey so far I wrote and published “Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology” – a curated collection of the best of the first five years. If you’re looking for viva help then this blog is and always will be free – if you want to support the blog and get an awesome book as well, then take a look at the options at the link. Thanks!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Short Posts

Daily Post

I very rarely set out to write a long post. Viva Survivors posts tend to be around 200 words, but sometimes they can be a lot shorter, as with these six posts on a range of topics:

And how about one more? Making A Difference – something you must do over the course of your PhD!

There are two more days of my review of 2022. Tomorrow we explore confidence and the day after we finish the year by looking at the topic of surviving.

PS: the Viva Survivors blog celebrated five years of daily posts earlier this year! To mark the journey so far I wrote and published “Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology” – a curated collection of the best of the first five years. If you’re looking for viva help then this blog is and always will be free – if you want to support the blog and get an awesome book as well, then take a look at the options at the link. Thanks!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Reflections

Daily Post

We continue the review of the year today with some of my favourite reflections about the viva.

I like these sort of posts, though I don’t tend to write them every day. They often involve noticing something about the viva that is odd, or connecting something of the viva with something in the wider world. And sometimes, as with the first post on today’s list, they involve telling a story:

  • The Red Button – a little story with a big point.
  • Two Pictures – a post about communicating the picture of your research that you see, to someone who can’t see what you see.
  • Map, Compass, Landmarks – a little reflection on how we think about what to expect for the viva.
  • The Same, But Different – contrasting in-person and video vivas.
  • Worry – where do you give your focus when you worry? How does that help?
  • Fuses & Feelings – thinking about what trips us up and what we can do about it.

Stop. Breathe. Think. Reflect. What’s standing out about your year? What do you notice about your PhD journey? And what does that mean?

Tomorrow: some of the shortest thoughts I’ve shared this year!

PS: the Viva Survivors blog celebrated five years of daily posts earlier this year! To mark the journey so far I wrote and published “Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology” – a curated collection of the best of the first five years. If you’re looking for viva help then this blog is and always will be free – if you want to support the blog and get an awesome book as well, then take a look at the options at the link. Thanks!

Nathan

Best of Viva Survivors 2022: Viva Prep

Daily Post

I finish every year of Viva Survivors with a look back at some of my favourite posts from the year. In the coming days I’ll share topics like surviving and confidence, as well as general reflections on the viva and some of my favourite short posts.

Today we start with viva prep as that feeds into lots of areas related to the viva. What can you do to get ready and how do you do it? Here are some ideas:

  • The Busy Factor – to begin with, advice on getting ready that helps if you’re busy – and helps if you’re not!
  • Find Five – prompts for starting viva prep.
  • Annotated For You – why and how to annotate your thesis, with examples of what you could do.
  • Summary Values – a short reflection on why writing summaries can help your viva prep and viva.
  • A Helpful Acronym – a long overdue return to writing about one of my favourite ideas for viva prep!

Viva prep is not a huge amount of work. A little thought in how you do it can make a big difference in terms of how you feel. Tomorrow: some of my favourite reflections from Viva Survivors 2022!

PS: the Viva Survivors blog celebrated five years of daily posts earlier this year! To mark the journey so far I wrote and published “Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology” – a curated collection of the best of the first five years. If you’re looking for viva help then this blog is and always will be free – if you want to support the blog and get an awesome book as well, then take a look at the options at the link. Thanks!

Nathan

Holding On

Daily Post

At the start of a new academic year I’m reminded of how much my life has changed over the last few years; while for the most part I am very happy with where I am now, I still remember vividly how sharp and how stark things have been at times.

Survive means manage to keep going in difficult circumstances – and while it doesn’t have to be dire to be difficult it helps to reflect a little and remember how you have made it through.

If you have survived this far that means you kept going. How? What did you do through your PhD to make it so far when things have been so tough? What have you learned about yourself? How did you adapt?

As your viva comes closer, whatever else you feel, remember that you persisted. Whatever bad times you’ve had, you held on, you made it through. You were determined, often enough, to get to the end. How did you hold on? And what you can do now to keep holding on until your viva is done?

Nathan

Keep Learning

Daily Post

Another pair of words to join “keep going” as a simple way to get ready for the viva.

Follow the practices and efforts that have got you so far:

  • Learn about viva expectations.
  • Learn more about your examiners.
  • Learn more about your thesis by summarising it.
  • Learn about yourself by reflecting on your journey so far.

Keep learning.

Nathan

Out Now: Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology

Links, Update

I’m thrilled to announce that Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology is out today! I celebrated with my book launch party yesterday and am now very happy that the book is available to buy. What is it? Here’s a little snippet from the book blurb:

Keep Going collects posts about viva expectations, viva prep and examiners, as well as:

  • reflections on the PhD journey and confidence;
  • practical steps for getting ready for the viva;
  • thoughts on what it really means to survive the viva.

Over 150 posts from five years of writing, carefully curated and edited to be a valuable guide for every postgraduate researcher with a viva in their future.

I’ve been working on Keep Going for the last six months: curating the very best from nearly 1800 blog posts and five years of writing. The book is available now in three places, as an ebook and in print. Here are the links if you’re interested:

It’s been a great project to make this book for the last six months and a thrill to present it to you today.

I define the work I do as “helping PGRs become PhDs”. Keep Going – A Viva Survivors Anthology is made for that purpose. If you have a viva in your future this book will help you know how to be ready for it. If you know someone with their viva coming up then please pass on news of the book.

Thanks for reading!

Nathan

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