In this episode we have another special guest! This time we're talking to Jamie Pei, the "messy" PhD coach about how to curate your PhD Life. We talk about what we mean by "curating" and why we mean your all elements of your life and not just your PhD. Jamie has a great perspective on how this approach puts you in the driver's seat, and enables you to guide and create the life you want. You also hear us demonstrating how little we actually know about fine art curation in an attempt to make useful analogies....
Just to let you know, Jamie and I have a very exciting project coming up where we are going to be collaborating together. We are not ready to announce this yet, but please make sure that you are on our mailing lists. You'll be amongst the first to know when this becomes available. We are really excited. Hope to see you there soon!
Links from this episode
Jamie's link tree: linktr.ee/jamiepei
Subscribe to my PhD mailing list: jamiepei.com/phdmail
Instagram: @verymessyjamie
Twitter: @verymessyjamie
We also reference some work on values from Caroline Kay. You can hear more about her here! https://carolinekay.co/
Her podcast is called Snippets of Genius. Listen via her website (https://carolinekay.co/podcast/) or any preferred podcast platform
Transcript
Vikki: Hello and welcome to episode 25 of the PhD Life Coach, and today is another one of our special episodes because we have a guest with us. We have Jamie Pei, the Messy Coach here to talk about how to curate your own PhD life.
I am super excited to have Jamie with us today because Jamie and I met on Twitter just by following each other's accounts and then sending each other weird little messages, saying that we wanted to be friends and all of this. Um, and there was so much about, um, what Jamie talks about that really, really resonated with me as somebody who's always taken a slightly chaotic approach to life.
I found her just really open and honest and a refreshing change from all the coaches that are talking about “you just must be more productive.” So welcome, Jamie. Thank you so much for coming.
Jamie: Thank you for having me here. I'm so excited. And I was thinking about how we used to like, I was like stalking you on Twitter, being like secretly thinking like, I want to be her friend.
Vikki: And then here we are!
Jamie: Yes. But on that note though, I did want to say like, uh, I know we kind of make light of it, but, you know, a PhD can be quite a lonely place, I think, and that was something I learned sort of midway through my PhD. Don't be afraid to just go up to people and say hi. And people are generally nicer than we think they're going to be and you can make some really good friends from that, like you and me!
Vikki: Definitely. You were just so lovely and it's all good. So we haven't really taken a second - tell us who you are for anybody who hasn't come across your work before.
Jamie: Oh, thank you. Yeah, so I'm Jamie Pei. I am a PhD and life coach as well, so same camp as Vikki. I did my PhD in women's studies at the Center for Women's Studies at the University of York, and finally, finally completed it. The whole process was a bit messy for me as well as it is for most people. So I finally completed it in 2021, but I'd already started doing some training in workshops back in 2018 before I'd finished my PhD and loved it so much that I've gone on to do it full-time now.
Vikki: Amazing. And you mentioned there that your PhD felt a bit messy, and obviously that's how you sort of brand yourself - You're the “messy coach.” Tell us a bit more about that. Because that's not an obvious word. I really resonated with it, but it's not an obvious word to choose for this stuff. So why the messy coach?
Jamie: Yeah, so this is, this was quite interesting, I guess how I came to messiness. Like, so a lot of my previous work before coming back into academia and my PhD were in worlds that were full of perfection. My immediate job before coming back to academia was in fashion journalism. Like I was working in a fashion magazine, so everything had to be perfect there, right? Like everything, your text had to be perfect. The visuals, the aesthetic of it, it's all about a aspiring towards this idea of perfection.
So it was very uncomfortable for me to come into research where there are no real limits, right? Like things can take all sorts of different avenues and there are always surprises in research. There's no like clear cut style guide the way there is in a magazine, and you just have to bumble along and figure things out as you go along.
But I had this wonderful supervisor who was very, very encouraging around letting yourself be messy and using that mess as a resource rather than as something to, uh, to bury or overcome. Instead of feeling the need to fix it, she was very much about like, let's work with the messiness. What can it tell us?
And really allowing that messiness in, first of all, made the overall process a bit easier because then I wasn't constantly feeling the need to be perfect. But also I think it made my research richer ultimately, because it was prompting ways of thinking or prompted me to look at things that I might otherwise not have looked at. And yeah, I think I came up with perspectives and ideas and directions as a result of being able to let that messiness in.
So I decided to embrace that and to make that, I guess, my thing when I came out into coaching, because I think we miss a lot by not embracing the messiness. I also believe that, you know, most universities and doctoral colleges and departments already have very good doctoral training, like the more formal stuff around how to do a PhD, how to write a lit review, how to collect data and all of that. But there is less around what to do with all this in between messiness and the, the states of being that are not so readily definable and for which there, there isn't often that training, right?
Like so what to do when things go wrong in your research, what to do when you are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of literature and when the material feels messy. But also more than that, like what to do when like the rest of your life feels messy and you are needing to still make progress in the PhD.
How to deal with the messy feelings. and the emotions that come from doing research. All of these things that aren't really tangible, but have huge impacts on how we actually do the research. So that's what I try to address really to try and help people muddle through the mess so that they can do their research with more ease.
Vikki: I love that and I love the contrast with your previous workplace, because I think academia's such a weird place, in the sense that, as you say, it's so messy and there's so few rules and so much self guidance. But at the same time, most of my clients believe there's a version of perfection that they should be trying to attain.
Jamie: Absolutely.
So it's like there's no rules about what that looks like, but they need to write their papers “right”, and they need to do the “right” amount of work, and they need to show up for the “right” things and be at the “right” stages at one year in and two years in. So it's this very strange combination.
Jamie: I think PhD students are by nature, like they are high achievers and they're highly capable as it is already. So the bar is already high. And then there's also the high achieving side of PhDs and the competitive side and academia is competitive in itself anyway. And it's just a constant, perfect storm for things to feel uncomfortable, misaligned. You know, you are always feeling like you're having to catch up. There's always that sense of comparisons and that can feel very messy, right? Like, what is mine? What is it that I actually want to be working towards? And what is. someone else's path that actually has nothing to do with mine. And our paths get mixed into someone else's path. And then the whole experience and journey also becomes messy because then we lose sight of what it is we're actually trying to do. Um, yeah. All kinds of messiness.
But like you said, against that there’s the sense that we've got to have it all together and look like we know what we're doing and we're progressing in this beautiful, straight linear line when that just isn't realistic and nobody does that, right?
Vikki: Yeah. I mean I coach people all the way through to full professor and they're not following a nice, neat linear line where they feel perfect either. That's for sure. And that's always the irony is I'm coaching these PhD students and they're talking about their supervisors not understanding this, that, and the other, and I'm like, I'm not coaching their supervisors, but I'm coaching the equivalent of their supervisors. And it's like, “no dudes, if they didn't reply to your email, it’s not because they hate you. They have four thousand emails and they're not coping right now.
Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. They're probably in a corner, self-flagellating as well.
Vikki: It's true. So there's mess at every level. The people that are supervising you are feeling their own mess. And you mentioned earlier, and it's really important for our episode today, about the mess outside of academia itself. Because I think often when people do these podcasts and blogs and whatever about succeeding in academia, they forget all the other stuff. You know, so many of my clients are, they're part-time, they're parents, they're really athletes, some of mine, all these sorts of things that they're balancing outside, and often there's not much of that recognition either, that your PhD is only one aspect of your life.
Jamie: Yeah. And I think there's that tension as well because the PhD is one of so many other things that are going on. And then also like shit happens because this is life, right? And like life is messy. So there's that tension between the reality of things being messy and then the felt sense that we need to very cleanly compartmentalize the messiness of life from the PhD and they should be two separate things or that, you know, we shouldn't let the mess of our lives have any impact on our research. We still have to power through it.
