There are so many big decisions to make in academia, from what to research, what conferences to go to, what admin roles to do, where to submit your work, and even how long to stay in academia. Everyone is keen to give us their opinion on what we "should" do or what will be "good for our CV", but no one seems to ever help us figure out how to make our own decisions. In this episode, I share some frameworks and reflective questions that will help you make the best decisions for you.
Transcript
Hi everyone and welcome to episode 23 of the PhD Life Coach. Today we're going to think about how to make decisions. Now, often when I'm chatting with my clients or listening to you guys talk on Twitter, there's just so many decisions that have to be made in academia. We live in this weird world where we've kind of got bosses, our supervisors are our bosses if we're PhD students or our heads of department, research leads, vice chancellors, whatever it might be. But at the same time, we have a pretty big amount of autonomy over exactly what we choose to do.
So there'll be some elements that you just get told you're doing, and then other times you'll get options as to what you do, what research you focus on, specifically which study you do, which conferences you go to, where you want to submit papers whether you take on admin roles, if you're an academic. Whether you agree to take part in all the different competitions and things that are open to PhD students, for example. So Three Minute Thesis and all these sorts of things. Do you choose to do those? What do you choose to do next after your PhD, after your postdoc? What do you choose to focus on?
It's really hard, and I remember being somebody who definitely erred on the side of not deciding and just doing all of them, as a coping strategy. Which was genius? Um. It was not genius and, and it kind of worked for a while. I was just super busy and super enthusiastic and it was a bit chaotic, but a lot of fun.
But as I got more senior through academia, it became clear that I was going to have to make some decisions. And I made decisions about switching to a teaching focus contract, for example. So until I was a senior lecturer, I was research active, published quite a lot of papers, went to conferences, all that jazz.
And I decided to become teaching focused. So that was a very big decision, but I even on a day-to-day basis, there's just so many - do you agree to sit on that committee? Do you agree to be the PGR rep? Do you agree to come onto campus on certain days - there's so many decisions? There's so many decisions.
So in this episode, what we going to be thinking about - Why is it a problem to have to make so many decisions? Where do these problems come from? And I've come up with all of those little two by two grids that I've just invented, and I really like it and I think it will really help you guys. So I can tell you about that.
And then we're going to talk about how to decide. You know, what actual steps can you go through? You know, we often talk about, “I need to think that through”, but we don't really know how to think something through in a structured way.
So starting out, why are making decisions a problem? Well. A whole bunch of reasons really. It's tiring takes brain space, doesn't it? You know, when you've got lots of choices happening and even if they're good choice, even if it's fun, things to pick behind, pick between, it's still just a lot to think about. I'm planning a wedding at the moment, which is super exciting, and it's definitely far enough away that I haven't reached the stress stage yet, but there's so many decisions. That's really tiring and it preoccupies your brain that really, especially as a PhD student or academic, you need for something else.
Another reason is depending on how you make your decisions, they influence your life coming up. So often, especially if you're making decisions about choosing whether to do something or not, or which thing to do, that's going to affect what you end up doing. And you might end up like me, too scattered and divided between a thousand different things and just feel a bit all over the place and like you're dropping balls everywhere. Or if you're somebody at the other end of the spectrum where you are perhaps reluctant to take on things, that “no” is your general sort of default answer, maybe you end up with missed opportunities and things you wish you'd done.
And that leads me to another problem with decisions, which is regret. After we make these decisions, sometimes it can be painful just from the point of view that we wish we'd made a different decision. We query whether it was the right thing or not. What would it have been like if we'd chosen the other thing? What if we hadn't agreed to it? How much easier would that be? What if we had agreed to it? How much better would that be? And that sort of spiralling, that rumination can be tiring.
So there's lots of difficulties when we don’t know how to make decisions.
The first thing to learn that can really help with all of this, and it sounds obvious, but people don't believe it, really, not truly most people, and that is, there's no right decision here. You just get to pick, and that sounds ridiculous, but outside the sort of major, major, “please don't kill anybody” decisions beyond that, you get to pick if you want to go to no conference ever in the history of your entire academic career. OK. Don't go to any conferences, figure out how you're going to have impact and make connections in some other way. That's okay. If you want to go to all the conferences, okay, let's figure out a way to pay for it.
You just get to pick, and often it's this belief that there's a right decision, that if only I can figure out what the right one is, it'll be okay. That actually makes it harder to make a decision. So my first lesson for you is just recognize that you can pick, you're an adult. You get to just decide. Once we take out that pressure that there's no right or wrong, then suddenly we're in a very different place to make our decision from.
