Last week I was interviewed by David Austin Walsh from the History News Network; you can read the transcript of that here. David titled the interview, “Recent PhDs Need to Have their Confidence Boosted,” which it seems is something I said during our conversation . . . and I was right! I was reminded of this last night, during one of the post-PhD conference calls I hosted. Without me prompting it, that conversation turned to the importance of building confidence after grad school and while on the job market, academic or otherwise. And of course I completely agree. I told David,
Grad school is very good at grinding people down and making them think they suck, and that’s just not true. You do have experience coming out of grad school. I was a higher education professional for ten years in grad school, and so now I’m changing careers—or more accurately, changing jobs within the higher education field. That language may not be obvious, but it is true. I’m a mid-career professional.
Only once you realize you’re not a loser, not a failure, not without experience or skills or talents, can you change the way you talk about yourself. Only then will you change how you present yourself, and start to see all the many places where you could be of value. Then: watch out, world! I consider it my job—my mission!—to help people get to that point, and then revel in all the places they’ll go. (Yes, I intend to live vicariously through my friends, clients, and post-PhD peers.)
So, what would help? I’m going to reflect on what helped me and what might help others. I’ll let you know once I do that! What helped you embrace your own awesomeness? What would help you do that?
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16 responses to “Confidence”
Since you write in a very personal and approachable style, I’ll try to answer in kind. Realize, though, that while I’m being candid about personal concerns, I’m not as mired in a state of crisis, not lacking in hope as I might seem, and I am indeed working to do better.
What you say hits me on a certain level. But that level exists only in the abstract for me, not quite in a place I can see myself actually occupying. You say that a graduate has skills, that a graduate is a professional in a sense, and that there’s a world of (rewarding?) employment out there for just such a professional, if only he or she learned confidence and self-love — which would naturally translate to properly “selling oneself,” and honestly, too. I can buy that notion. But I’m at a place where I can’t even see that professional world anywhere beyond me. (And let me just add as proviso that I don’t have a PhD, only an MFA, acquired with enough choices made not in forward planning, but rather in favor of developmental inertia — so much in favor of inertia, in fact, that I don’t feel like I had accomplished much of anything “academic” at all.)
As I ponder your suggestion, that all I have to do is learn to stop feeling like I suck, my logic already takes a few key jumps forward to generally unpleasant places. The first jump takes me to a point that (like the above parenthetical) revels in reminding myself just how little I really learned as a graduate student. I did badly; I alienated everybody; I learned nothing. The jump that follows that one, more having to do with this professional world you’re talking about, takes me to a point in which I feel generally rotten about the world around me, unable to see any worthwhile professional goals to pursue. It’s the world that sucks, not me. The world sucks so much that even though I often feel that I don’t suck — and in many ways, I certainly know I don’t suck — there wouldn’t be anything out there for me, and I would remain rejected, unwanted.
In the end, it’s more this latter logical jump than the former that bothers me. That the world sucks is a condition that few people seem determined to change, or to do so reasonably quickly. Me, I can work to manage my time and funds and energy to feel better about myself, to accomplish new things, to — by gum! — squeeze out even more time and funds and energy from the little I started out with, which, if I accomplish new and better things with it, naturally makes me feel better. Maybe that’s your point: This self-optimization is all a single person can do. More than that, if a person were to do this, then the world surrounding that person begins to look that much less sucky. More than that, a person convinced neither she nor the world suck is that much better equipped to change the things that suck for the better. But that’s also one tall order. It’s hard to see the work ever paying off.
The third place my logic jumps to is perhaps a more constructive one, but I don’t know if it’s constructive in a positive way. In this place, I find myself saying: Okay, so what do I have to do? Where do I go? What do I try? What do I put my money on? In this place, I ask myself if I seriously know what I want to do with myself. And I answer myself: No, I don’t really know what I want to do with myself. Probably, I can find others to help me answer this question. That would be a worthwhile accomplishment. It’s then that I would find the good out there and apply my real skills. But then, I know, the burden of proof will come back on me, not any person who helps me. I’ll be the one who has to speak, to say: I want this! And while I trust myself enough to say that, I don’t trust myself to say it out of honesty with myself, out of determined self-love and not sniveling self-preservation.
Which is maybe the place where your insistence on coaching and confidence is the most salient. I need to reach a state in which I’m … better. Is there even a state like that? Or I need to put together a process by which I am doing better all the time. With work, self-trust will come, bit-by-bit. At least, I’ll maintain this self-trust at its highest possible level, at least as observed over a long period of time.
Thank you for this, Ishai!! My low point, self-worth-wise, was perhaps not as low as what you’re describing, but I’ve definitely travelled a long way since then. I think what helped me is to focus more and more and what I was good at, what I did like to do, what I was passionate about. I like projects (always have, in different contexts), so the self-work stuff was like a new fun project for me!
What do you get excited about? What are you doing when you lose track of time? When do you feel most alive? Start there, ask more questions of yourself. For me, a coach helped, as did reading self-help-ish books.
Ultimately, your story will change: from bad grad student, unskilled MFA to successful, passionate —–. I, too, was a “bad student”! I never published, didn’t particularly enjoy conferences, never taught my own course… but that doesn’t mean that I suck. It just means that it wasn’t a good fit for me. Academia was a bad fit me. And why should it be a good fit? And who cares if it isn’t? It took a while but I came around to realizing these things. Academia is just one possible place to work/live in the world. There are so many others! And, we know that academia isn’t any better than the others, not really. (This feeling/knowledge grows and solidifies as time goes by.) I just need to figure out what MY world is. What a fun prospect: that I’ve got a world! I can’t wait to get closer to it, deeper into it.
Hello friends – so I have been one of the voices on some of Jen’s Post-PhD Conference Calls lately and have talked a fair amount what a total obliteration of my confidence has occurred – especially for me during the dissertation-writing phase of all this. I’m not done yet – so I’m ABD, not post-PhD. Ironically, doing the one thing that I’ve always thought would be a huge confidence BOOSTER for me (getting my phd) has turned out to be probably the worst confidence dive of my whole life.
In the process of taking classes and seeing up close and personal what a tenure-track faculty person’s life is like (or at least the ones I was in contact with) – I quickly began to doubt my life-long dream of becoming the tweed-clad, leather-bound-journal-carrying professor… largely on the singular basis that work-life balance is a deeply-held value for me – and I was seeing these professors working all the time!
And then, if that whole caving in of my anticipated career path wasn’t enough – I had to go back to work after I finished coursework (to stop the bleeding of debt accrual, and pay my bills) – which was the beginning of the slowest dissertation process on the planet! (Well not really – it’s been 4 years now, just on the diss- but way too long in my opinion, given how it’s held my entire life hostage until it’s done – planning to defend this Fall). The dissertation process has been entirely disheartening – and has made feel like I have less to offer when I’m done with this degree, than I had when I began it – if for no other reason besides that my energy and pizazz for career has been sapped, my confidence and sense of professional direction drained dry.
Oh yeah – and I haven’t published either. Mostly because I was not a good fit with any of the faculty’s interests, and thus was passed by for assistantships and co-authorship opportunities. That little fact alone is nearly making me feel like I’ll be getting like a Ph, but maybe with the ‘D’ just because I have no publications to my name.
Anyhow – just wanted to put the honest internal voice out there – given the topic. I work everyday on balancing this overwhelmingly depressing “reality” with a more optimistic viewpoint but it’s not easy.
What would help? Finishing will help. Reading Jen’s blog has helped. Knowing, and connecting with others who can relate themselves has helped. Learning about ‘alt-ac’ career paths has helped and I’m seeking more learning in that realm. Creating a new “identity” for myself ultimately is what I think needs to happen – but I’m pretty sure that’s going to take a while. After all, it’s only been my whole life that it took to develop the one I thought I had!
Cheers folks – would love to hear from others.
jg
Thanks for your thoughts, Julie!
Hi Jennifer and Julie
Two points:
Both you and Jennifer have said you have no publications despite either being done or close to defence. This is the kind of thing that really bugs me these days. If you’ve completed a thesis-based masters, you are at least thinking and likely writing at a publishable level. In a PhD it ought to be an core part of their training to get students publishing as contributors or single/lead authors on papers. Publishing is THE way research is communicated and the major metric of one’s academic merit. It should be absolutely critical to train students to navigate the publishing process and learn how hone and tailor a piece for a journal. Any supervisor or department that does not build this in their research training is grossly negligent. This also could do wonders for building someone’s confidence as an academic!