And that's a whole other thing, you know, this like “just do it”. Just “mind over matter”, “power through it”, “grit up and do it.” “Just be resilient and do it.” And actually in trying to block out that mess and the merging of those worlds, I think it makes it more messy, right? It makes it even harder.
Vikki: Yeah, no, absolutely. And that really leads us into the topic of today, which is curating your PhD life. And we chose that word very carefully. So tell me a bit more about what you mean by curating and why we chose that word.
Jamie: Oh, okay. So let's start with what that means, I guess, first and then why I chose the word “curating”.
I think it's really important to clarify really exactly what it is that we want in our PhD life. And the emphasis here is on PhD life and not just what we want in our PhD. And that's really about having a vision of what it is that we will or will not accept or aspire towards within this overall PhD life.
And the word “curate”, I love that word, first of all, because it puts you in the driver's seat, so to speak. It gives us that sense of agency and control and direction, like you are directing and making those choices for yourself for how you want that life to look like.
So when we use the word curate, we usually think of it in terms of like an art exhibition or something like that, right? So it's about taking charge or organizing or putting together selected pieces of art into an overall exhibition. And that's really what this is about, it's looking at your life, all the different components of your life, your values, your deep down soul desires, I guess, for how you want to live your life and do this research and putting those components together.
So I have thought of other words like designing or finding or, creating, but I feel like the words, first of all, finding is, is more about accidentally, almost finding, like you don't really have as much of an agency, I think with the word finding. With things like creating and designing, yeah, you do. You are, you are still in the driver's seat, but there's almost a sense when you're designing or creating, you could be creating from nothing.
Whereas I like the word curate because it's like you are taking what is already there and putting together the life that you want for yourself within the context of your PhD. So for me, what that means really is to get super clear on things the qualities and the values that you want to live with and experience and enjoy throughout your PhD life. So there could be things like peace or joy or connection, like let's get real down to the basics of like how you want to feel on an everyday basis.
And/or it could be the types of experiences that you want to have during your PhD. So it could be that you want an experience where you feel that you are generating research that's really going to make a difference in the world or maybe you are coming back to academia after a long time away and you want that kind of academic intellectual stimulation again, and you want to be in a space of learning.
Or it could be about finding this really juicy balance between having stimulating work and also a really joyful, fulfilling family life. So it's, it's getting really to the core, it's not just superficial things of “ oh yeah, I want to be a successful researcher”, or “I want to publish like five journal articles” or whatever.
It's really like, what is it that you… qualities, and almost like emotional states that you want to enjoy and experience on a day-to-day, even moment to moment, basis throughout your PhD and letting that be almost like the central core theme around which you curate the rest of your life.
Vikki: I love that. I love that. And it made me think about my own experience of doing a PhD and, as you can probably guess from our conversations and everything, I was someone who wanted to do absolutely everything. And I think, I think the thing with that curate really struck with me is there is that element of constraint there as well.
That when you're curating an art gallery, like you said, you are not going to put every single piece of art you can possibly think of in there. You are going to put together, within the space available, a lovely selection that kind of meets the needs of you at that time. And I love the idea of that, when you're thinking about your life in this phase, you know not even in your whole PhD, but in the first year phase of my PhD, in the second year phase, what are the bits that would enable me to have a really lovely, joyful, easy, not easy in the sense of not being difficult, but living with ease, what do you need to put together for that to be possible, rather than just cramming in as many experiences as possible.
Jamie: Yeah. And what can you let go of as well? I think that's so like, yeah, I was the same. I wanted to do everything.
Vikki: This is why we bonded!
Jamie: Yes. I mean, it's that FOMO thing. That's another big one, right? For PhD students like that. FOMO. But actually if we take a step back and check in again with those, you know, two or three qualities that are non-negotiable in our lives, then we can really start to see like, okay, you know, this one thing, maybe attending this conference could be kind of fun, could be interesting, but actually, if I'm really honest with myself, doesn't really fulfil those qualities or maybe even distracts from me being able to enjoy those qualities a bit more and then you can make that decision to let it go knowing that, you know, I'm not actually missing out on anything. I don't actually need it.
