Maintain a Rational, Positive Outlook
It is far easier to stay motivated and productive when working on your dissertation or thesis if you maintain reasonable expectations for your academic performance during any given work session.
I often see students trying to motivate themselves with unrealistic demands about how much they should accomplish or how well they should perform in a short period of time. For example, students may tell themselves that they:
Must write a large section of their dissertation in one sitting
Should easily and quickly identify a dissertation topic
Ought to recruit participants without difficulty
Working under this kind of pressure makes it difficult to feel inspired or motivated. When your self-talk focuses on what you must accomplish in order to feel competent, productive, or worthy, you set yourself up to feel discouraged when you inevitably fall short. And feeling bad is rarely an effective source of motivation.
Prefer ProductivityâDonât Demand It
Be mindful of maintaining preferences rather than demands about your performance.
You can prefer to:
Be productive
Do high-quality work
Make steady progress
But excessive demandsâespecially unrealistic onesâoften backfire. They increase pressure and reduce motivation.
Remind yourself that:
You can have high standards for your work
You just cannot apply all of those standards at once
Why Lower Standards Can Increase Productivity
Letting yourself work with lower standards, especially in the early stages of research and writing, can be a powerful productivity strategy.
Lower standards often mean:
Less pressure
Greater willingness to begin
Easier access to ideas and creativity
This does not mean abandoning standards altogether. Rather, it means temporarily relaxing them so you can make progress.
You can always:
Raise your standards later
Revise and clarify your ideas
Improve organization, argument, and style over time
A Reality Check for Perfectionistic Standards
If you are afraid to loosen your standards, consider asking yourself:
Are my current standards helping me be productive?
Do they motivate me or discourage me?
Am I feeling good about my dissertation or thesis work?
If the answer to these questions is no, it may be time to reevaluate your expectations.
Maintaining a rational, positive outlook means recognizing that progress comes from showing up consistently, not from demanding flawless performance in every work session.
This article was written by Alison Miller, PhD, founder of The Dissertation Coach, a business dedicated to helping doctoral and master’s students successfully earn their graduate degrees.