My second point is on Can/US PhD programs versus European type. My undergrad and masters were in Canada, but I’m now a PhD student in Europe. Basically there’s not normally course work the latter. Part of my rationale for going overseas was that I began to see the coursework/exam model in North America as potentially infantilising for some kinds of student in certain disciplines*, especially those who aren’t changing fields. By the time someone begins a PhD, they’re a trained researcher. If they’ve done a research masters, they’ve done advanced courses in their field and the thesis has taught them to do research. And as I saw in my old department, there were masters theses at least as sophisticated as and probably better than some of the PhDs. Why on Earth make someone repeat the same kinds of courses in a PhD before they’re allowed to do their own research, when they’ve already been trained as researchers? This can only serve the to make someone feel as if they’re not yet “good enough” and so inhibit them from putting their own work out there. If a department/supervisor is producing underconfident PhDs who’ve never published, they simply aren’t doing their job and actually harm their students 🙂
*Some students accepted to PhDs need more coursework, and some disciplines require specific hard skills that are best taught in a structured environment.
Well. This will come off worse than I mean, but for discussion’s sake, here goes:
What if some of us aren’t actually awesome? What if some of us are in fact mediocre, difficult people who lack direction and ambition? What if it is less important to be awesome, passionate, or a successful something than it is to be employed–at all?
When the conversation is so strongly weighted toward increasing confidence, finding your awesome, unleashing your passion, the impression is that those things directly correlate to job-attainment. Oh, you’re having a hard time finding a job? You must not have found your awesome. As though if we all just believed we were fabulous, the magical job pinata would break open and then there’d be jobs just raining down and we could stuff our pockets full.
I am totally aware that I will need to present myself in a somewhat more positive light this coming year as I finish the dissertation and then enter the job market (for academic and non-academic jobs. I can’t afford to be choosy. I’ll bag groceries if I have to.). On the other hand, I refuse to believe that it’s all our own fault that we’re not finding livable, humane work.
I am not lacking in confidence with regard to my scholarly abilities–I know I can write, research, even teach. I am not the best at these things, for sure, but I am good enough to know that I could certainly improve and be quite competent. I have no confidence that any of my abilities or capabilities will prevent me from enduring years of un- or underemployment, and there is nothing that will give me confidence. Yes, I will seek work–all kinds of work. Yes, I will hone my skills and develop new ones. And yes, I might get lucky. But that’s just it: luck plays such a huge role in all this–there are many, many “awesome” people who do not get the work (quality; quantity; type, etc.) that they deserve.
Chance determines so much and that needs to be a part of the conversation. Any confidence we (tentatively) cultivate has to realistically account for and even embrace the fact that we are simply not in full control of our desirability to potential employers. That even with confidence, passion, and an “inner awesome,” we’re still not in control and there still might not be jobs we love. Or jobs at all.
Now everyone go and get a glass of wine and rinse away the unpleasant savor of this rant.
There’s so much in this comment! Thank you. I assume we are all awesome, that what makes us awesome may not be apparent to ourselves or others, but it’s there. For me, coaching is about bringing out that awesome! More below. I only picked up on a small part of your comment 🙂
I’ve known Jen for a few years now — from her grad school days — and I’m finding talking to her and reading her (and her commentators) words helpful. This thread is particularly interesting. I’d like to throw something else on to fire here that is related to the issue of confidence and that is “worry.” I have a good deal of confidence in many aspects of my life — professional and personal — much of which has been externally validated and YET I still worry about what may or may not come! It often shuts me down and makes me think I don’t have the confidence I do….What role, then, does worry (about the future and about past doings and not-doings) play in this issue of confidence?
I think—not being an expert in such things!—that the best we can perhaps do is practice recognizing the worry, noticing how it feels and where in our body we feel it. Then the emotion becomes just something that’s happening. That’s all: just stuff that’s happening. And we can thank that worry: it’s our old brains telling us to beware of predators etc. Once we recognize, acknowledge, then we can turn our attention to thinking about what we want to do. We can act instead of react; we can take control to a certain extent.
Our philosophotarian writes: “What if some of us aren’t actually awesome? What if some of us are in fact mediocre, difficult people who lack direction and ambition? What if it is less important to be awesome, passionate, or a successful something than it is to be employed–at all?”
I don’t disagree completely… but here’s where I differ: I assume/believe on faith that we are all awesome. I really do; I can’t help it these days and wouldn’t want it any other way. Sometimes we are acting mediocre, being difficult, and feeling directionless and without ambition. But those traits are only temporary, situational, ego afflictions, not the core of who we are.