Vikki: Yeah. Or it duplicates things. So again, as you were talking, I'm thinking Yeah, because like you're putting together a exhibition, you can be like, “I've already got one Monet. I don't need more Monets. I've already done some presentations at conference. I don't need to do all the presentations. Actually, what I haven't got at the moment is either rest time or I haven't got published articles or whatever it is. And rather than just having more and more Monets, I actually need to get a Renoir over there. I'm not an artist, I’m just picking names.
Jamie: I'm not an artist either, so I don’t know we ended up with this metaphor when neither of us know anything.
Vikki: I love it though. It's good.
Jamie: And we've never curated an art exhibition.
Vikki: No, but we totally could!
Jamie: And I think it's really important as well, and you kind of touched on that there, as well as not duplicating, it's also reminding yourself that not doing something doesn't mean that you are losing out. It means that you are creating space for something else that's more aligned. Or something else that's even better, right?
Vikki: Or you just make space for that picture to look beautiful and not crowded into a gallery as well. So hopefully we sold the listeners on the idea of curating their PhD life. So if somebody is new to this, as I'm sure most people will be listening, where would you start? If you're kind of, you know, you're either beginning your PhD or perhaps your partway through it and feeling like your PhD life's not looking the way you thought it would or the way you hope it is, where would you begin?
Jamie: Okay, so I think it does begin with spending a little time thinking about what it is that you actually want out of this experience and in your life as a whole. So maybe this would be best illustrated if I just gave you an example from my own experience.
Right. So for me, I wanted my PhD experience and my life in general as well, to be one that was full of ease. So ease was a very big quality for me. I didn't want to have to struggle more than I have to. Like why make life harder for yourself? Right. So that would be like the theme of the exhibition, I guess, right?
And then you shape your everyday experiences and you make those micro- everyday decisions around that value. So for example, part of achieving ease for me meant having a significant amount of time in the day for not working or having that time for myself. So then I would deliberately pick and choose commitments or activities or whatever that would still allow me to have, for example, like my weekends and my evenings off.
Or what I would do is that I would very deliberately prioritize my rest times first, or block off those rest times and then plan my work days around that, or choose what activity to commit to or not around that.
So, I guess using the art exhibition analogy again, it would be like, okay, you know what? I really want to have this Monet, and I'm going to put that up first and then shape the rest of the paintings around that. That's a very crude metaphor analogy, but it's something like that, like deciding what it is that you want and like blocking that in making that as a priority or a non-negotiable, and then shaping everything else around that quality or that expression that, that you want.
Ease for me also meant that I wanted to be able to work in physically comfortable and conducive spaces. So this is again, another micro decision, like things like very consciously curating my workspace to best suit what would feel physically comfortable for me.
So right down to things like having the right stationery, like having the right apps and programs on my university computer, having my own mug in my office, and having access to my own tea bags, things like that. And they sound silly, but you know, you are there every day. So you want to make sure that those little things are feeding into the bigger thing of those values and those qualities that you want.
Vikki: And how did you - I mean, that sounds amazing, but my brain is offering me “Yeah. Ease sounds awesome. Maybe, maybe at ease would be my theme,” but then I think “but I have so many other things.” You know, “fun” pops in, you know, “connectedness” pops in. There's so many other things. So if listeners are feeling similarly and they're like, yeah, but which thing do I pick, how would you. encourage somebody to like narrow it down to, to a single theme at least for a period of time.
Jamie: Oh gosh. Okay. I actually came upon this from another co, she's a business coach called Caroline Kay and you can look her up. She's done some good stuff as well around choosing these values. She got us to do this exercise where, you know, you kind of, first of all, you select 10 values that you would love, and then you whittle that down to five, like, must have those out of that 10, you must have five, and then narrow that down to three.