My second tip is to really think about where these decisions are coming from. So where are the options coming from, and this is where I said at the beginning that I'd invented a two by two grid, literally just before I wrote this podcast, which is very exciting, I really like it.
So you know those grids where you have like two squares by two squares. You'll have seen it. I think we've talked before about Stephen Covey's urgent and important grid. So imagine a grid like that except the column headings are, who suggested these options and your columns are “you did”, ie this was your idea. And “Others”, ie this was somebody else's idea.
So we got that across the top. And then the rows are “who are you doing this for?” Is it because you want to or is it because other people want you to? Okay, so who suggested it? You or other people? And who wants it? You or other people?
Now that means we've got one quadrant, which you suggested these ideas, you want these ideas. That quadrant is called “self-created”. You might think you should do all of these ones. I am somebody with too much enthusiasm and possible ADHD. I can't do all the things in the self-created idea box, and that took me a long time to learn. But anyway, that's one quadrant. Self-created.
If it's suggested by others, but wanted by you, I've called that quadrant “welcome advice”. Again, do we do it all? Maybe, maybe not. Depends what you've got in there, but that’s “welcome advice”.
Then we've got a quadrant where it's suggested by you, but wanted by others, and I've called that quadrant “people pleasing”. Sometimes we might still do those things. Sometimes there's very good reasons why we want to do things for other people, but we recognize that we have suggested this thing and other people want us to do it. It's not because we specifically want to do it.
And then my final quadrant of suggested by others and wanted by others is “interference”. And you'll find yourself getting tasks in that box. So a project that your supervisor needs doing that doesn't really relate to your thesis. You are not really that fussed about it. You're not convinced it's going to add to your career, but they really want you to do it and have suggested so, and it would benefit them - that goes in the interference box.
Now, there is a bit of qualitative judgment in that title. I am aware, and sometimes you might choose to do things in that box, and that's fine, and we're going to talk about how you'll decide in a second. But being aware that this is an idea that's come from somebody else and is for somebody else, is a really important thing to be aware of.
So I would highly recommend that when you're trying to make a decision, start out “which quadrant are we in?” Because then you're just bringing a little bit more awareness to the situation, a little bit more self-awareness, because you will know which of these boxes fills up fastest for you.
Are you somebody who has lots of self-created ideas like me? Are you somebody with a massive tendency to people please and agree to things for other people all the time? Offer things to other people all the time? You'll know yourself and you'll begin to recognize your patterns. So, figure out where it's come from.
The next thing I want to do is just take you through some steps where you get to decide. You just need to ask yourself each of these questions, and then you pick.
So your first job in that process is to define exactly what we are deciding. So sometimes people are like, I just don't know what to do with my life. That's not a decision, that's a ponder. That's a kind of daydreamy, stressy dream. It's not a decision. I don't know what to do with my life. You need to get this down to specific options. So you are deciding, will I do a postdoc at my university after my PhD or apply to do a postdoc at another university or apply for a job in industry? Preferably specifying what industry job you're thinking about.
We're getting this down to much more specific decisions by actually putting some detail around exactly what we're choosing. It's easy to think the decision is clear in your head when it's not. So I'd really recommend writing these down. Grab a piece of paper and actually write down option one this, option two, that. And it can be as simple as:
- option 1: Take part in Three Minute Thesis.
- Option 2: Don't take part in in Three Minute Thesis this year.
So even with that, where it's just one thing, two options.
Next step after you've defined your options is I want you to write down at least one sentence, maybe two or three, explaining why your life is going to be better when you've made a decision. So here we are not even thinking about what decision you're going to make, we are just reinforcing to ourselves that it's going to be so much better once we've made this decision. Because as I've said, living in that bubbly mess of “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do” is tiring. So why will things be easier if you just decide? Now, don't skip this. It doesn't feel like part of the decision making process, but it will really reinforce why you are doing this process.
And then the next step is to look at each of your options in turn and write down what would be your reasons for picking that option. Because whilst I said at the beginning, there's no right answer or wrong answer, there are reasons that you prefer to others. So what we're going to get down here is what are your clear reasons?
So let's go, keep going with my example here, Three Minute Thesis. Those of who aren't familiar with that, it's a competition where you have to talk about your thesis in three minutes. You guys probably could have worked that out, but you know, just in case, look it up. It's quite cool.
Your reasons for doing it might be:
- Learn more about public speaking
- meet some interesting people
- do something I can put on my cv.
