You Are Not Your Dissertation

In tears, my dissertation client Aurora wailed, “Chapter 2 is destroying me! I’ll be in this article gridlock for the next 10 years! I’m just not dissertation material!”

Aurora’s heartfelt confession was not unusual. In my years of professional practice coaching graduate students working on their dissertations, many have complained about being blocked in their writing -- whether it’s Chapter 2, the dread literature review or another chapter that particularly bedevils them. But what was more disturbing about Aurora’s cry was her assumption that she wasn’t “dissertation material.”

With Aurora, I chose to tackle her writing block rather than her sweeping self-condemnation. I helped her rethink the sections of her literature review, then settle on just one section and concentrate on just one article in that section. I knew that if she started doing something, she’d regain a little confidence and stop disparaging herself.

I’d heard many other students’ self-deprecations: “My father was right -- my sister inherited the brains.” “My aunt Sandra was right -- I’ll never get past a master’s.” “My wife is right -- I should stick to my job selling cellphones.”

As I thought about those statements and Aurora’s, uttered with such fervent certainty, I wondered why doctoral students come to such damaging conclusions. They seem to believe that completing a dissertation requires special gifts or godly dispensations bestowed on only a privileged few, usually fellow students or cohort members who are an enviable draft ahead of them.

So many lament, “I’ve never done this before.” Of course. Very few have, except the rarified scholar who goes after multiple master’s degrees and doctorates. I know of only one, and I suspect he racked up all those degrees from addiction to perpetual studenthood.

If you’re a student trekking through the dissertation jungle, you may think it’s a test not only of your intelligence but also of your very personhood. Granted, the process can be brutal, especially with chairs, advisers and committee members who have axes to grind, egos to sharpen and displaced rage from humiliation at their own doctoral experiences. (And you can read, too, plenty of essays by graduate students about the horrors of their experiences.)

How many students, after seeing their latest draft marked to hell by their chairs, go into months-long funks and are sure they’re worthless as human beings? One now dissertation director at a prestigious university confessed that, during her doctoral years, she received such a bloody draft that she immediately threw her unfinished dissertation under the bed. She didn’t touch it -- or vacuum -- for four months.

And yet, so many doctoral candidates have successfully navigated the shark-infested academic ocean to the promised island of doctoral letters after their names. This attainment is not impossible, although it is difficult and undeniably comes at great cost.

Thinking about my clients’ exclamations, I asked myself how to help students shake loose their seemingly unalterable assertion that they are not good enough or smart enough or even worthy at all.

As if in providential answer, a colleague’s email popped up in my inbox with the subject line “Advice Like Chocolate.” Working on her own doctorate, she said she’d been lamenting to a friend about her personal deficiencies to continue with the work. Her friend interrupted and announced, “You are not your dissertation.”

My colleague gasped.

Her friend continued, “The dissertation is not a test of intelligence or a measure of human worth. You know what it is? A test of consistency and resiliency. The chair and committee are really asking: ‘How much can you take? After we knock you down, how many times can you come back out of your corner, swinging and writing?’ None of it has any relation to your value as a human being.”

I called Aurora and read her my colleague’s words. “Oh, thank you, thank you.” Her voice was on the edge of tears. The next week, I received her new Chapter 2 for editing.

At our next coaching call, she said, “You know, when I sat down to write again, I started to feel the old block and all those thoughts of worthlessness taking over. Then I thought about what you said and decided to show it who’s boss.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I talked to my dissertation. I stood up at my desk with my hands on my hips and told it, ‘You are not the definer of my life. You are only a project!’”

“Wow!” I said.

“So I said to myself, ‘I can do a project.’ And boom! I sat down and got back to work.”

What Aurora did -- and what I have since advised many other stuck candidates to do -- was to gain a perspective on her dissertation and what it means. There’s no denying its benefits: satisfaction, often of completing a life goal; prestige; more career opportunities; maybe a promotion; maybe even more money. But it’s still only a project. It’s a project you can complete. Otherwise you wouldn’t be wrestling with it, however many times it’s hammerlocked you.

Your dissertation does not define you. It may reveal your interests, identify a passion, confirm a desire to contribute and perfect your mastery of scholarly conventions. But it is a project -- and only one of the many you will complete and receive accolades for in your career.

So in moments or days of discouragement when you’re tempted to demolish yourself, reignite your persistence and remember that the little (or overlong) beauty is only a project. And you are not your dissertation.