It gets harder and harder, right? Because you want it all. We want it all. So I start with 10, go down to five, then go down to three. And Caroline's a thing where she makes us go down to one value.
Like what is the one thing that if everything was like collapsing around you, but you had that one quality in your life, you could put up with all the other crap that's happening around you. I found it very hard to go down to one. I mean, I think it's a very powerful exercise to do for yourself.
I mean, I guess maybe this is something that I have to work on myself. I stopped at three and I was like, you know what? I'm going to work with three. And I think three is a good number to have if you wanted to really go all out and push that practice a bit further, you could go down to one, but the premise of it is really like, what are the three qualities or one or two that you could not live without.
And Caroline had used this example that, like, if I got knocked over by a bus and I was now in a hospital bed and my whole body was in a class and I couldn't do anything. I think for her, she said if I had joy and I could still have a big belly laugh and feel that sense of joy from being able to laugh, then everything else would be okay.
So it's something like that. And when you do that, actually a lot of things clarify. The messy things start to untangle a lot easier and you start to get a lot more clarity around what it is that you actually want to keep in your life and what you can let go of.
Vikki: Cool. And we will link to Caroline in the show notes, so if anybody wants to look her up and find out more about that stuff, we'll link to that.
And you used the word earlier that I just want to kind of clarify for everybody. You talked about micro decisions and that just really struck me. What do you mean by micro decisions and why do you think that's so important?
Jamie: Yeah, so I think these are the little decisions that we might otherwise kind of disregard or even think of as like trivial or silly. And we belittle these decisions, but so things like how much you allow yourself to rest. What are you going to have for dinner? Like I was talking about earlier, like what kind of stationary do you have on your desk?
Um, so yeah, I think these kinds of tiny decisions because they're micro, tiny decisions, I think we often have a tendency to dismiss them or ignore them, or we just try to power through them and think, oh, well, they're not important. The mind is more important, right? Like productivity, our outputs more important. You know, I'm a rigorous, hardcore, serious researcher, I shouldn't be held back by things like meal times and how many hours of sleep I get in a night or when was the last time I talked to my mother. Like, oh, I've got more important things in my life to worry about. But, those micro decisions are what make up that whole, ultimately productive or non-productive, successful day, right?
So when you are making the right nutritious decisions for your meals and you are getting enough sleep, when you are consciously making that decision to check in with your partner or your family on a regular basis, and you are aware of when was the last time you spoke to your mom. All those things contribute to helping you to curate that life that you want and to support you having those values in your life.
And when you have these things in place, that is what is ultimately going to support you to do the hardcore successful, serious research. When all those other parts of you are looked after, the research will take care of itself.
Vikki: I love that notion of looking after yourself, sort of thinking, how can I be kind to me and not in a kind of a “light a candle and meditate” kind of a way, but just in a “how can I just make my life a little bit easier and a little bit more pleasant right now?”
I think that's such a - you know, we think of it for other people, but it's such a lovely thing to think about for yourself.
Jamie: Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s this idea that like self-care is the soft thing of like bubble baths and candles and the sense of it's almost a complacent, lazy thing, right?
And oh my gosh, this kind of terror we feel around having too much rest and being too indulgent or like self-care or kindness to ourselves being this thing that's like indulgent and frivolous. I think actually it's a very active thing that we're doing. I think when we, when we look after ourselves and it can be, it can be some of the hardest things we do.
I mean, learning to say no to a commitment is also self-care, right? It's making those micro decisions. It is saying, you know what? I'm not going to attend this conference because it's taking me away from those core values at the moment. It could be doing the hard things of saying, you know what, I am going to sit down and write for, for 30 minutes today, and that's all I'm going to do.
I'm just going to do 30 minutes instead of forcing myself to do eight hours . And making those decisions are also self-care. You know, it's really about, it's not just some wishy-washy thing. It's about creating what is going to be most conducive for you to ultimately do that research. You know, like, and what could be more important than that?
