180: Six Ways to Overcome Dissertation Writing Anxiety

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Welcome back, everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring podcast. This is your host, Dra. Yvette, Chicana academic coach, author and speaker. I'm gonna start today's episode by telling you a little story about this episode. I initially had intended to record this episode while doing an IG live. And I did attempt to do that. I followed through from beginning to end. But unfortunately, during the IG live, I had a lot of interruptions. It was my mistake that I didn't silence my phone, so I had several phone calls and interruptions. The IG live got cut off several times, and then on top of that, it actually impacted the sound of the recording.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So I went back to try to re- listen to it, to make sure that it was fine. I was doing the editing. I usually edit the beginning and end of the episodes just to make sure that they sound okay. And the audio was really choppy going in and out. It just was not good. So as a result, I am re-recording this episode. We'll see how it goes. I'm not on IG live, and I decided not to publish that IG live on my Instagram feed because I didn't like the interruptions. It wasn't a great recording. So we'll start all over. I'll attempt to do it again another time go on IG live while recording. And hopefully in the future, it'll go a little smoother.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Today's episode is all about how to overcome dissertation writing anxiety, and I'm going to talk about six specific ways to do that. Why writing anxiety? Because I have directly experienced writing anxiety. A lot of folks that I work with may not even realize it, but they're actually struggling with writing anxiety. If you're struggling with long form writing, if you're working on a dissertation, if you're working on a proposal and you're struggling to make progress, it's useful to figure out what's at the root of it. And if it is writing anxiety, we'll talk about it a little bit more. Hopefully, some of the advice I share today- some of the tips, insights- will help you to regain momentum in your dissertation writing.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So what is writing anxiety? When I talk about it, I'm using it to refer to a phenomenon that induces feelings of fear, stress, uncertainty when engaging in any form of writing. If you're a graduate student, it's probably when you're engaging in academic writing. And there are a lot of reasons why you might fear writing or you might be feeling a sense of writing anxiety. Some of us are more susceptible to it than others. I, for instance, am more susceptible to it because I also struggle with generalized anxiety disorder. And some folks are susceptible to a lot of different types of anxiety. That may be the case for you as well.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Sometimes writing anxiety comes as a result of a lack of confidence. Maybe you've had bad experiences with writing. Maybe you've had bad experiences with learning language arts in general. I was in English as a second language courses in elementary school and I had a bad relationship with reading and writing. I often thought that I was bad at it because I struggled with it. And I brought those limiting beliefs with me to graduate school and continued to think that I was terrible at writing. And that's not necessarily true.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

A lot of us are also not taught that writing is a multi step process that involves lots of drafts, and writing messily, writing badly, writing zero drafts- or what some people call shitty first drafts- and then cleaning them up, and then revising them, and then editing them. And a lot of us don't know, at least in undergrad, a lot of times you're not taught about the publishing process. So you don't know what goes on behind the scenes to get something to the level that it's at when you're reading a peer reviewed article, for instance, or a book, for instance. All these things can contribute to you feeling like you're not good enough, low confidence, and increased writing anxiety.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So let's talk about these six things and how you can combat them. Let's get straight to it, because in my former recording, it actually felt like it dragged a little. This time, I want to get a little bit more to the point. Here are the six obstacles I'm going to talk about. The first one is procrastination. Second one is lack of motivation. Third one is time management. Fourth one is struggling with the research process. Fifth one is struggling with how to address feedback. And the last one is dealing with imposter syndrome, imposter phenomenon, and impostorization. Those are the six things.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The first one procrastination. Let me just say that I know that some of us are more susceptible to experiencing procrastination than others. Because if you're neurodivergent, some neurodivergent folks are distracted easily. That's just part of the way that your brain works. But there are things that you can do to help to minimize distractions. Sometimes procrastination is not about distractions. Sometimes it's about fear of failure. Sometimes it's because you're confused and you don't know how to get started on something, so you're avoiding it. Maybe you're procrastinating because you're waiting for motivation to kick in. Maybe you're procrastinating because you're not really prioritizing it., and so you're not making time for it. And the more you procrastinate, odds are, the more likely you're going to experience anxiety about writing.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

What do we do about procrastination? I have found that one thing that helps me to reduce distractions and focus a little bit more is having a reward system. I actually, yesterday, I was checking my Facebook and I got a Facebook memory. One of the memories was an image of my laptop from grad school- it was a smaller laptop than I have today- and it had an image of my project management dashboard. I was using Kanban board or Kanban flow, which is similar to Trello, which is a way of organizing your tasks. It was an image of that, and then it was also a picture of my desk with a sheet with columns of the different days of the week and a bunch of stickers on it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And what I was doing was I was doing a sticker reward system so that every single time I addressed a comment on a dissertation chapter- and I had lots of comments- I would give myself a sticker. That was how I got myself through a lot of the dissertation writing and revision process. It was with reward. Rewards can look like anything. See what works for you. It could mean, after working for 25 minutes, I'm gonna go out on a 10 minute walk. It could mean I'm going to take a bath. It could mean I'm going to call a friend. It could mean I'm going to watch a show. You name it. You know what works for you as a reward.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another thing aside from rewards that could help you with beating procrastination is co working with someone. I'm a huge fan of co working. It could be in person. It could be online. It could even be with a stranger. There are websites like focus mate- I've used focus mate before- where you're paired with a random stranger and you work together online. So try it out. I used to feel a lot of shame when I was a grad student, because I thought well, I shouldn't need to co-work with someone. I should be able to do this work on my own, by myself. Now, I embrace it, because there are some things that I still to this day, don't love doing or avoid doing, or seem hard for me, or overwhelm me. When that happens, I use my precious co-working time. I co-work with someone at least once a week every week. I use that time to tackle the very difficult tasks I have going on that week.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another thing to help him beat practice procrastination- you'll want to take note of this. Please, please please, if there's one thing I really want you to remember about this episode, it's these two things that I'm going to say right now. The first is to give yourself permission to be a bad writer, to give yourself permission to make a mess. I remember attending some sort of writing workshop at UCLA in the writing center, many many years ago when I was a grad student. And somewhere someone said, first you make a mess. Then you clean it up. And that has stayed with me. Some people say write drunk, edit sober. I'm not a fan of alcohol, so that one doesn't quite work for me. But I do like- first you make a mess, then you clean it up. I remember that all the time. So I allow myself to write badly to make a mess, to just write without any inhibitions, with all the mistakes that I make. And that's okay, especially for your first draft, which no one has to see quite yet.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then the other thing I would say that's very, very important is to reframe what you count as writing. There are so many things that you can do that can count as writing. You can take notes while you're reading something. You can journal out your thoughts and feelings about why you don't want to do this. You can record a voice memo on your thoughts related to the topic and then transcribe it later. You can work on a thought bubble or a mind map to connect different ideas together. All of that counts as writing. So next time you think you didn't do any writing think- well, were you thinking about the project? Did you work on it in some way, shape, or form, in some facet, that can eventually be put on the paper? Okay, then you're working on your writing. Those are very, very important. They, hopefully, will help you also with combating procrastination and minimizing your writing anxiety.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Let's talk about lack of motivation. Because there's one myth that I want to debunk right now when it comes to motivation. A lot of people think that they have to wait to feel motivated to get started on the writing. And this unfortunately, is not true. The most consistent people who do things, do it even when they're not motivated. When you think about an athlete, you think they want to work out every single day? Probably not. There are gonna be days they don't want to do it. But they do it consistently. Why? Because- what is it? I don't even know what the quote is. But the point is that the motivation comes after the action. So doing something before you even feel like doing it can actually help you gain motivation.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So next time you don't want to do it, why not a two minute rule, of I'm going to do it for two minutes. I think this rule I got from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear about the two minute rule. It's just try it for two minutes. If you want to go out for a run, tie your shoes, laces. Put your shoes on and step outside. And if after two minutes, you don't want to do it, you don't have to do it. Some people may make it into a five minute rule. I usually make it into a 10 minute rule. I'll tell myself- I don't really want to ride my bike today, my stationary bike. Then I'm like, okay, I think I can do 10 minutes. So two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, it doesn't matter- a very short amount of time. See how you feel after. If you feel good, keep going. Maybe you might get the motivation, because motivation often comes after the action. That's what I want to say about motivation.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The other thing I wanted to mention about motivation is that motivation, a lot of times comes from goals that we set for ourselves that are intrinsic, that are internal, that are related to our passions and the ways that we want to grow as individuals. Whereas things like writing a dissertation, a lot of times, they're more external. They're extrinsic. It's a milestone that's required for you to get your PhD. Your advisor and committee members are expecting you to do this. It wasn't your brilliant idea to write a dissertation. And even if it's a topic of your choice that you really love, the fact that this milestone is external, is extrinsic, might make you feel less motivated to do it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

