Since I won’t be hosting a session on mental health and the academy at this year’s Swiss Geosciences Meeting, I thought I would sketch out here the ideas that I was planning to share.

These are 4 basic principles that helped me when I was going through some emotional challenges during my PhD. Some of them are adapted from the University of Zurich’s excellent Stress Management course, and others were honed over time in conversation with other graduate students and early career researchers. In any case, I hope they might prove useful to you. I organize them on a compass rose instead of a numbered list because, hey, I like maps.

NORTH (perception): Feelings of inadequacy, of being overwhelmed and perpetually behind, of being found out, of being exposed as not belonging here, of being not smart enough, of having managed somehow to fake your way to your current post … These are all normal. They are in fact surprisingly universal across all disciplines. You are not alone in these feelings. These feelings are part of the process. Part of your job is to manage these feelings and incorporate or transcend them.

WEST (ability): You don’t have the skills needed to do your PhD. You don’t understand something fundamental, something that other people around you seem to handle with ease. You don’t know what you’re doing or how to respond to the challenges you’re facing. You think that this lack of ability confirms your feelings from NORTH. Actually this lack of ability doesn’t matter. Really. If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t need to be doing this PhD. Part of your job is to learn these skills. If you can name the skills you need, then you can work towards acquiring them. Again, this is part of your job: find what you don’t know how to do, and then learn it.

EAST (emotion): It’s scary. You’re scared. You’re faced with all these skills that you don’t have, and you don’t know how to go about getting them. You’re vulnerable. Everyone has these skills but you. It takes too long. What if you fail? These feelings are the building blocks of WEST and NORTH. All of these feelings are Fear-Based. Fear-Based Learning can work, sure, but it’s not very much fun – especially not over the long run. Instead, you can actually transition to Joy-Based Learning. This doesn’t mean a life with no effort or challenge or no feelings of confusion or despair. Instead, Joy-Based Learning means keeping space for delight and purpose. This will animate you. You could be doing anything in the world. Why are you doing this? Part of your job is to discover and then remember why you’re doing this.

SOUTH (repetition): You will forget these. That is OK. You will learn something incredibly important and then forget it and rediscover it and then feel stupid. This is OK too. Repetition is the mother of learning. Now that you’ve reached your destination, are you embarrassed because the road seems so simple? Are you ashamed that something so simple seemed so hard? Learning is a convoluted road. It does not go from A to B in a linear and logical way. These things take time. They require repetition. Part of your job is to take the time to explore and build and repeat yourself and get lost and find yourself and ultimately discover your own way.

I wish there were a universal prescription that I could offer here in conclusion. I wish there were magic words that would do more than just tell you that these feelings are common and normal, and instead go further and point the way out of this darkness. I wish I could share the secret. I wish there were a secret!

The only thing I can share with you is what worked for me. This is the only authentic thing that’s mine to share, and anything else would be pretense. What worked for me was nothing more than a simple, bloody-minded endurance. I taught myself to keep walking, whether suffering from North, West, East, or South. When faced with any of these, I made my automatic reaction to keep going. I simply didn’t stop. Perhaps this might prove useful to you too.

None of these four points are intended to diminish the very real feelings of hopelessness and despair that are all too common in the academy. But it’s my hope that, at the very least, they might help you get your bearings as you’re discovering your own direction and your own path. I wish you the strength to endure and I hope you can find your way to joy.