Like, we're so fixated on like, “oh my God, doing the good research, being a successful researcher” but how you get there is going to vary so tremendously from person to person, and it's really about checking in with yourself, what that means for you, and how you can create that for yourself.
Vikki: And that's going to look really different for different people, right? When we think of self-care, we usually think about that kind of relaxing stuff, don't we? We think about healthy food and an early night and all these things. For me, self-care, for me, one thing is play. I get really grumpy if I don't do something moderately silly every day. You know, I like to play a board game. I like to go to circus. I like, you know, those sorts of things where I'm focused on something, I'm not just laying in a bath. But it's not work, it's not productive in any particular sense that's the sort of care I'm learning or have learned that I need in order to be enjoying my life and turning up for work stuff with enthusiasm. So it's going to look really different, I guess, for everybody, what, what they actually need in order to thrive in that way.
Jamie: Yeah. And don't let the self-care thing be another thing that we're comparing with other people. Right?
Vikki: Oh my goodness. Yes. So, you know, I see some of these morning routines on, on Twitter and Instagram and stuff I was thinking about, and it's like, oh my goodness, if I'm journaling and meditating and massaging my face, did you know we're meant to massage our faces with little rollers? Apparently.
Jamie: I did not know that.
Vikki: No , I don't think we do. Influencer culture and all that. This sounds amazing. What barriers do you think there are for people doing this?
Jamie: Well definitely the pressures that they might be experiencing externally. So if you had a difficult supervisor, for example, who was constantly putting particular pressures on you or making you feel that you weren't doing enough. a I mean, there could be family pressures as well. You know, what we define as successful or not successful and who, you know, whose definitions of success we're working by. So, yeah, there are certain families that, you know, while you're doing your PhD, they may be pressuring you as to, you know, what are you going to do after this and what job are you going to do after this and all.
So that, there is a lot of that as well. And I'm, you know, I recognize and acknowledge that being able to completely say, you know, have a hundred percent say in how you could curate your life is a privilege, and there may be other pressures that don't allow you to fully do that. People have different commitments and different responsibilities. Again, I'm not going to presume to, you know, to know everyone's possible lifestyle and commitments. But it's also, you know, it's also reminding ourselves that even if you cannot curate a hundred percent of what you want, it can still make a big difference to say, “okay, well, how can I bring myself 1% closer to this?” or if I, you know, even if I can't curate a hundred percent what I want, what is one area where I could begin to let things be a little easier? Or even, you know, right now there are these barriers, but what support can I ask for or what help can I ask for in order to help me get a little bit closer to that.
So, for example, it could be, you know, you've got lots and lots of commitments right now and you are wanting more ease and you're wanting to create a more easeful life, but you're feeling these pressures to do the conference and organize this and do lab work and write up and, you're being pulled in 101 different directions. Like could it be as simple as having a conversation with a frank, honest conversation with your supervisor or PI and saying, “I am feeling really overwhelmed. Can we have a conversation just to check back in with, you know, what are the key goals that I should be working towards at the moment and maybe rejigging things around, maybe pushing some things back for a while or putting, hitting pause on some things.”
“What could I possibly even feasibly drop for now completely?” Yeah, and, and allowing ourselves to ask for that help sometimes can be a big step just to at least meet those barriers. And I think even in the first place is acknowledging those barriers. I think a lot of times what does become messy is that we're not even aware of what the barriers are or what those pressures are, and we're just allowing ourselves to be swept along.
And now you are kind of buried under all these commitments. You know, like, “I don't know where they came from on, how have I ended up with all of these things?” This is something I talk about a lot as well with my clients, and part of working with messiness is untangling what is actually truly yours and your desires, your values, your goals from what is someone else's and even if you cannot completely divorce yourself from those things, like if you've got children, you cannot suddenly say like, no, I don't want to look, I don't want to look after them anymore. But it could be, you know, again, like, how can I get support or, or help with this so that I can begin to, to curate and create that life that I, that I want more of.
