10 things I learned self-funding my PhD (& masters): Pt. 2, mindset
Here are some of the things I learned mindset-wise while I self-funded my postgraduate degrees:
Possibility: I learned that choosing to believe something is possible, like I did with this (even when those in the know wisely & rightfully told me not to do it) opened things up & got me considering options I otherwise wouldn’t’ve thought of. Believing it was possible felt like half-way.
Clear research idea: I learned that having a really clear idea of what I wanted to research & knowing most of the literature & practicalities around it beforehand would be one of the best strategies I could’ve unintentionally come up with. This not only meant I wrote everything in two years, but also meant I could focus a bit more on bringing money in. It also eliminated what looked like a rather stressful ‘searching for what I’m researching’ aspect of what I saw in other PhD’s.
Why: I learned that self-funding makes you easily question why you’re doing/would want to do the degree. I remember thinking that if I didn’t have a very clearly defined ‘why’ in terms of research & career/life goals, this could be a very expensive way to find out I have no self esteem.
Practice: I learned pretty soon that this was an area I would be compromising on. I drew up a list of places and contexts I could practice in (I use the term ‘practice’ loosely!). These included: a practice pad/graph I designed/made; practicing while I washed dishes or folded laundry; on the street when no one was around (!); in the car; & swapping favours with friends on end-of-terraces to use their homes while they’re out (& give my neighbours a rest). These were just little things that kept me limber, I still booked in big practice days for the bigger stuff.
Composing: I learned the same also applied to composing when things got busy. Some of the workarounds with this included: writing something before bed to edit in the morning; writing on the bus (!); lunch breaks; recording into my phone; & just imagining what I wanted to write & transcribing the idea.
All-round people: One thing I’ve lived by for years is having non-musician friends & friends in as many different sectors as possible. I find their perspective can be so illuminating & inspiring it enables me to go beyond the limitations I can sometimes set myself, or that I see musicians setting themselves that I can end up falling into if I’m not careful.
Toolboxes for General Health: I learned to insure the downside & made ‘toolboxes’ for my health & mental health that included things what I call my ‘Crone’s Circle’ - reliable friends, musicians, colleagues - who I could rely on in down-times, a book that is a sort of mental health ‘bible’ to me, & scheduled sets of things I enjoyed just for fun.
Toolboxes for Tech: I then had a ‘Crone’s Circle’ of mechanics, computer & phone repairs people, etc. I trusted & had good relationships with that I could learn from (not Apple ