don't have to fix it - it feels hard because it is hard

if you have felt like the world's most powerful expert in your field on a monday, only to feel like the biggest beginner baby on tuesday, congratulations, you're an academic. 

what if i told you that it wasn't a problem? 

it feels hard because it is hard. let's get into it this week <3 

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Grad School is Hard, But...is a podcast by Dr. Katy Peplin of Thrive PhD! learn more at thrive-phd.com - can't wait to get to know you better, or get access to my free falling planning workshop here!

Transcript

  📍  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 all about the phrase, this feels hard because it is hard, and if I could give you one gift of compassion for yourself and for other people this week, it would be that phrase. It feels hard because it is hard  now, academia life.

Being alive in 2025. It's all hard stuff, right? And I think that there's this idea that if we just try hard enough, if we get the right schedule, the right tools, if we read the right books, if we hire the right coach, it will all be easier and it will feel easier. And that the feelings that we have of being stuck, of struggling, of working really hard are signs that we're not doing enough, as opposed to. 

Assign that actually what you're doing is really hard, and that's why it feels the way that it does  now in academia specifically.  It is hard work from top to bottom. It doesn't stop being hard because as you keep going, there are more things to learn, more roles to take on, more responsibilities to shoulder, and your life keeps moving too, right?

So you're moving into new life phases. Your family might have a new configuration, you might have new caretaking, responsibilities, all kinds of stuff. So it moves and fits and starts. You get feedback, whether that's direct or indirect, and then you have to keep going. In the microcosm of a writing project or the macrocosm of an academic career, you are always working in multiple drafts. 

And it can be so difficult because one of the reasons that academia is so appealing to a lot of us is because we like school. We were good at school. I know that when I finished my undergrad, I felt like I was at the top of my game. I was an expert. I had completed a thesis. I had never known more than I did at that particular moment.

And then I got to grad school and it was this constant push and pull between, yes, I'm at the top of my field. I'm learning these things that are so complicated, I'm using them correctly in seminar. I'm writing these papers, they're getting accepted. I'm passing my exams. And then at the same time of feeling this.

Sort of incredible mastery. I also never felt like more of a beginner. I felt like I didn't know how to write. I felt like I didn't know how to read. I was going back to the beginning to learn all of these things that I thought I was really good at. You know, on Friday you're presenting a paper to your seminar and you're on the top of the world, and the next Monday you're getting feedback that the draft that you turned in was actually not at all what they expected, and you need to go back to square one.

That dissonance between I'm at the top and I'm also a beginner. I've never been better at this, but also I'm still learning is one of the hallmarks of academia, and I think that so much of the time we internalize this idea that if it's feeling difficult, if we feel like a beginner, if it's feeling like a challenge.

We feel sticky and heavy and stuck, then that means we're not doing it well and that there are other imaginary people out there who are only feeling the top of that wave and trough cycle. You know, they're only ever getting the standing ovations and the acceptances and the contracts and the jobs, and they're never going through some of that bottom stuff. 

And of course it's easy to feel that way when academics cont tend to only really publicize the tops of those waves. Or when people are on social media showing you their to-do lists or how locked in they are at the coffee shop.  And you're not really realizing that between every moment of success that you're seeing, there are probably so many more of difficulty.

Challenge starting from square one, going backwards, really feeling lost, that you just don't see.  I can promise you that if you're looking at an academic anywhere, they have felt this dissonance between.  It is hard, and also I've never been better at it, so I'm really encouraging you to lean into the idea that this is a feature of the academic life and it's not a bug.

This feeling, this feeling of it being really hard, never really goes away because it isn't tied to any external marker. If the feeling of being. Challenged by academia went away. It would've gone away already because think of all of the milestones that maybe you yourself have already accomplished. You have gotten accepted into the PhD program.

You passed your first classes. You made it through your coursework. You maybe you've passed your exams, maybe your prospectus has been accepted, maybe you've gotten that paper accepted. Maybe the journal article's been published, maybe even book chapters or whole books.  It doesn't really matter because every accomplishment that you get, if it was going to make that feeling go away, it would've already and as. 

Hard as it is for me to tell you this. I also hope there's a little bit of solace in the idea that as you keep going, here are a list of other things that don't make that feeling go away either getting the academic job, getting tenure, getting to be full professor, getting to be the chair of the department, elevating yourself into dean or an administrative role. None of it makes the feeling go away because that feeling isn't achievement driven. It's a feeling of I am working at the top of my game to do something that's incredibly hard and it feels this way because it is that hard.  So  to  all of my friends. Who find themselves stuck in the feeling of this is so hard.

I encourage you to not ask yourself this week, what would I do to make this feel easier  sometimes? That's a great question, but this week I want you to ask yourself, what would make it easier for me to do hard things?  For example,  if the question was not, how do I make it easier to pass my exams, but how do I make it easier to study and prepare as much as I need to in order to feel confident about my exams?

It's a switch from trying to.  Change the way you're going about a task to trying to change the way you're supporting yourself through that task. Because these are really hard things and they might get easier with time. You're going to find that the first chapter of your dissertation is going to be harder than writing the fourth chapter, but  still will always be hard.

It's always gonna be a hard thing. So instead of focusing on relentless improvement, maybe this week, give yourself a chance at relentless support instead. See you soon. 

 📍 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!