Vikki: I love that notion of untangling, because I think sometimes we don't even stop long enough to think who says I should do this? Where does this even come from? You know, you're talking about looking after children. I don't have children, so I do not profess to be an expert on this at all, but I look at my friends, I look at my relatives, and everyone does it in different ways. There are things that people accept are absolute non-negotiables. I have to do this, that other parents don't do. So even those things, how we show up as a parent, how we show up as a partner, whether we do all the things our supervisor suggests we do, we have more choice around all of that stuff than I think sometimes we, we acknowledge. And I think just stopping to spend a little time going, “okay, so your supervisor suggested you did this. What are you making that mean?” Are you making that mean therefore you have to, or what? What's going to happen because they're going to be mad at you? Because they're going to be disappointed? Because you are going to judge yourself for not being able to do all the things?
You know what does the fact that somebody has suggested you do this thing, what are you actually even making that mean? And does that actually mean you have to do the thing?
Jamie: And what does it mean if you don't do it as well? Right? So many times we get barreled along. We think, oh, I have, I have to do this thing. I have to do this thing. Yeah. Why do you have to do this? And what happens if you don't do it? And you know, a lot of people say, “oh, my supervisor says I have to do, they're not very understanding. You know, they're not in support at all of me, curating my own PhD life and therefore I have to just still accept it.”
But even in those cases, if you are not getting the adequate support from your supervisor, there should be measures in place for you to be able to ask for help from a wider thesis advisory panel or to even change supervisors. There have been situations where people do that, where they feel, you know, they're not able to do the research that they're wanting to do, or, or in a way that feels supported. So again, it's about asking for that help, and allowing yourself to ask for support and help in order for you to meet those values and, and to be able to curate as much of that life as you can for yourself.
Vikki: Definitely. Because I think, you know, towards the beginning you talked about agency being so important and this idea of curating because it's us having control over what we choose to bring into our life.
But I love the idea that that's also an interconnected thing, that in order to curate our life, we also have to work with the people in it. So you know, if we want to free up an evening in order to do a certain thing, how can I work with somebody else to make that happen? Or if I want to get my lab work finished over the next six months so that I can then really focus on my write up or whatever it is, who do I have to work with? What do we need to do in order to make that possible.
And so I love this balance of kind of having autonomy over your life, but also that that doesn't mean that you are a kind of self-contained island that can never ask for help and has to just accept everything that people ask them to do.
Jamie: Yeah. You don't have to do it all yourself. It is, there is the idea that like, you know, PhD work is quite solitary and you have to do the research on your own and it's your project. Um, but also like we're not. Single. Like, we're not, we're not islands that are just, you know, living on our own. Um, and it's, yeah, it's, it's absolutely Okay.
And, and that's part of the curating, right? Um, and it's also, this is, this, this is so important, and I'm sure you've talked about this with a lot of your clients and in your podcast, the importance of, of setting those boundaries for yourself. That's a big part of curating as well, like knowing the parameters of what you want and what you're going to allow in or, or not.
What's going to support those boundaries? What can people expect from you as well as you set those boundaries, so that you can meet those things that you want and the things that you don't want.
Vikki: Yeah. Yeah, boundaries are a whole other thing, huh? But yeah, that's a whole other thing, but you're so right, but you're so right. It's so connected to this. It's deciding what things are okay and what things aren't on, you know, what am I going to do and what am I not in different situations? But one of the things that really helped me with setting boundaries and kind of having more focus was also picking a timescale over which I was talking.
So especially if you're somebody like us who wants to do loads of things, knowing that you are not having to choose a value or choose boundaries for the rest of your life. This isn't something that's forever. You can decide for the next six months or the next three months if that feels too overwhelming, this is going to be my focus.
I got advised by a senior academic at my university. Years and years ago, but it really stuck with me that you can do everything over an academic career, you just can't do everything all the time.
