I need a kick up the bum

LegacyUser

I'm going to keep this fairly vague, but I have this wonderful opportunity to gain a really good qualification, and only have a few months of work left to complete it, however I cant seem to bring myself to do any work. My day revolves around my dog, my hobby and my partner (and surfing the net), but no work is done. My partner thinks I am depressed, but I do get out and about every day, I just cant get down to it. Its like writers block.
I had a really tough year last year, but its over now, but I havent recovered work-wise, and nothing significant has been done since last October. I'm not earning any money (and am not entitled to any state support).

I'm at the stage now where I'm considering life coaching or counselling. How much can I expect to pay for this? Has anyone tried it?

quad_red

I experienced something similiar last year. I did a masters and completed all the taught modules and had the dissertation to finish in the summer of 2004.

But I totally lost it. I worked really hard that year. I knew it was a great qualification and I knew it was worth the work.

Yet I couldn't. September and deadline came and I got an extension. I got a job and the deadline slipped and slipped and slipped. I just wasn't ready, mentally, to deal with it.

I deluded myself into thinking I would work during the day and study at night. Cue total abandonment. I gave up work last June for the summer to finish it. What helped me was to not treat it as chipping at a coal face - to look at where I was in the whole of the work. Make sure I was going in the right direction and to get a sense of accomplishment as things began to move again. I still didn't know where I wanted to go with my career and life so I tried to prioritise on shorter term goals.

And I'm graduating (finally) from DCU tomorrow.

It might help to throw some ideas up on the relevant forum on boards. Talk to your partner, get their feedback. I really benefitted from having an amazing girlfriend who was patient and who gave as much feedback as she could.

gracehopper

Dont worry OP. You are not alone. If you want advice listen to quad_red:

quad_red wrote:

prioritise on shorter term goals.

Sometimes a person can feel like they're in a hole. I went through a period of indecisiveness myself and i couldnt really bring myself to do anything worthwhile. I have turned things around myself in the last year or so and i still have a bit to go.
Look at your position. You could be a lot worse off. You are inches away from qualifying. Dont be overawed by the workload just try to approach the final few months of work with a bit of determination. Make a plan, lay all the work out in front of you, Compile your notes, get the exam papers, learn how to do the questions.

Its not beyond you, You'll do it.

Miss Fluff

A friend of mine liaises with these people on a professional level.
Very good apparently http://www.afresh.ie/contactus.html

LegacyUser

quad_red wrote:

I experienced something similiar last year. I did a masters and completed all the taught modules and had the dissertation to finish in the summer of 2004.

But I totally lost it. I worked really hard that year. I knew it was a great qualification and I knew it was worth the work.

Yet I couldn't. September and deadline came and I got an extension. I got a job and the deadline slipped and slipped and slipped. I just wasn't ready, mentally, to deal with it.

I deluded myself into thinking I would work during the day and study at night. Cue total abandonment. I gave up work last June for the summer to finish it. What helped me was to not treat it as chipping at a coal face - to look at where I was in the whole of the work. Make sure I was going in the right direction and to get a sense of accomplishment as things began to move again. I still didn't know where I wanted to go with my career and life so I tried to prioritise on shorter term goals.

And I'm graduating (finally) from DCU tomorrow.

It might help to throw some ideas up on the relevant forum on boards. Talk to your partner, get their feedback. I really benefitted from having an amazing girlfriend who was patient and who gave as much feedback as she could.

Glad to hear you've gotten through it, it gives me hope. I too have a dissertation to complete. I feel I cannot move on in life until I have it finished, but I cannot seem to finish it. I dont want to get a job until its done. I feel I cant abandon it as I've devoted so much time to it already, but at the moment, I am getting nowhere. Its beginning to take its toll on my relationship. I don't go out, buy clothes, get haircuts, as I dont want to spend other peoples money on such frivolous things...
Enjoy the graduation, I'm sure it was hard-earned

As for setting short term goals, I've tried this, I cant seem to stick to it mentally at all. Even saying I'm going to sit down and do 15 minutes... an hour later, nothing is done. I just dont know what to do anymore

quad_red

Needtochange wrote:

Glad to hear you've gotten through it, it gives me hope. I too have a dissertation to complete. I feel I cannot move on in life until I have it finished, but I cannot seem to finish it. I dont want to get a job until its done.

I know completely how you feel.

But you can do this - you've proved you can before. But you need to concentrate on short term goals. As gracehopper said, you've found yourself in a hole. You need to work your way out of it and the way I did it was to say i'd do one chapter a day. And then to look at what I'd learned. And gradually i slipped out of the 'forcing myself to do so much' attitude and into a more fluid state of mind where i was looking for specific information or researching rather than filling in the time.

slumped

Here's what worked for me in similar situation

1. Get up 1 hour earlier in the morning (say 7am)
2. Go for a walk (bring the dog perhaps)
3. Eat a decent breakfast of museli/porridge (no sugar etc)
4. Plan your day in 30 minute intervals with a 10 minute break every half hour
5. Change topic/subject every 30 minutes
6. Break for tea/coffee at 11 for 15 mins.
7. Lunch at 1.30pm - 2.30pm - include a short walk
8. Work again from 2.30-6pm with usual breaks
9. Tea - 2 hours
10. Work from 9-10pm if needed.
11. Short walk
12. BED

This is a cramming schedule but might just be the kick start you need.

Try to avoid too much coffee/red bull. Drink lots of Water and Tea.

S

Afuera

I don't think you're alone by any stretch of the imagination. There's many webpages dealing with how to approach studies/research. Here's one:
http://smi-web.stanford.edu/people/pratt/smi/advice.html

The reference to the book about beating procrastination looks particularily interesting:
The Now Habit by Neil A. Fiore

Good luck.

Dathai

I think books are the last thing you want to be dealing with if you're suffering with procrastination, especially one as destructive as this.
Just look at your work, think of whats going to happen if you do feck all on it from now onwards.Think about what difference it could do if you just started on a small amount of work, let your partner help with other things, as in the dog and what not.Haircuts dont matter!! Your education does!!
Get down to a small amount of work, and do it as best you can, and then, when you feel a bit more motivated, just increase it.
But just think about what continuing this trend of lazyness will do to you, and what a small amount of work will help in doing.

Best of luck man.

Sleepy

Stop indulging yourself and go out and get a job. Even if it's only something part-time in a supermarket or whatever it'll give you back some sense of self-esteem and might motivate you to get on with your life instead of just bumming around.

Be incredibly grateful that whoever's paying your bills has indulged you thusfar in your notion that you can't "move on in life until [you] have it finished" but I think you should recognise that their indulgence is part of the problem. You're not getting on with things because you don't have to. Get back on your own two feet and start supporting yourself. Sure it'll be difficult at the start but the first few days back after holidays are always hard in work. I'd imagine that if you were working part-time you'd finish the dissertation faster as working crap jobs in college can be a great motivator to succeed in your education rather than getting stuck in that crap job...

I don't mean to be harsh, but even from the title of your thread, I think you know yourself that you're wasting your life at the moment.

LegacyUser

Sleepy wrote:

Stop indulging yourself and go out and get a job. Even if it's only something part-time in a supermarket or whatever it'll give you back some sense of self-esteem and might motivate you to get on with your life instead of just bumming around.

Be incredibly grateful that whoever's paying your bills has indulged you thusfar in your notion that you can't "move on in life until [you] have it finished" but I think you should recognise that their indulgence is part of the problem. You're not getting on with things because you don't have to. Get back on your own two feet and start supporting yourself. Sure it'll be difficult at the start but the first few days back after holidays are always hard in work. I'd imagine that if you were working part-time you'd finish the dissertation faster as working crap jobs in college can be a great motivator to succeed in your education rather than getting stuck in that crap job...

