Illustration: David Parkins
The advice
It’s very common to hit a lull in the phase of a PhD programme that you are in. In fact, there’s even a term for it: the third-year slump. The freshness and excitement might have worn off, and you could be realizing the limits of your knowledge, explains Vikki Wright. Previously a higher-education researcher at the University of Birmingham, UK, Wright is now a life coach and podcaster focusing on PhD students.
It’s also noteworthy that you’re in a moment of change between working environments: you’ve left the laboratory and now spend more time in front of a screen. “It’s quite normal to find that a bit of a strange transition and work out what your new normal looks like,” Wright says.
She adds that, if you’ve had a sudden change in energy levels, it’s worth checking with your physician for a physical cause. But this could have more to do with discipline and motivation. To Nicole Barnes, who leads education work at the American Psychological Association in Washington DC, your letter suggests that “the issue is not motivation so much as agency. When effort no longer leads to progress, the system teaches you to conserve energy.”
“Before interpreting your current exhaustion as evidence that you no longer belong, it may be worth seeing what happens when the plan changes,” Barnes advises. “Often, when agency returns, energy follows.”
Explore your options
In terms of engaging more effectively with your PhD work, clearly explaining your situation to your supervisors is worthwhile. They could be overloaded with work and might not have given you enough attention. Wright observes: “Sometimes it’s a case of needing to really pin it down with a serious conversation, saying ‘Look, I do need to have some plans here.’”
In addition to formulating a ‘plan B’ — such as a different project — you and your principal investigator (PI) should establish what would trigger that plan, Wright says. This could be time-based or event-based. For example, if a request for clinical data from a colleague is definitively denied, or if you haven’t received feedback on a project for a set period of time, that could be the catalyst to change course.
“Crucially, any new plan should include small, clearly defined steps that produce visible progress in the near term,” Barnes specifies. “Momentum matters.” More-manageable steps could include working on a paper describing the methods or a mini-project with a narrow scope, using the data that are available.
Incremental choices also help you to avoid making the daunting decision of staying in your programme or leaving immediately. Wright considers that “an example of all-or-nothing thinking”. Instead of a binary state, “there’s such a range in between. And when we box ourselves into ‘I either have to be perfectly happy or leave’, it doesn’t make it very easy to move forward.”
Wright suggests that you give yourself a defined period of time, perhaps two months, to establish why you feel that you’re not doing enough work towards your degree, whether you want to be doing more and whether you want to put more energy into other activities instead. That period should give you the information you need to make your next decision.
If, despite your best efforts, your PI isn’t helpful, Wright suggests that you find another person to talk to informally about feeling stuck. This might be, for instance, a programme director or the head of postgraduate studies. However, finding and speaking directly with this person could be a delicate matter, if the department is small or your PI is that informal adviser’s colleague. But Wright advises you to initiate these kinds of conversation sooner rather than later.
Luis Prieto, who researches educational technology at the University of Valladolid, Spain, and writes the blog A Happy PhD, stresses, “It’s normal to be frustrated with the situation and to feel guilty.” One constructive response is ‘job crafting’, or reflecting on and emphasizing the aspects of work that you like while de-emphasizing the ones that you don’t — to the extent that these are in your control. For example, if you feel disconnected from your colleagues, it might help to go onsite more often or to schedule regular online coffee breaks with your lab mates. Your peers could be a good source of creative suggestions about moving past your slump, Prieto says.
