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​Gratitude – Mechanics behind the buzz word

11/15/2017

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       At times I find it quite challenging to grasp concepts that are more than 50% abstract. Although I have read and reflected upon the meaning of gratitude quite significantly, sometimes I find myself trying to understand the concept at a more tangible level. I would like to share an analogy that comes to mind based on a bean counter’s approach, and what can be more tangible than a bean counter’s approach?
        As I understand it, the process of showing gratitude forces you at a psychological level to get best prepared for whatever is coming next in your life.  If you are going through a rough patch counting your blessings becomes a process of damage assessment. The thought makes you focus on what material, social, emotional, and spiritual resources you still have at your disposal to get reorganized to overcome your problems. Digging deep and doing a re-inventory of your blessings helps you recollect yourself and gears you with an upbeat spirit. The process may also make you realize how you have under-exploited some of the assets (such as time) in the past, and helps you re-calibrate for a better asset management in future.      

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
​Melody Beattie
        Likewise, when you are going through good times, practicing gratitude helps you verbalize and review all strategies that have worked for you and all mishaps that you have successfully avoided. Showing gratitude in this scenario forces you to review events and make a conscious note of what worked.  The practice helps you expand your inventory of successful strategies so you can avoid leaving matters to chance and can put your resources to better use at will when needed.

Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie

        In both scenarios, the practice shields you from the defeatist psyche that tends to prevent you from taking action.  Reflecting on your resources through a show of gratitude can be understood as a psychological self-therapy that keeps you realistic (damage assessment), helps you assess events (lessons learned), and above all keeps you positively engaged with taking action. The process typically is accompanied by feeling  calm, in-control, and confident – consider that as a psychological side effect, which the abstract definition would define as “inner peace.”  😊
Hope this helps!     
Cheers!
Dr. K
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Understanding Your Uniqueness

11/15/2017

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       In the previous article, I mentioned the shared uniqueness among all doctoral students.  I find it quite fascinating to grasp the concept of uniqueness of a doctoral student. At the risk of brushing the fringes of philosophy, I would like to share with you the thought.  According to Population Reference Bureau by the year 2011, about 107.6 billion people had been born in our world. If we subtract from this number the current (2017) world population (i.e., about 7.6 billion), we can say that according to this estimate at least 100 billion people have completed their life cycle on this planet since the beginning of human history. I find it acutely amazing that our perception deems so unique the experience of life that has been already lived by a 100 billion people. The claim made by our perception manifests itself when my teenage kids complain that I can never understand their life; likewise, when the doctoral students protest that mentors fail to understand their viewpoint.         
Trusting your individual uniqueness challenges you to lay yourself open. James Broughton
        Perception is a strong driving force that shapes our lives. That is why the study of perceptions through qualitative methods is so critical. Doctoral researchers have a unique advantage of learning how to rationalize their perceptions as they learn to recognize and mitigate the researcher’s egoistic bias. From this perspective, the uniqueness of the doctoral experience is not about embarking on the doctoral journey. Instead, it is about going through the introspective transformation through the journey that rationalizes the inner self and breaks it down as expressions of existing knowledge. That is the point in time when a doctoral student begins to see the tiny fissures in the literature that provide an opportunity to create new knowledge.
​        Hope this thought may help some of the readers tap into their unique strength, and make the best out of their social, emotional, and financial investments made into their doctoral journey.

Cheers!
Dr. K
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Being Grateful for the Unique You

11/9/2017

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        If you have ever embarked upon the doctoral journey, whether you completed it, or still midway through; whether you are struggling or have given up, there is one thing unique about you.  At some point in your life, you followed your aspirations to join a group of students who comprise less than 2% of the nation’s student body. The fact that you were blessed with inspirational, intellectual, financial, and emotional resources to experience a doctoral program implores a moment of gratitude.

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Based on data compiled from NCES.ed.gov, and Urban.org

        ​I believe that every student who qualifies to join a doctoral program has the potential to graduate. The only difference is that some may need more coaching than others.  Failure to finish a doctoral program, as I see it, is not a reflection on a student’s academic capability but rather indicates resistance to transformation on the part of the student.  A daily thought of gratitude appreciating your unique accomplishment for having qualified into the program, and humbly opening your mind to transformational learning can create just the right mindset required to finish the job. For all those who have traveled over the hump and have approved proposals, you are getting ready to join a group of graduates who will comprise less than 0.5 percent of the total college student population this year. A dash of gratefulness can help you keep level headed and focused to cross the finish line.             Those who have already crossed the finishing line and have acquired their terminal degrees, being thankful for having attained this honor can go long way to develop the mindset that would facilitate you to impart your knowledge for the benefit of your communities and workplaces.
        I wish you comprehensive success in your academic pursuit.
Gratefully,
Dr. K.
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The Doctoral Process

11/2/2017

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Notes from a burnt out student!  :)
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Best read at 150% magnification (Click on Pic for Enlarged View)
        A doctoral journey is a systematic process that requires a student to master certain skills through all phases.  For most students, the key to success is to stay realistic, ask questions, and seek help when in doubt.  The difficulty level of a doctoral process can be viewed as a bell curve, where the middle stages (proposal writing, and proposal approval) can be most daunting if not planned out properly. The good news is that since a doctoral process is typically a longitudinal process, spanning between four to eight years, there is always time for a student to take a step back, learn from mistakes, create a new strategy and get things done. 
        An appropriate level of coaching in the early stage of a doctoral program can potentially save a lot of time and money by facilitating the students to focus on developing the required skills and by getting a head start on next steps.  Coaching can also be acquired at any phase of the program to help students keep moving forward through the process.
​        Another good news is that coaching doesn’t have to cost anything if acquired within the student’s institution. A mentor, program chair, cohorts, and senior students can be the best source of coaching available to a doctoral student. In certain rare situations where a student is faced with lack of responsiveness external sources of coaching maybe considered just to put the student back on the fast track.
Hope you find this map helpful
Cheers!
​Dr. K
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​ Mindset Part 2 (Scholastic Aptitude)

11/2/2017

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        The seven points of a doctoral mindset listed in the earlier blog illustrate the basic level of commitment that an aspiring student needs to have in the doctoral process. The basic level of commitment shifts a student’s focus from a viewpoint that is influenced by external elements, such as social image consciousness, to a viewpoint that is influenced by an inner desire for intellectual growth.  Only under this mindset can a student truly begin to stack up to other scholastic traits that transform a student into a scholar.  Some of the key scholastic traits that promote an acute scholastic aptitude are depicted in figure 1.
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Figure 1. Scholastic traits required to promote am scholastic aptitude.

​Mindset: The backdrop or underlying fabric that provides the focus required to embark on a doctoral journey.

Learnability: Accepting the idea that I am not in this program to prove how good I already am, instead I am in this program to humbly find out all that I still need to learn, and improve what I already know. This is the key trait that opens the doors of transformation from a student to a scholar.

Skill set: This is where a student practically starts developing mechanical and analytical skills required to complete the program successfully. Examples of such skills are scholarly writing, editing, speed reading, statistical analysis, research methods, people skills, delegation, and decision making etc.  The brief list of skills listed here may seem to be a bit farfetched, but a student needs to realize that earning the doctoral title is not at all about scoring an A grade. Instead, the process is about developing the capacity to become a contributor in the forefront of knowledge creation while handling all awkward internal and external variables of life.

Critical thinking: This is where a student learns how to analyze the personal situation and implement the acquired skills to take control of the doctoral path. In this phase as students drive their doctoral study forward, they are actually learning to fulfill the expectations associated with the credential their aspiring to acquire. Think of this learning path as driving a vehicle with a “student driver”bumper sticker. Unfortunately, students who push their way through this process without developing the doctoral mindset hardly get any gains from their progress. Such students show a strong trend of accentuating negative traits such as arrogance, and cynicism that is never well received by postdoctoral scholarly communities.  On the other hand, the students would take upon themselves to exhaust all available learning resources (such as mentors and learning community) often find their learning experience free of conflicts.

       Contributions that you can make as a doctor to your community are immense and rewarding. If you think about it, your contributions don’t just start after graduation, the fact that you are investing time and resources to become a doctor is in itself a sacrifice and a contribution to your community. I wish that all doctoral students are able to make the best out of their learning process.

Hope this stimulates thinking.
Cheers!
Dr. K
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managing Risks through doctoral journey

10/31/2017

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       Those of us who pay for their doctoral degree out of pocket, or rely on student loans, know that the initial estimate for the cost of the program is typically between $53 K to $115 K over the normal course of the program. The normal course of the program is 5 years on the average (in the United States) where fee schedule varies by the program and the institution. This initial cost estimate typically includes the cost of books, labs, library facilities, and the cost of the fee for the number of courses required to graduate from the program. Embarking on a doctoral journey is a serious undertaking and requires a major financial commitment. All of us have heard horror stories where this undertaking did not go as expected and ended up costing students their health, home, job, and even their marriage. The good news is that if proper assessment and planning are done prior to embarking upon the program most of the risk associated with the program can be mitigated. I would like to share my thoughts on various risk factors over the next few blogs.

