Guilt*

It is common to feel guilty when you aren't able to work on your dissertation. You may feel that you are letting yourself and your family and friends down. One student described it as a "chronic experience of 'not enough'. Not enough progress today, not enough extant literature to support my point, not enough energy to write…" 

How can you use these feeling to help instead of dragging you down? One way is to establish a realistic schedule of working on your paper. Decide that as long as you are keeping to your schedule you are doing all you can, and you do not need to feel guilty. What is realistic? An hour or two a day is probably a realistic goal. If you have a hectic work schedule – you might want to think about it terms of a weekly number of hours. Yes, reading articles while in waiting rooms counts! The main thing is to try to quantify it and keep track of your time. That way you know when you can give up the guilt reminders. 

Think of guilt as a reminder from your subconscious. Deep down you really want to get your doctorate – this is so important that you are making yourself feel guilty about it. This is a good thing! But take control of the guilt and use it to its best advantage. Do not allow the guilt become so overwhelming that you avoid working on the paper in protest. Put working on the paper on a strict schedule, so your subconscious is happy and stops sending out alarm signals of guilt. 

The other side of this issue is to allow yourself some time away from your paper. Give yourself permission to not work and think about it at certain times of the day/ week. You will find that you come back to it with more energy and creativity. As you consider your daily and weekly schedules, add in time for you and things you enjoy doing. Give yourself rewards of time off- "if I work on the paper for 2 hours today I can go to a movie (take a walk, spend time with my kids/grandkids, etc.)." 

*My thanks to my dissertation text support group for their ideas on this topic. Next time, we will take a look at unplugging for a day. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu