5.12 wave or boat - choosing when to work
when everyone is posting their desk selfies, or their out-of-office views, it can be really isolating when your flow doesn't match theirs. this week's episode is about how we choose, or choose not, to work, and how we can square that with what we see and what we feel. let's dig in!
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=Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar.
In this season,
I'll be sharing the anchor phrases, tools, and strategies that underpin all of the work that I do with clients as part of Thrive PhD, and of course, the things that work for me as I attempt to be a human and a scholar.
And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
This week's episode is a phrase that I have found myself using more and more as the times keep becoming less and less unprecedented. And that phrase is sometimes it's the boat, and sometimes it's the wave. So the longer version of that phrase is sometimes work is the wave that's going to sink you.
And sometimes work is the boat. It's going to help you stay afloat amid all the waves. This is my way of explaining that sometimes work feels like the very last thing that we're going to be capable of, and there are other times where work feels like a tiny bit of stability inside a lot of instability.
I started saying this to myself, to clients because there is so much guilt about work, especially in an age where there is so much performativity around work. If you're working, when you're working, how much you're working, what you're working on, and you can feel really guilty if everybody else. Is working.
When you are feeling completely torn under by something really sticky in the world or in the political situation or in your own life more locally, it can feel really hard to be the one person according to Instagram or TikTok or wherever you're looking. The one person who's not working. And it can also feel really bad to be the person who is working where everybody else is.
Like, how can you do that? And that question is not a, Hey, how did you do that? Or What's helping you right now? But more of a judgmental, how can you do that? How can you work on this thing that is so insignificant when the rest of everything is just picture me flailing my arms around. And so this is my way of kind of explaining and giving space for the fact that sometimes it's going to be the wave.
It's the one thing that's going to completely throw you under. And so you can't do it. And there are sometimes where it's gonna be the one thing that's gonna help you ride out some of that storm. Someone is almost assuredly working through conditions that might take you. Off your game. There is probably someone right now who is working through the unimaginable that you can't imagine working through.
And also it's really a normal question to be like, why can't I do that? Why can't I put it to the side? Why can't I just set a timer and focus? Why can't I just close my email or not read the news or put my phone on silent. There are all of these questions, right? That really can be cudgels that we use against ourselves to be like, why can everybody do this, but not you?
But I'm here to say that sometimes you can't even really predict when work is going to be the thing that throws you completely off your game. There have been times in my life where on paper, I would've guessed that I was going to be able to work. That I'd be able to work through that, no problem. I'd done it before I would do it again, and I found myself on the couch watching Gilmore Girls or whatever comfort show of the week that was for sometimes days at a time, if not weeks.
There are some things where in my head, in my plans, I was going to be able to ride out that storm and I simply couldn't work was the thing that taxed my resources the most and I just couldn't get there. And other people were working through it and posting about it and making me feel really tough.
And it was useful for me to be like, you know what? Sometimes this is the one wave that's just gonna knock me out to sea and I don't have to swim in this right now. And then there were other seasons where I would have sworn to you for $1 million that there was no way that I was gonna be able to work.
Personal things that went wrong, world conditions that went wrong, configurations of my scholarly and humanly life where I was like, you know what? I bet that I won't be able to work through this. And then work actually became something really if not soothing, stable. It was something that I controlled.
It was a place where I could close the door and go somewhere else in my brain. And sometimes physically in my body going to coffee shops or the library or getting out of situations that felt really tough and overwhelming Sometimes I found that it was only making sense of my citations or only spending a little bit of time polishing sentences.
That gave me a little bit of breathing space. It gave me something concrete to focus on. Something to do with my energy when a lot of other options didn't feel as comfortable, and I'm sure that people were like, wow, what a monster. I can't believe that she can do that right now. I can't believe that she can focus on it.
And all I know is that in my body and my world and my configuration, it felt correct. It felt safe. It felt important to be working. There is no perfect mix. I wish that I could tell you that there was, but there is no perfect mix that's going to work all of the time of your humanity and your scholarship.
It is always going to be in flux. So if there's no way to say you should work through this, you shouldn't work through that or to give you any ironclad rules, what do I have to offer you this week? This week I have to offer you the. Absolute truth that if you don't have practices around checking in with yourself, knowing what your resources are, what your signs that you're edging into burnout are what weighs your body and your circle and your family will step in and signal to you that this is too much or this isn't enough.
If you don't have practices for checking in with yourself around what you have capacity for and what you don't, and either you are just steadfastly working no matter what the conditions or completely avoiding work, no matter what your capacity is, then you're gonna be in some sort of difficult state eventually.
It might not be soon. It might not be immediately, but that's a recipe for burnout or for some pretty hardcore avoidance. Working or not working without checking in with yourself. That's the thing that can get you into trouble. It isn't actually choosing to work or choosing not to work. Those things, more or less neutral. Sometimes it's useful, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's gonna help you and sometimes it's not. I'm not making any hard and fast rules about working or not working.
What I am saying is that if you are not doing those things, making those choices in conversation with yourself, with how you feel, with what you have to give, with your ability to focus with what your resources are, then that's the thing that we really wanna work on. I hope that this gave you some sort of solace.
I hope that this gave you a permission slip in either direction or at least reignited a little bit of a desire to check in with yourself before, during, and after your work sessions. This week, I'm gonna be taking a short break. I'll be back in October with a brand new season of the podcast. But thank you so much for joining me with this one.
I will see you all soon. Okay.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!