I don't mean to be harsh, but even from the title of your thread, I think you know yourself that you're wasting your life at the moment.

crikey I just saw 'go out and get a job' on the thread and when I pressed reply found all the rest of this...

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I think perhaps you are right, the indulgence is part of the problem, and I dont really have to stand on my own two feet at the moment. My partner and parents are incredibly supportive financially (I try not to abuse it, but even accepting their help adds to the guilt).
I'm going to cook my partner dinner this evening and have a chat about it. I have a few options but not sure what to go for. 1. Get in touch with afresh and see if they can set goals I can stick to..., 2. Move home with parents and stay there during the week working on dissertation, only coming back to our house at weekend. 3. Get the part time job and see if working to a routine helps more.
I was incredibly disciplined in final year in undergrad course in college, but cant seem to summon back that determination at the moment. My father is getting on in years and I would really like both my parents to see me graduate soon, after all the hard work they did supporting six of us through college.

DublinWriter

quad_red wrote:

I experienced something similiar last year. I did a masters and completed all the taught modules and had the dissertation to finish in the summer of 2004.

I'm in the same boat now.

Basically it's all down to self-discipline.

To the OP's point about Life-coaching, etc, all that is fine, but don't automatically look for all the answers "outside of yourself" when you have problems with motivation.

cupsoftea

Perhaps you have the joy of trying to write up a PhD. (or masters or whatever thesis you are doing it is tough). I too became a master at Solitaire, the irish times crosswords, even following the plot (?) of Fair City. Its so difficult to get down to it, and the more overwhleming the task the less you can do it. Most people will go through a period of complete stress, and trying not to think about it (and thus not working on it). But you should try to set yourself little tasks each day and try to finish them. Day 1, write out your materials and methods for example or get figures together for one of your chapters. This can take up a lot of time-and while it might not seem like work you might find you have spent a good few hours knuckling down to it, without having to think about the bigger tasks.
Also indulgence is good too, but try and award yourself only for work done. Looking for a job might help you focus on getting the thesis out of your hair. Best of luck with it. It will get done in the end.

LegacyUser

DublinWriter wrote:

To the OP's point about Life-coaching, etc, all that is fine, but don't automatically look for all the answers "outside of yourself" when you have problems with motivation.

Well actually now that you mention it, I really didnt get enough hugs when I was a child
Note the title of the thread.

cupsoftea wrote:

Its so difficult to get down to it, and the more overwhleming the task the less you can do it. Most people will go through a period of complete stress, and trying not to think about it (and thus not working on it). .

This is a major problem, I get mini panic attacks when I think of the work load ahead of me, so instead of trying to do something small, I go off and escape in something else. I wouldnt be so stressed if I thought I was making progress.

cupsoftea wrote:

But you should try to set yourself little tasks each day and try to finish them. Day 1, write out your materials and methods for example or get figures together for one of your chapters. This can take up a lot of time-and while it might not seem like work you might find you have spent a good few hours knuckling down to it, without having to think about the bigger tasks. .

Thats good advice. Tomorrow I'm going to do some tasks like these.

cupsoftea wrote:

Also indulgence is good too, but try and award yourself only for work done. Looking for a job might help you focus on getting the thesis out of your hair. Best of luck with it. It will get done in the end.

Amazingly I havent put on weight in the last few months, as I indulge myself in my hobby instead. I'm going to restrict this from now on so I feel less guilty about it.
I'm totally unsure about what kind of job to look for, as I certainly havent performed with distinction in the current subject area. Uncertainty about the future is another stress factor, and I try to avoid thinking about it as well.

Thanks for the advice. I feel so much better after reading the replies to my post and am thinking much more proactively today.

kindle

I found myself in a similar situation last year, no focus or motivation. What really helped me was splitting the work up into small task and getting them over with early in the day, ie straight after breakfast. I found that if i set myself a task for the day the longer I left it off the less likely i was to do it and the worse i felt about. Having a part-time job might also help you to put a structure on your day which would give you a framework in which to organise your college work load.