Friday, March 14, 2008

Secret for doing a PhD: Motivation

Today was really strange. Though I already found some interesting stuff and wrote some papers/drafts, I woke up very worried about my PhD progress, specially when thinking about how much more is needed to have a whole thesis. So after some initial hesitation, I decided to go to the lab and try to work a bit to fill out the gaps needed to finish my work. First thing I did, after arriving at the lab, was to go to my supervisor's office and discuss some issues that I found interesting and just after some minutes my mood was completely different: I was excited again! Motivation was definitely the necessary ingredient for changing my mood from completely desperate to full of hope!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, i think every phd students go through this mood swings during the phd process. And when we found ourserlves at the down times we need to try to find the right motivation to keep going, more or less like as you did...

Ivo

Vivek Nigam said...

It is really a consolation to know that I am not alone and that other PhD students (perhaps all of them) suffer from these mood swings.

It also makes me think if researchers in general are like that as well. Perhaps it is the price to pay for those incredible moments when you find something really interesting!