My friend Keshav had worked hard on his dissertation. Years together of consistent toil and hard work with strenuous phases. But he did not give up. It was now time for him to submit his dissertation in a month’s time. In the final stage when he was swiftly close to finishing, I observed a strange kind of behaviour. The finishing line came as a stage which was difficult to bear. He had gelled into the idea of not being able to finish that this sudden development, though positive, came as a shock to him, a difficult to absorb shock.
I got inquisitive and wanted to go in detail of trying to figure out, what was happening?
I enquired strangely from Keshav, the reasons for this fear and strange behaviour when he was so close to his destination, for which he had worked hard for so many years. It was a self-jeopardy stage. The reason was the fear of success.
For research scholars when the dissertation process has been long, even if challenging, there develops some attachment where a never finishing project becomes a definition of self. Bringing himself into a comfort zone, Keshav, in these years had found pleasure in his sense of failure and struggle and now the step towards success were challenging. Hence, was his strange behaviour closer to deadline?
It is important to learn from this live example and by mindful of self-jeopardy. Do not resist finishing your work and procrastinate and avoid the final submission because of this feeling in the sub conscious. Gently train yourself to let go of the old pattern and move forward with the flow. Prepare yourself for the finish line and the change it will bring for you. It is necessary that you do not define yourself from your accomplishments. That would bring rigidity in your system and adaptations become challenging.
After all the failures and challenges in your doctoral journey, get ready to EMBRACE SUCCESS.