Jobs/money/food/rent… absolutely necessary and therefore important. But I’d like to think there’s room—that there has to be room!—in that life of struggle for survival to discover what we’re all about. Once in a while, a little bit at a time. And that as we figure this out, we can make small adjustments to our lives as they are now, and build toward making bigger adjustments as we’re able. That becomes a different sort of struggle for survival.
That’s what I’m thinking/believing/assuming, anyways. I’m struggling to put into words my thoughts… I don’t want to come across as dismissive and patronizing: “Just be confident!” But, there are ways of feeling more secure, more settled, more present, more centered, more here, more accepting… however you want to put this. I think it’s helpful to accept so that we can more forward. Accept, forgive (ourselves, others, the way things are) and then carry on. Separating the unhelpful (but real) emotional baggage as much as possible from things helps, I think.
Am I making sense? I’m on murky territory… have been reading in and around psychology, Buddhism, coaching, etc. I now want to go put Jill Bolte Taylor’s _Stroke of Insight_ on hold at the library… so let me go and do that now!
I could only add to this: Be supportive of others. Build them up. Tell them what they’re good at, what they do well. Help people to recognise in themselves what they do well. There’s a pedagogy in there somewhere.
I agree!
I agree with much of this here. Words and positive thinking do have power. Thinking one is confident, being confident, and actually having that confidence is necessary, esp. when worry or other baggage (or reality) comes in attempting to shut things down.
What is dangerous (or, really, counterproductive), though, is false confidence or not fully understanding the systemic issues that stand in one’s way of what one’s ultimate goal/dream was. For example, my advisor has had far too much confidence in myself and a friend of mine when it came to the market. He didn’t see the structural issues at play. I started to, and was always skeptical of his confidence in what I would get after I finished. When I told my advisor that while I would finish the degree, I would not enter the TT market, but rather look for work in private high schools, he admitted that my odds of finding a TT job were slim to none. Not because of me per se, but because of the “numbers game” of the market. For my friend, who’s struggling on his third year on the market, that admission of lack of confidence from our advisor came only recently.
But we had to come to see this on our own. In my case, I had to come to see private HS teaching as a real option on my own. There are things out there to read on making the switch, but our advisors — at least at my institution — don’t suggest them or make then apparent. Our placement advisor only focuses on the traditional TT job market. They all have supreme confidence in our abilities to find a TT job and succeed on the traditional job market. The reality is different. Some do do well on the market, but there is no alternative.
So, I guess I raise this question: how can we begin to help faculty advisors’ (and still-in grad students’) confidence be parceled out to include confidence that work can be found in other relevant and related careers with the PhD? It’s a cultural thing, of course, but it’s an important cultural change that needs to be made in higher ed. Sometimes it’s a blinkered confidence and then when that one path doesn’t pan out, it feels like the confidence shrinks away.
Just my two cents.
Crazy and frustrating! When I say confidence—and certainly as I think about it and read these comments—I don’t mean, “I’ll so totally get a job,” but rather, “I’m me and I feel good about who I am and my prospects.” But there’s more thinking/reading/writing for me to do here.
In some ways, academe is a seriously messed up place – centered around bringing people down instead of lifting them up. It’s a self-fulfilling process too, because all those beaten down phds who manage to get jobs, go on to beat down the next set of students in order to make themselves feel better about how beaten down they are! All that is to say I think this conversation about confidence is really important. I agree with a lot of the comments here: no confidence alone won’t get you a job, yes, false confidence is a problem, no, we’re not all perfect. Several commenters (including you Jennifer) have touched on the idea that this lack of confidence in phds is institutionalized. We all have our own individual stories, but generally, I’d bet that regardless of what we brought to the graduate table as individuals, we were met with the same confidence crushing infantilization of grad school. All that is to say that I feel like the best medicine is this acknowledgement that’s happening here, that the feelings of inadequacy are not the result of personal failing but are at least in part the result of external pressures intended to make you feel that way. Recognizing that is hugely empowering. Once you can distance yourself from the academy’s judgments, then you can more realistically evaluate your accomplishments (which, I think, Jennifer, is the point you are making, right?).
Great conversation!
Yup!
Just came across this: blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/to_succeed_forget_self-esteem.html