episode 11 - Why is it so hard to set goals as a scholar?
Oh wow - the first and only podcast episode about goals to be released in January! But, for real - scholarly goals are NOT like other, more concrete goals. Learn more about why, reflect on how goals have helped (or NOT) you in the past, and then stay tuned for three of my most popular strategies for setting goals that actually move you forward without destroying your will to live.
Mentioned in the episode:
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Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar. We'll talk about why some of these things are so hard, and how that difficulty is showing up for you. Each episode has practical strategies to experiment with -- just because it's hard now doesn't mean it always has to be.
You can get my free working more intentionally [email protected] or the link in the show notes. If you want to go even deeper with the work.
But first a special announcement. My writing groups are some of the most popular things that I do all year long. And if you're looking for a supportive place where you can both learn how to write more efficiently, more effectively and more persuasively as a scholar and also keep your projects on track, then my writing groups are for you.
Enrollment is open now and the groups are starting to fill in advance of our kickoff on January 11th.
If you'd like more information, especially about our payment plans or sliding scale, please check the link in the show notes. We'd love to have you join us for some of the most powerful work that you can do all year.
I'm just going to get this out of the way right now. I'm a little basic and I also love new year energy. I love a fresh start. I love a new month and I especially love January. So I make no apologies for this episode about goals, setting goals, experimenting with your goals and figuring out what kinds of goals actually work for you as a scholar, because 'tis the season for goals, people so buckle up and let's get into why setting goals can be so difficult.
First off, there are a lot of goals that you could set and time is a finite resource. I made a draft, dump it out list of all of the things that I wanted to accomplish in 2023. And when I hit the bottom of page three, I thought, Hmm, I probably need a better system. Because I simply do not have enough time to do all of the things that I want to do that I could do that other people think I should do.
And goal setting can really feed into that "must do all the things. If it's important to you set a goal" frenzy that so many of us can feel at this time of the year or at the beginning of the semester, or any time that you kind of decide to make a fresh start. But as a grad student specifically, So much of the work of being a scholar is what I would call a vaguely defined output.
Sure you want towrite. So you set a goal that says, I want to write more this year, but what does that mean? Do you want to write more blog posts? Do you want to write more lesson plans? Do you want to write more chapters? Do you want to write more notes? Do you want to do more conference papers? What does it mean to write more? How much were you already writing?
So on and so forth. It is less clear than a goal like run a 5k in under 45 minutes, I have no idea if that's fast or not, but you know what I mean? It's a vaguely defined output. And so these goals can feel less achievable, less measurable. And let's be honest, a lot of things in academia do not stay done. So you might have a goal for the week or for the year to finish all of your grading on time.
Great you do that. You do it once. It feels good. And then like clockwork, more grading arrives. Or you have a goal to finish a chapter. You send it maybe even exactly on time to your advisor and they say, this is great, but now it's time for you to completely redo everything based on instructions that I should've given you the first time. So what you thought was an accomplished goal is actually just stage one in a potentially infinite number of steps.
So it's a little bit more difficult than I want to read 55 books this year, which is a noble and important goal. If that's what calls to you, but some of the tasks in academia just don't suit themselves. To the same kind of goal setting that you might see on an Instagram meme. So let's dig into some of your previous history with goals.
First question in our questions to consider section. What kinds of goals do you find most motivating? Are they external ones? Internal ones. Do you like to accomplish goals in a group? Do you like to do them all by yourself? Do you like personal goals or hobby goals or professional goals? What kinds of goals naturally?
Draw you in. Which ones have that sparkle right off the shelf.
Second question. What is one goal that you recently achieved? What helped you achieve it?
What did it cost you to do it? Did you have to spend all of your time and energy and maybe even a little bit of money. To get that done on time. Or was it relatively easeful. And what would you do differently if you had to repeat the process of accomplishing that goal over again?
And our third question, which for my money is the most important one, because it can give us some of the most clear data. What is one goal that you recently abandoned, changed or avoided altogether? Once you S you said it. How do you feel about it now? What benefits did you gain from changing your mind about accomplishing that goal?
And what did you learn about the goals that you might make in the process?
So hopefully that gave you some food for journaling food, for your walk food for thinking. Now let's dive in to what you're all here for some actual practical strategies that I find to be really useful when it comes to making goals, especially in the scholarly sphere. These are three things that you can experiment with.
To see if they make your process of setting goals a little bit more easeful, a little bit more practical, a little bit more actionable.
The first is to focus on what I call good, better, best spread for goals rather than an all or nothing goal. So here's an example of what I mean by this. It good, better, best goal spread could look something like, okay, I want to write every day that I am not teaching this semester. And so, instead of saying, I want to write for hours every day.
Okay. You instead say, okay, baseline. I want to write for one pom 25 minutes. A better case scenario. I write for two poms. And a best case scenario. I write for four poms. Instead of, I write for two hours either I do it or I don't do it. For all of my perfectionistic, all our, nothing thinkers out there. You know who you are. This can be such a powerful tool because if you're anything like me, You might have this goal, like, Ooh, I want to write two hours a day. And then you arrive on the first Thursday where a magical two hour block. It does not appear. You're busy. You have a dentist appointment.
You know, a myriad of things eat into your time. And you're like, well, if I can't write for two hours, I might as well not write at all. Boom. And then you've already kind of lost this every day goal. This big time structure. If you can define the spread. And instead say, okay, anywhere between one pom and four poms is going to be great for me to do today.
Then it makes it a lot easier to say, okay. woof. Today. I do not have two uninterrupted hours to write. So instead, I'm going to focus on just getting this one block in and it's going to be a good pom. I'm going to show up for it. I'm going to do what I can. I'm going to keep my chain. I love doing this and you don't need to use the good, better, best language. I sometimes use baseline stretch or challenge or best case scenario to worst case scenario. Your language can really shift around.
But the idea is that anywhere in that zone is good, as opposed to I either do the hard thing or I do nothing at all.
The second experiment that I would love to offer you. If you are looking for a new way forward with your goals is a time limited goal or challenge. I have long been using this idea that I got from Sarah Faith Gottesdiener about instead of setting goals for the entire year setting goals for a season.
I love this because I honestly have no idea what's going to happen in three weeks, much less in eight months. And so it's a much more manageable chunk of time for me to wrap my head around. Okay. These are the goals for the first three months of the year. This is what I'm going to focus on. This is what I'm going to practice.
This is what I'm going to experiment with. And I'll reevaluate when the next season comes, but for now, these are my resolutions. Maybe your way of time limiting your goals is to say, okay, for 30 days, I am going to try and write at least one Pomodoro on my dissertation chapter, no matter what. Just like a 30 day yoga challenge, all of the rage right now in January.
Or maybe you say, okay, for the next two weeks, I am going to set a goal of trying to walk for 10 minutes before I sit down and write, because it helps my brain. Focused so much better. If I get some of those wiggles out. And I'm not committing to do that forever, but for the next two weeks, when the weather is relatively reasonable, that's what I'm going to do.
These time limited challenges can really help you get out of this sense of, well, I set a goal for the year and it didn't happen by January 15th. Therefore I just have to wait the rest of the year to figure it out. It gives you natural places to reset. And it also acknowledges that lots can change in a day.
Much less than a year. So these regular check-in points give you a chance to experiment with adjust, adapt based on the data of what's happening and how things are actually going.
And last but not least. You could try and focus your goals on a practice or a habit or a routine, something that you do versus an achievement.
Here's what I mean by this. I have long desired to run a 5k. It's one of those things that I think I heard about it when I was 12 and I was like, Ooh, that sounds like something. That fun people, sporty people do and I want to do it. And so every so often I set a goal. That's like, okay, I'm going to run a 5k. And I download the apps and I start the training program.
And invariably by week two or three, I remember that I hate running and my body hates running. And we just never get there. So despite having this goal for more than half of my life, I have never accomplished it. But when I rearranged how I was thinking about that goal away from the achievement of running a 5k and into a practice, I instead had so much more success with a goal that said, I want to get at least 30 minutes of moving my body in no matter how that looks.
Every day that I work or every day that's possible or every day, that makes sense for me. And sometimes that 30 minutes was a yoga class and sometimes it was a nice long walk in the park. Sometimes it was a quick run on the treadmill. Sometimes it was a bounce on my trampoline and sometimes it was just gentle, stretching.
I did it in three, 10 minute bursts throughout the rest of the day, because I was too overwhelmed or sore or in pain to do anything else. But focusing on the practice, the thing that I consistently did and not so much the achievement got me, what I actually wanted to accomplish by running a 5k, which was moving my body more often for all of the physical and mental benefits that, that brings me.
It might look like for you that you, instead of saying, okay, I want to write a chapter every three months this year. You instead say, okay, I want to make writing a priority. And I want to write for at least 25 minutes before I do anything else during the day. Or I want to write for at least an hour on the days where I have childcare or I'm not teaching.
This could look like saying I want to read for 25% of the overall time that I allocate to my writing versus I want to finish all of the books in my, to read pile this year. It's about focusing on the practice. And letting that ground you, as opposed to the achievement, because the practice often gets you the achievement through showing up regularly and being committed to it.
There is so much pressure. And if you are like me gentle listener, you're arriving at this threshold of 2023. Excited for some new energy, but also a little trepidatious about all the things you want to do and how much pressure that can feel like.
I encourage you, no matter what experiment you try, or if you add a couple of your own that you approach, however, you structure your goals less as an evaluation of who you are as a person or as a scholar, but more a container to help you do more of what you want to do on purpose. I'm wishing you the happiest of new years and thank you so much for listening.
See you next week.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. And if you're liking what you're hearing, please subscribe, rate, and review to help other people find the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!