Financial Risk Planning
       The first rule of thumb is to realize that your student loan is a loan, and you do end up paying it back with interest. Over the years I have seen way too many students using their student loan as free money. When planning your doctoral journey, it is a clever idea to plan around the financial flow that could successfully get you out of this debt in a reasonably defined time frame. Be realistic! Even if you are promised a job promotion upon completing your doctorate, know that graduating from your program is not always accompanied with a green windfall.
       Those who choose the path of paying out of pocket as they go, have two key advantages over students who rely solely on student loans. First, paying out of pocket every semester painfully keeps you motivated to get the best bang for your buck. Secondly, your financial planning may allow you to pace yourself realistically through the program as guided by other factors in your personal life.
In cases where academically you are going strong, but are running low on personal finances, a mix of pocket funds and student loans can be an effective plan. In this format, you only rely on student loans just to avoid exhausting your pocket without sacrificing the momentum of your academic progress.     

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       In all cases, the best strategy is to aim for cost containment. Know that just by making a good plan and by sticking to the plan can save you tens of thousands of dollars. The initial estimate of the cost of the degree program does not take into consideration the expenses for editing, formatting, data gathering, and data analysis etc. However, the brunt of extra cost above and beyond the initial estimate comes from repeating courses, and not being able to wrap up the dissertation within the allocated time. These unwanted costs can be contained by taking into consideration the following simple strategies:
  1. Never repeat a course: Don’t waste time finding shortcuts around difficult courses. Immerse yourself in the material, learn, and pass it.  Worst case scenario, if you think the course is too difficult for your current skill set, consider withdrawing within the add and drop period (at no cost), re-register in the course at a near future date and use the extra time that you have gained upfront to learn the material.
  2. Learn the skills needed to graduate: Invest your time to learn the ropes. You have ample time to learn through your coursework before you hit the dissertation phase. Learn how to write, edit, format, and run statistical analyses required for your research. Even if you spend a couple of hundred dollars learning these skills through external courses, it is way cheaper than hiring someone to do the job for you.
  3. Keep external help to a minimal: There is no reason why a doctoral should send her dissertation for formal editing (if required) more than once. Clean up your paper the best that you can and have the content approved by your committee and chair before sending it out for editing. Do not do major changes after you have paid an editor to clean up your paper.
  4. Design your research in a way where you can gather data yourself without paying companies for archival data. Likewise, if you are using survey instruments, you can save hundreds of dollars on license fee on commercial instruments, by reaching out to researchers who designed the survey and ask permission to use their instrument.
  5. A dissertation is nothing more than a process. Break your dissertation process into sizeable chunks, allocate a deadline with each portion, and systematically execute your plan to finish in time.
Hope these tips help you contain the financial cost of your doctoral journey.
Cheers!
Dr. K.

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Desired mindset for a doctoral student

10/17/2017

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   Performance coaches can’t stress enough on importance of the right mindset required to achieve goals.  So, what should be the mindset for a doctoral student?  This is probably the single most important question that is least frequently asked by doctoral students. I think in one sentence the answer to this question can be best provided by the age old Chinese proverb "You can't fill a cup that's already full". Doctoral journey is typically a very humbling experience, and getting humbled is not necessarily a very pleasant experience.  One has to unlearn much before new learning can begin.  In reality, the pain associated with the process is nothing more than the discomfort a student feels in breaking out of existing personal paradigm and making an effort to see things in a new light.  My quite frustrating journey, almost overnight became enjoyable the day I stopped blaming all external elements and started focusing on self development.  The mindset that worked for me can be summarized through the following seven points:
  1. Never second guess your decision to start your doctoral journey
  2. All schools, online or traditional, provide a fair opportunity for a self motivated individual to learn.  The system was not made with you in mind therefore the system cannot be unfair specifically to you
  3. The entire journey is nothing more than a process with some very specific requirements. You are not in the game to change the requirements; you are in it to fulfill them willingly or otherwise
  4. People who have completed their journey have already done what you have not yet achieved. Respect their achievement like you would like others to one day respect yours
  5. There are no short cuts through the journey. Be patient, consistent, and persevere
  6. Be ready to learn new ways of thinking and try to appreciate them with patience. A doctoral degree is a degree of endurance
  7. Expect to grow with the process... emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and also skill wise. Many students, specially the "good students" find it extremely difficult to let go of their academic behavior from high school and college years that focuses on quickly completing the assignments and maintaining their GPA and approach the doctoral process too mechanically. If the doctoral journey has failed to evolve you as a person, you have missed the essence of the journey somewhere down the path. With all the money, time, and effort invested in the process wouldn't it be wise to walk away with everything the process has to offer?
:)
Hope this helps!
Regards, 
- Dr. K

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    Dr. Khan is a certified life coach specializing in academic success, and personal breakthrough coaching via strategic intervention.

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