That's why I want to remind you to not wait on motivation, and instead to find a way to increase that sense of urgency of why you're doing this. Because sometimes that urgency of realizing- oh wow, I only have two years left in my program. And if I do the math and all the chapters I have to write and the revisions, that means I don't have a lot of time. That means I should be doing X, Y and Z this semester. That urgency of- wow, I don't have a lot of time. I need to get it done so that I can graduate and finish and leave and move on to the rest - to working on the other aspects of my life. That can help you to sustain motivation when you are struggling with it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Let's talk about what else I want to say about motivation. The other thing about motivation is, again, the external accountability to meeting with the peer can help with increasing your motivation. And writing down the reasons why you're working on your dissertation will help you. I know that one reason why a lot of people aren't able to change habits- let's say they want to develop a new habit, a positive habit, and they're unsuccessful. It's usually because of one or two reasons. It's usually because you either don't have a strong enough why, or are unsure or don't know the how. So if you don't know how to do it, you're not going to do it. If you don't have a strong enough reason to do it, you're not going to do it. In this case, lack of motivation. You're working on dissertation. Reminding yourself, why are you getting your PhD? Why are you writing this dissertation? Why are you working on this research? Why does it matter to you so much? That's going to help you when you're feeling down, when you're feeling like you don't want to work on it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Next step is time management. I want to say that sometimes people think it's time management, and it's actually writing anxiety that's getting in the way of them prioritizing their writing and working on it. But I also know that graduate students tend to have a lot on their plates. You might be teaching. You might be presenting at conferences. You might be publishing. You might have one, two, maybe three part time jobs. I had three part time jobs in grad school. At one point, you might have a full time job. You might have personal obligations. There's so much going on, and I get it. They're important. But also your dissertation, if you want to finish- at some point, it's going to have to be important too.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So prioritizing and reprioritizing things regularly is going to help you to take your dissertation seriously and make the time for it and work on it when it comes to the time management. Another thing when it comes to time management is creating a timeline. This timeline can be a monthly timeline. It can be weekly. It can be annually, too. Most of the time, when I work with folks, I ask them to create an annual timeline at least one year, and then split it up into months. Because every week is different. Some weeks, things happen. But monthly, there's some things that you can expect yourself to get done every month.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

But having that timeline, it's going to give you an aerial view of what you're expected to do to graduate. It's going to give you that impression of realistically how much time you have to work on your dissertation. You might think you have a lot of time. And then you look at your timeline, you realize, wow. I actually don't have that much time because I have to work on chapter one, two, three, four, because I have to work on revisions, or because I have to work on an intro and conclusion. Just keep those things in mind. Create a writing timeline. I even have an episode on how to write a dissertation writing timeline if you want to check it out, if you want to try that.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Then lastly, time management. Don't let the overwhelm get to you. Remind yourself, constantly prioritize and reprioritize. It's really easy to let other things get in the way. But at some point, something's going to happen that's going to light that fire under your butt to get it done. In my case, I was just over it and wanted to leave. And actually, I finished my dissertation a year before I even filed. I only stayed an extra year because I needed funding. And I was able to get another dissertation year fellowship. But I was ready to go. I was ready to leave. And that might be the case for you too. You might be working on a proposal, and just getting started and realizing- okay, I really don't want to spend more than two years here so I really have to focus and spend time and not expect perfection, and turn in a good enough draft to help me move on.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The next thing that I'm going to talk about is struggling with the research process. This is completely understandable. You might be working on a project that just keeps making you go in circles. You're going on rabbit holes. You're working on experiments that keep failing. Maybe you are unclear about the methodology. Maybe it's a topic that's new to you. Maybe it's not even your topic. It's your advisors topic. Maybe somebody else suggested that you work on this, and this wasn't your idea to begin with. You name it. There's a lot of things that could impact your ability to write when you're working on a research related project.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

A lot of graduate students don't receive enough guidance too to effectively perform the methods, the studies, interviews, the service- whatever you're working on- close readings, to then write their dissertation. So it's easy to get frustrated and then to avoid it altogether. But I don't want you to avoid it. What do I want you to do instead? If you can't get the support that you need from your advisor- and no advisor can provide you all the support you need. No advisor's perfect. If you can't get that support you want, lean on other mentors and femtors. Find other people. It could be committee members. It could be other folks in your department. It could be in other departments. It could be support from peers. It could mean taking a course to fill in certain research gaps, to learn certain methods. You could sit in on other courses. You can get input from others, ask others for feedback. Research difficulties happen. I just want to normalize that, and to remind you that it's up to you to keep trying, to ask for help, to do things differently until something works.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