I'm going to do a podcast one day about why you should never do anything just for your cv, but that's a whole other story. That might be one of your reasons though. There's a whole bunch of reasons my supervisor wants me to. My friend is organizing it, and they'd like me to take part. Everybody else seems to be doing it. There's a whole lot of reasons. You write down your reasons why you'd do it.
Now I want you to think, okay, if I wasn't going to do it, what would my reasons be? And they might be:
- I need to focus on my PhD
- I've got a paper due that week, and I don't want to put the pressure on myself.
- I don't have the money to travel to the venue to participate.
- I'm scared of public speaking.
- I don't think I'm very good at public speaking.
- I don't think I'm going to win, so there's no point.
When you are thinking about your reasons, I want you to think back to that grid we made of the you and others and all that stuff. If it was something suggested by you and wanted by you, what are the reasons for it and where does it stack up against other things?
So in your reasons not to do it, you have to also include all the other things you want to do. A reason not to do Three Minute Thesis is so that you can do FameLab and really focus on it So if you are in that self-created, Box, you need to be double checking. Yes, you might really want to do it. Yes, it might be your idea, but how does it match up with all the other things that you've got on?
If somebody else suggested it but you want it, same deal. You might want to think about why you didn't think of it. Is it really welcome advice or are you feeling pressured by those people?
If it's suggested by you, but for the benefit of others, really dig down into those reasons. You want to do it because it's nice for your supervisor, but why? What are your reasons for wanting to please your supervisor, for example? What are your reasons for wanting to please your family? Do you like those reasons?
Really try and dig into it a little bit, and that is particularly apparent in that fourth quadrant in the “Interference” where somebody else has suggested it and it's for the benefit of somebody else.
What would be your reasons for doing it? And do you really like those reason? If your reasons for not doing it would be that someone else will be upset with you, there's a whole lot of other ways to manage that other than doing it for them.
It's not our responsibility to make everybody else feel the way they want to feel. It's not possible to make everybody else feel the way we want, that they want to feel. We get to behave in a way that we're comfortable with, that we think is ethical and fair, and in line with our priorities and who we want to be. We don't get to control everybody else's responses, so if in your reasons, you notice that a reason to do it will be your supervisor will be disappointed if you don't, or your mum will be disappointed if you don't, your dad will be disappointed if you don't, just be cautious around those. Why is that a reason to do it?
Another thing I want you to take into account when you are making decisions is not just whether you should do this thing, but what you are going to NOT do if you choose it. So often when we're thinking about tasks, we think about them in isolation or we think about careers in isolation. Job choices in isolation.
If I choose to do this, what am I not going to do? There's always a consequence to everything that we choose to do and everything we choose not to do. What I also want you to think about when you're making any decision is what implications this decision has for everything else.
So for those of you who like me, you have a tendency to take on too many things. Really thinking back to the plate spinning analogy that I mentioned in the “What to do if you've got too much to do” episode, go back and check that out if you haven't - but essentially this idea that we can only manage a certain number of spinning plates. If you are deciding to add a new task to your pole, so a new plate to your pole, what plate are you going to put down for a while? What task are you not going to do?
When you're thinking about this task or this role, this career, whatever you are choosing, what other implications does it have? Is there anything in your personal life that you now won't do because you're doing this thing? Is there a way it's going to impact your health? So when you are thinking through those reasons why you would or why you wouldn't do it, make sure you're not only thinking about this task, you're also thinking about those knock on effects.
If I choose to do this piece of research, what effect does that have on the length of time my PhD write up will take, for example, and then what knock on does that have onto my cost of living, onto when I can move, when I can take a new job. All of those things.
So in that bit where you are thinking about what your reasons are, make sure you are thinking of all the kind of peripheral stuff that will need to move or not move in order to enable you to take this decision.
So, there's a whole variety of reasons and none of these reasons are inherently right or wrong. But what you get to do is you get to compare them and then the next step is you get to think “which reasons do I like best? Do I like the reasons to do it, or do I like the reasons not to do it?” Which of them feels like they come from your best self? Which are in keeping with the future you that you want to be?
That doesn't mean that doing it is always the right option, or not doing it is always the right option, but you get to decide - in my current phase of life in this few months that I'm in, or whatever timescale we're talking about with this decision, which is the right decision for me, which are the right reasons for me, which are the reasons that feel like the best me?
Now, one caution. I'm going to use the example of my laundry basket for this. When I say which come from your best you, I don't mean which come from the imaginary perfect version of you that can do everything. We don't make decisions from imaginary perfect yous. We make decisions from the best version of you.
