academiblog

Why shouldn't academics have a life, too? Reassigned Time: Musings on Academic Identity....

My newsletter today is about flagging motivation, and how increasing your self-efficacy can improve your ability to stay motivated throughout the dissertation and the rest of your career. If you are interested in assessing whether you need to work on your own self efficacy, check out my " Academic Self-Efficacy Assessment ." It is based on research by R. Schwarzer and M. Jerusalem. Here are some suggestions as to ways to improve your own self-efficacy. This is absolutely vital if you are going to enjoy and flourish in academia. Imagine yourself succeeding. Be very specific and as visual as possible. E.g. See your self at faculty meetings, teaching, being called “professor” or “doctor.” Imagine people congratulating you on your success. Be very careful about what you say to yourself about “failure” experiences. Notice that you probably never actually fail. You were not 100% terrible at what you did. Indeed, you might have made several mistakes, but that is not a failure. For

Here is the audio of the teleclass we held today on ADD in graduate school. There was a tremendous amount of interest in this subject. I've noticed that there is very little information available specifically tailored to the graduate student. Feel free to listen to the class, and see the previous post if you are moved to commit to an action step! If you are moved after listening to this teleclass to get some help in adding structure, support and accountability to your graduate school experience, contact my associate, Jayne London. She has just started a telephone coaching group specifically for graduate students with ADD. Her email address is Jayne@AcademicLadder.com.

We're having our "Success in Graduate School with ADD" teleclass today, and I'm going to be asking people to commit to one action step that will help them surmount the symptoms of ADD and make progress in their work. Even if you didn't attend the teleclass, you can write in a commitment to taking one small step that you might not otherwise have done. Action steps should be small and discrete. "Write one chapter" is not an action step. "Write for 20 minutes" is an action step. You could also expand this by committing to "Write for 20 minutes with Internet turned off on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, finishing by 11:00 am." Put a time that you will complete your action step by, such as "Today by 4:00" or "Thursday at noon." That way you will be able to know that you accomplished it. This also gives you a deadline. Your action step could also involve putting structures in place. This could include such items as "F