Working on your dissertation you suddenly realize that you hate the topic, the direction its going and the entire process.
Those feelings, while not unusual, can make the going get really tough.
How do you get going again? I’ve encountered that problem recently with a writer I’m coaching. The topic she chose more than a year ago bores her to tears – literally! It causes stomach-wrenching pain. Three suggestions for getting over this hump come to mind.
First, get a good dissertation guidebook.
The one I most recommend is Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation by Sonja K. Foss and William Waters (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). This book proposes that a dissertation (where the research already has been gathered) can be completed in six months – from proposal to done document. I believe them because I finished writing and editing my diss in four months after collecting the data. Their process isn’t much different from what I learned for myself except for a major difference: they’ve made an art of showing dissertation writers how to do it. If you’re working with me, order a copy and we’ll use this book as one of our guides through the thinking and writing processes.
A second thing you can do is talk to your writing coach and to your dissertation director, if he or she is someone you think you can be open with.
You might get to change your topic (rare); more likely, though, you might get some insight as to why the topic or the diss overall has become so painful. At some point, I think most researchers hate their projects – for at least a little while. Even the most dedicated researcher can wish she was doing something else (scuba diving) somewhere else (like in Hawaii). But gaining some insight into your distress often can alleviate the worst of it, enabling you to get over the hump and to move on.
A third thing you can do when the going gets tough – and you’ll probably hate me for this – is to just suck it down and move on anyway.
My tai chi master tells me just to “go over it.” I always think he means to go “through” it, but maybe “over” provides the better image in that its like going beyond the pain. Its kind of like getting over yourself and not taking yourself so seriously that you feel like giving up. When I’m doing a chi gong exercise that really hurts or bores me, I tell myself I can do anything for one minute, two minutes, ten minutes, or more. When I’m into a project that’s hard for me, I tell myself I can do anything for six months (or however long it is estimated to be). So my advice is just that: go over it; you can do anything for six months! It’s not a lifetime; the dissertation isn’t your career’s work (unless you want it to be), and you will get done and be ready to move into other important research tasks.