I am about to go into the final stretch of my PhD. Looking back, it has been a journey and a bit of a personal test. Family stuff, chronic illness, surgery, relationship challenges…almost all aspects of my life have created challenging times – triggering a lot of stress and anxiety. Obviously, life happens, but that all of this has happened while I’ve been doing my PhD has been a lot to take.

One of the most important things I have learned is that the only person who is ultimately going to be kind to you in each moment is you. As someone who regularly beats herself up over the smallest things, this has been something I really needed to learn during some of the hardest moments. This blog is me sharing some of the realities of a PhD and highlighting how important it is to be kind to yourself during this time.

You are going to ‘waste’ time

Dead ends from searches? Not using a chunk of that data you spend ages organising and collecting? Countless documents of writing you spent ages on that now sit in a virtual drawer on your laptop? Part of the creativity of doing a PhD is really refining your work, continuing to question yourself and making mistakes. You might go need to go off plan to find what you’re really looking to create. And that’s absolutely fine. There is nothing wrong with those periods where you feel like wasting time. You never know what you’ll come across or discover if you allow these things to happen.

One of my PhD friends said something to me in first year that has always stuck, and that is to remember that you wouldn’t be where you are now if you hadn’t done what you’ve done. In other words, allow for the mess and the mistakes, because that’s where you are now.

Life happens, academia forgets

While many jobs can have a brutal culture and attitude towards personal lives, academia can be notorious for forgetting what really matters. From my experience, academia, can often make you feel like not focusing on the PhD at all times makes you a failure, which isn’t true at all. Focusing on yourself and your current circumstances is not selfish, it’s one of the most important things you can do during your PhD. If you are not well enough to do the PhD, then the PhD doesn’t get done. It is really important to prioritise taking care of yourself. PhDs involve intense work, meaning it can be easy to overdo it quickly.

You will always think you are behind

The noise around being ‘behind’ will always exist in academia. Whether you experience direct comments or other people talking about being behind, it never goes away. It’s important to remember, you will probably always be behind – whatever that means – and there’s nothing wrong with it. You will learn to make decisions because ultimately, there is a deadline or multiple deadlines to adhere to. And this means, it is more than okay for you to say you and your work are enough at any given moment.

If you aren’t used to being kind to yourself, learning to do so can be very challenging and overwhelming, never mind recognizing when you need to actually do it. But trust me on this, learning to be kind to yourself throughout your PhD will be one of your greatest achievements on this journey. You have done amazing to start studying on a PhD programme, to have continued to whatever stage you are at, and for getting to the final viva. Whatever comes next, you will be okay and you are allowed to take care and time for yourself.