the next thing I'm going to talk about is when you struggle with receiving feedback. This is common because a lot of professors are not taught how to give positive feedback, how to praise you, how to acknowledge the things you're doing well. Instead, they're taught to critique. And a lot of graduate students are not taught how to receive feedback, how to properly address feedback in revisions, and make time for it. And how to deal with the very difficult emotions that can come up when you receive a lot of critical feedback. What can you do about this if dealing with feedback is the thing that is getting in your way of making progress?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Well, one thing that you can do is -actually, before I even say what you can do, let me just tell you about this because I struggled with this. I remember- this is one of the worst cases of feedback for me. I remember getting a chapter back with feedback from my adviser, and it had over 140 comments. The chapter was probably what 40,50 pages and I had 144 comments. My jaw dropped. I felt so discouraged. I thought I was the worst writer. I told my friend at the time, and she told me, wow, how amazing that your advisors spent so much time on your writing and gave you so much generous feedback. I wish my advisor did that. Because for her, her advisor was MIA, took forever to give feedback. And when that advisor did give feedback, it was not much feedback. So she was struggling with the opposite problem of needing more help, more support, more feedback to make progress on her writing.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

That was a reframe that was really helpful for me, because I realized instead of thinking - wow, oh my gosh. I'm such a terrible write writer. Instead I thought, wow, what an amazing opportunity to strengthen my writing, advance my research, keep growing my skill set. And I know it's discouraging when you first see it. But I would give myself some time- and you should give yourself some time, maybe a day to sit with uncomfortable feelings. And then open up the document instead of avoiding it. Then deal with it little by little. Break it up. If you have 140 comments like I did, label them. Label them as the green comments and the red comments. The green ones are the easy ones. The red ones are the hard ones. Deal with the easy ones on the hard days, on the days you don't want to work, the days you're low energy. Deal with the hard ones when you're working on it and you're feeling more energized or more focused.But the point is, figure out a system that works for you for managing both the emotional side of the feedback and the side of feedback of figuring out how to actually address it and work on your revisions.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

The last thing I'm going to talk about is the imposter syndrome, imposter phenomenon, imposterization. I don't have time right now to really go through the differences between them. Although, I did have a podcast episode with Dr. Lisette Sanchez, where she talked about the differences between imposter syndrome and imposter phenomenon. And imposterization, in terms of how I interpret it, is when you are being made to feel like an impostor, because the system the space is not supporting you in the way that you need. Feeling impostor syndrome, especially first gen, you're a studnet of color- so, so common. You might be feeling like a fraud, like they're gonna figure you out, like it was a mistake that they let you in, like you could never write like other people are writing, could never speak in jargon like others do. Then sometimes it gets so bad to the point where folks not only stop writing, but they leave their programs altogether. I don't want that for you.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

What do I want instead? I want you to do what I do, and see if it works for you. Which is to surround yourself with people who believe in you. Some people will believe in you sometimes more than you might believe in yourself. And it helps to have others believe in you, because sometimes when you're starting out, them believing in you- they might believe in you more, and their motivation, their support, can help you to build momentum and maintain that momentum.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Another thing that I do to help me when I'm feeling like I'm not good enough is to acknowledge my strengths. You can write them out somewhere. But keep track of the compliments that you get. Everybody has strengths. Everybody has strengths. And everybody has strengths in their writing too. You might be creative. You might be good at connecting ideas. You might be good at summarizing and synthesizing information. You might be good at analyzing data. You might be good at conducting interviews. You might be good at organizing information. You might be good at explaining difficult topics in simple ways.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

There's so many ways that you might have strengths in your writing processes. So reminding yourself- okay, I might not be the best writer, but there are parts of this process where I can incorporate my strengths. I think those are the two main things when it comes to how I manage the imposter syndrome, phenomenon, imposterization. I surround myself with amazing people who motivate me, who inspire me, who believe in me. And I believe in myself. I remind myself of my strengths, and I remind myself that I don't have to be perfect. My writing doesn't have to be perfect. My project doesn't have to be perfect. It has to be good enough, because I believe in it enough that it needs to be put out in the world.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

And your dissertation proposal, your dissertation, your book, even if it's not perfect, the idea of it hopefully, is strong enough that it deserves to be out in the world. It is. Your voice matters. That's it for today. I hope that you found at least one thing today that was helpful. And if you did, send me a message. I love hearing from you all. Let me know what's working for you. Let me know what's not working for you too. And I will talk to you all next time.