Monday Motivator: Focus on Finishing
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When you put your hand to the plow, you can't put
it down until you get to the end of the row.
-Alice Paul
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Most faculty and graduate students contact me because they are having trouble finishing projects. Incomplete tasks keep faculty from getting tenure and graduate students from getting their degrees.
Academics who seek coaching often have several journal papers in process, can’t get themselves to complete a book proposal, have course ‘incompletes’ remaining from past semesters, or have been unable to finish their dissertation – often for years.
To become a successful academic you must learn how to
persist on a project until you complete it. The ability
to finish projects is a key ingredient to effectiveness
in your career and your life.
Becoming a finisher requires practice. One of the ways to
develop the habit of completing projects is to break large
tasks into small goals and finish something every day.
In a given work session, instead of trying to finish a
dissertation chapter, you could first aim to write three
paragraphs of your literature review covering a discrete
theoretical topic.
Instead of trying to revise a paper for resubmission, you
could first try to address two reviewer criticisms.
Instead of trying to send out your entire book proposal
to publishing houses, you could first aim to write one
chapter summary.
You’ll find that finishing a task creates a burst of
energy. When you accomplish your achievable daily goal,
you’ll feel a mild surge of satisfaction and an increase
in motivation. When you cross an item off your “to do”
list, you’ll experience satisfaction.
Finishing small tasks can also mitigate discouragement
about how long the large, complex projects take.
For example, today I had that common experience of
Tackling a project that seemed to become larger and more
complicated the more I worked on it. After a few hours,
I felt frustrated and disheartened. I thought that I’d be
able to finish, but instead I discovered new blocks to
completion. When I noticed how cranky I was becoming, I
decided to switch gears and work on something I knew that
I could complete: writing a Monday Motivator.
I find that these weekly emails are both manageable and
satisfying to send out (in part because some of you let
me know that you find my tips helpful.)
So, now that I’ve written this draft, I feel much better
about my day. And I’m ready to return to the discouraging
morass that prompted me to write about this topic!
Let me know what you finish this week.
Until next Monday,
Mary
P.S. A graduate student sent me the opening quotation because
she had found a previous Monday Motivator particularly relevant.
I always appreciate finding great quotations to add to my
burgeoning file, and in this case I had the added benefit of
learning that Alice Paul was an important suffragist.
Mary McKinney, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist and Academic Coach
Successful Academic Consulting
Visit http://www.SuccessfulAcademic.com
for more tenure track tips.
Visit http://successfulacademic.typepad.com
to read Mary's blog
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