So the reason I mentioned my laundry basket is I have quite a bad habit of leaving my clothes on the floor. My partner is super sympathetic, but I know he doesn't like it. I always used to say, “Oh, if I'm going to wear them again, I'll hang them back up, or if they're dirty, I'll put them in the washing basket and it's fine.” That's all I need. I need the washing basket and I need my hanging space. And if I wear them again, I'm going to put them away again. But I always end up with partially worn clothes on the floor. It makes my bedroom messy, it's not Andy's favorite thing in the world.
I know that when I'm making the decision that I'm going to hang up my partially worn clothes, I'm talking from imaginary Vikki, that is probably never going to exist. Ask my mother, ask my old housemates, ask anybody else. Pretty standard. Haven't done it all my life. Probably not going to do it now. So, I decided recently that I'm going to buy another laundry basket to put partially worn clothes in. So when I take something off, if I don't put it in the laundry basket, it goes in the partially worn clothes basket. If Andy's cross that there's clothes all over the floor, he can put them in the partially used laundry basket and know he's putting them in the right place.
So that's a decision that I'm taking because it will make it easy for me, because it'll make our room more pleasant, and because it's taken from my realistic, not ideal, future me. So, think about your future, you, what's your best self, but also what's realistic for you.7
Then you get to decide how long am I making this decision for? Sometimes if it's like the Three Minute Thesis thing, it might be that you are making the decision for this year. Because maybe you could enter next year. If you are deciding to focus on a particular area of research, how long for.
So you've just said I like my reasons best, I'm going to focus on this area of research. For a year? For three years? What's your timeline here? And the reason that's important is sometimes it can just really reduce the impact of these decisions. I've had clients where we've been talking about what they're going to focus on what their expertise areas are going to be.
That's one of the things we do in my promotion packages for academics is work out what are the kind of case studies where we really demonstrate that you are an expert in your area and use that to apply for recognitions, but also to strategize for the next few years development.
And often people think that if they decide what they're going to focus on, that's them forever. Or if they're deciding whether or not to stay in academia, that's their decision forever. If they decide to stay in academia, they're here till retirement. That's not true. There's a lot of power in going, do I want to stay in academia for the next three years? Yeah, I do. Cool. Let's work on that then.
Excellent. Three years, we’ll reassess. We don't have to decide what we're doing forever. Let's reassess in three years. So decide how long you are deciding for.
So now you're really close to making a decision. You've identified the clear options. You've decided what reasons there are for each and which reasons you like best and how long you've decide for.
So now you get to pick. You just get to say, I'm doing that one. And this is where we lead to the most important part of all of this, that almost all of you will have overlooked up until now. I don't mean to overstate this, but it's true. This is the bit that you'll all have overlooked. I had overlooked before I was taught this technique.
Now is the time that you decide and you decide that this was the right decision. Because like we said at the beginning, the pain from decisions rarely comes from the decision itself. The pain from decisions comes from how much you beat yourself up or question yourself or go back on your decision or remake your decision in the future.
That's the bit that gets painful. So what we get to do is we get to decide that this is what I've decided for these reasons, for this long. If my brain queries that in future, I will reassure it that I made the best decision that I could at the time, and this is what we're doing until that time will reconsider at that stage.
It's fine. And the joy with this is it means you don't revisit it all the time. It'll still pop up in your head, obviously, but you don't engage, you don't have to go back through all the decisions over and over again. You just remind yourself. This is what we decided. We're doing it like this.
But the other joy with it is it means you get to MAKE this the right decision. If you decide to do Three Minute Thesis, all the time through it, I want you to be going, “I am learning so much doing this. This is putting me out of my comfort zone. But I'm loving it. This is so much fun. I'm going to get so much out of doing this. I'm so glad I met these people” and really reinforcing that this was the best decision ever.
Not spending a Sunday night going, “Oh my God, if I hadn't agreed to Three Minute Thesis, I'd have so much more time this week.” No, this was your best decision ever. Or if you decided not to do it, when you are at home working on your laptop and you're feeling like you're productive, you go “I am so glad I didn't sign up to Three Minute Thesis. It's so nice just to be able to focus on this writing. Knowing I'm doing it to the best of my ability, knowing I've got time to do it without exhausting myself. I'm so glad I didn't put that extra burden on myself”, instead of sitting at home going, “Oh my God, it would've been so much fun, my friends are having so much fun. I'm missing out. I'm such a wuss. Why didn't I do it?”
So once you've made a decision, decide you love the decision and reinforce that in your head all the time. That is how you make good decisions.
Thank you so much for listening, and good luck with all the decisions that you get to make. See you next week.
The PhD Life Coach is part of Wembury Coaching Ltd.
Company number: 13866726
Copyright © All Rights Reserved.