Blog 7 - It’s Not About Perfection, It’s About Effort

If you had told me two years ago that I would be going to a spin class once a week, I would not have believed you. It’s not that I didn’t like working out or being active; I just felt like I didn’t have the time. (I also didn’t really like working out…) But after starting my research on burnout and mental health among science graduate students, I learned that many grad students recommend attending workout classes as a coping mechanism. We know that being active and working out is good for your mental and physical health. It has direct effects on our bodies, like strengthening muscles, improving cardiovascular health, and lowering stress hormones like cortisol, but it can also have more indirect effects. It can lead to a sense of accomplishment. Also, by prioritizing self-care practices, like exercise, other aspects of our life can benefit, such as healthier eating habits, socializing with others, and getting a good night’s sleep.

So, what does any of that have to do with being a chemistry graduate student? Tonight, in my spin class, the instructor said something that really stuck with me. She said, “It is not about perfection; it is about the effort”.  She talked about how at some point in our lives, we were conditioned to believe that if it isn’t perfect, then we should stop, but that is not the case! And although she was probably talking about exercise, I think this relates so strongly to graduate school. Many grad students are constantly striving for perfection, and sometimes that is because it feels like we have to be perfect to earn the degree we are after. Striving for perfection by itself is not always a bad thing, but belittling ourselves or forcing unhealthy work-life balances to achieve that perfection is bad.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I recently went through my candidacy exams, and it was brutal. I felt so much pressure to write a perfect proposal that I put my mental health on the back burner. I was working early mornings and late nights trying to write maybe one paragraph. I had a whiteboard in my bedroom that was dedicated to every thought I had about my research proposal. I was constantly having dreams about presenting my work and failing, and taking notes in my notes app on my phone when I was supposed to be mentally elsewhere. Realistically, I knew that it was not going to be perfect, but I felt like I needed it to be. I felt like people were counting on me to do a really good job, but I also felt like people were upset with me because it consumed so much of my life. All of this put me in a really bad place mentally. My anxiety was at an all-time high, my OCD had me stuck in my head 24/7, and I didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it, so I didn’t. I honestly don’t remember much of what happened when I presented my work. I know I gave my presentation and answered the committee’s questions, but I really blacked out all the details. I had gotten a conditional pass, meaning that I had to make some edits to my proposal and resubmit it to the committee for review. This is not a bad thing! I knew that this was good and that my proposal was at least a good start, but at the time I felt like I had failed. I felt like I did not cross that finish line, and I still had a ton of work to do before this entire situation was over. So, I continued to push through, ignoring my mental health, and I made edits based on their feedback. Finally, after the longest semester of my life, I got the news that I passed, and I was officially a PhD candidate! The committee wanted to give me some additional feedback to think about, but they were pleased with my edits, and I felt so relieved. However, I had months of poor mental health and bad habits that I needed to work through, and I had no idea where to start.

My candidacy story is unique because it is mine, but it is not that different from many other science graduate students’ experiences. Through my research, I get the opportunity to talk to science graduate students across the United States. We talk about grad school in general, but sometimes we focus on specific aspects, such as the candidacy exam. For a lot of people, this is the most stressful milestone that they face in grad school. There is often a lot of pressure put on grad students during this milestone, and it can become really stressful and overwhelming really quickly. But through talking to these grad students, I get the chance to learn about how they cope with the stress associated with grad school milestones. One common coping mechanism that is utilized is going to the gym or taking workout classes. Grad students say that it is a good place to not think about school or work. It also allows them to make friends with people outside of academia, which can be really refreshing at times. So, I decided to listen to these grad students and began taking a spin class a few months after I passed my candidacy exam. I think this is really when I began to unpack and understand my experience with candidacy.

Now, after taking some time to really focus on my mental health, I feel like I can breathe again. I have done a lot of thinking about what grad school means to me, and tonight, when my spin instructor said it isn’t always about perfection, something clicked. The candidacy exam was not about perfection. I am a grad student; I’m constantly learning and growing, so it is okay to make mistakes and not be perfect. To me, that is what grad school is. It is about learning and growing from my mistakes. It is about putting in the effort. For my candidacy exam, I had to learn how to develop a research proposal on my own and explain why it is important and beneficial to society. I had to learn how to ask for help and how to receive feedback. And it was hard. But I did learn. My research proposal was never perfect, even after I made edits, but I learned, and I grew. I put in the effort, and that was the important part.

In grad school, we are constantly pushed to become better scientists, teachers, and researchers. It is so easy to fall into the trap of striving for perfection, even when it isn’t attainable. Instead of chasing perfection, we should focus on doing our best and focus on just being 1% better each day. Grad school is hard, but we are all capable of hard things <3