Habits and Dissertations – 4 of 4
On August 15, 1989, Dr. Stephen R. Covey published his revolutionary book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The 7 Habits have helped millions of people improve their performance in a range of applications. In Part 4 of this 4-part series, I’m going to show you how Habits 1 & 2 have been instrumental in helping us cut at least one to two years off the time to graduation for our dissertation students…
Part 4 of 4:
Habit #1: Be Proactive.
If you’ve been following along with this entire series on the 7 Habits, you’ll notice I’m breaking with the countdown here. That is because Habit 2 holds a special significance for dissertation students, so we’re saving it for last.
Not to diminish Habit 1, though. It’s really important, too. Seriously, no sarcastic font, here.
Habit 1 reminds us that you are the driving force in obtaining your goals. You want it more than anyone else. And, you have to take the initiative to make it happen.
Many of my students have liken the start of the dissertation process to being helicoptered out to see and dropped in in the middle of the night. You have to take responsibility for your study and your progress. No one else wants you to finish as much as you do. And few others (including your committee in some cases) really care whether you finish or not.
Don’t expect your chair to check in with you to see whether you’ve finished your “homework” for that week. In fact, don’t expect your chair to set any deadlines or due dates for you at all.
This is your study. Be Proactive!
Habit #2: Being with the End in Mind.
Habit #2 is my favorite, #1, to-go habit for all dissertation students. We use this habit in two ways.
First, you should think about why you’re doing this. Look, only 1% of the population ever earns a research-based doctoral degree. The other 99% never do (and vast majority never even try…I’d say the lion’s share never try, but even a hungry lion isn’t that greedy!).
So, what makes you so different? Why did you decide to set your sights on this ridiculously difficult goal? How will your life be better when you graduate?
You had better have really good answers for these questions, because those answers could well be the difference between ABD and D-o-c!
One of these days, you will have a conversation with the person in the mirror. It will go something like this…
“What are you doing? You have a good job, a family. You’ve done well for yourself! Why are you putting us through all this now?”
If you can’t respond confidently to those questions, then quitting becomes the default response. Some definitively decide to withdraw from their doctoral programs. But, others just lack the motivation to keep going. They don’t affirmatively quit so much as they just don’t do everything they need to do to succeed and graduate.
Either way, not having strong, clear, definitive reasons why you want, you need, to graduate is a huge strike against your chances of ever earning your degree.
The second way we apply Habit #2 is even more important. The first application is motivational, which is very important, but it isn’t instructive. That’s exactly where the second application of Habit #2 comes in…
Only about half of doctoral students eventually graduate. The rest typically end their program ABD — All But Dissertation. Any idea what causes all those students to drop out? It’s not the course work. No, it’s the dissertation.
Specifically, most people drop out without even getting their proposal approved. Of those who do win approval for their dissertation, some are unable to collect their data. Of those who finish collecting their data, some are unable to make any sense of the data and draw any meaningful conclusions. Of those who are able to analyze their data, essentially none fail to make it to graduation!
That’s right, if you are able to collect and analyze your data, you are all but guaranteed of making it to graduation. That’s why collecting and analyzing your data is the “end” I like for students to focus on when beginning with the end in mind.
This advice is exactly backward according to what most universities ask of their students. They want you to come up with a topic, a title, a problem statement, etc. But, these things are essentially summaries! How many authors do you know who summarize before writing the thing they’re summarizing? That’s crazy, right? But, that’s exactly what most universities ask their students to do.
By focusing on how you’re going to collect and analyze your data, you’ll develop a sense of clarity about your study that very few doctoral students have. In fact, many students who contact me compare their dissertation experience to being blindfolded:
“I try to move forward, but it’s like I’m wearing a blindfold. I have to shuffle my feet and reach my hands out in front. It’s like I’m feeling my way through my dissertation!”
Clearly that student cannot move quickly or confidently. That’s got to be stressful. But, I hear it all the time.
When we work with our students to clearly plan the doing part of the dissertation, they are amazed at how much more sense they can make out of the writing part of the dissertation.
Writer’s block? Gone!
Confidence? Back!
Stress? Maybe not gone, but a whole lot better!