Jamie: Oh, that's so good.
Vikki: You have phases where you are doing more outward facing stuff and raising your profile and all of those things, and you'll have phases, where it’s get your head down, get your book written or whatever, and that these things, and maybe you look after yourself, you curate your life differently in those different times.
So, I mean, to give you an example, when I used to be in academia pre pandemic, I was on campus all the time. And I had lots of hobbies and stuff in the evening and so the thing I had to actively curate was having some time to decompress on my own, because that was the bit that didn't happen automatically.
But then during pandemic and then afterwards. And now when I'm working at home, it's the other way around. I have to make sure I'm curating connection with other people, because otherwise it's just me and the dog here until my partner comes home. So different phases of your life, I think you'll need to curate in different ways and I think it takes some of the pressure off to recognize that I'm just curating this bit, let's see how that goes.
Jamie: Yeah, I love that so much. I think it's absolutely right what you said, like how the PhD unfolds absolutely does evolve and change and shift from year to year, or even from month to month. And it's also giving ourselves that grace and that flexibility to evolve and change with it. So even if your values more or less stay the same, like for example, your value is joy or connection or stimulation, whatever it is you could still keep that core value, but how it manifests and what you need to do to curate that in your everyday life can shift and evolve and change, and that's okay too.
Ultimately, the goal is not about living in this like fixed way. It's what is going to help you to enjoy those qualities in order for you to be able to do your research at your best self.
Vikki: I love that. And live the PhD life that you dreamt of. Because that's the thing. All these students, everyone listening, you, you're currently living past you's dream.
You know when you were doing your undergraduate, when you were doing your masters, you were dreaming of doing a PhD a lot of the time and now you're doing it and how can we just make sure that it is the life we wanted.
Jamie: And you continue to live that dream, right? Like, yeah, that you're not now taking on someone else's dream and someone else's expectations. You are allowed to enjoy the PhD, okay? You are allowed to feel joy and pleasure as you do it. It doesn't have to, this is something that I always say, like, just because you are enjoying it and you're not suffering, it doesn't mean that your research is less valuable. Like there's this very strange, upside down way of thinking that my research is only valuable if I'm like struggling and suffering for my art. But no, it, it can be, it can feel easeful and joyful and also as a result be really rich, thoughtful, insightful research.
Vikki: I love that. Do you have any final tips for our listeners who want to curate their PhD?
Jamie: Yes. So, I would love for you as you are curating your life and making those big and micro decisions to always ask yourself, “how can I act from a place of fulfillment and from a place that feels good?”
What do I need to do in this moment that would have me acting and living from a place of fulfillment and what feels good? Instead of living and acting and being from a place of scarcity or fear or competitive anxiety. So the result, like the action that you take may be the same. Like, you know, for example, if you're deciding whether or not to do a conference, you might decide, yes, I'm going to organize this conference.
But choosing to do that from a more empowered place that feels fulfilled, that is aligned with what it is that you are wanting to experience in your PhD. Doing it from a place that feels good and really deeply fulfilling is going to be very different from choosing to organize that conference because you are scared of missing out or you are scared that like someone else is going to overtake you and you're going to fall behind.
So it's just really checking in and clarifying for yourself what's truly supporting you to achieve what you want to do and enjoy and experience. And that's really, you know, aligning with those core desired values and not just what like the rest of the world is telling you. And it will also just help you to again untangle what is truly yours from the noise outside that you know is actually more of a distraction and doesn't really help you to achieve the things that you want.
Vikki: Fantastic. Thank you so much for today, Jamie. It's been absolutely amazing having you on the show. If people want to hear more about how they can work with you and things, where should they be looking?
Jamie: So you could follow me on Instagram or Twitter. My handle is @verymessyjamie or you can visit my website, www.jamiepei.com and I think we'll put the links in the show notes. So yeah, if you just head on there, hope to connect with you somehow and we can muddle through mess together.
Vikki: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone for listening, and I will see you next week.
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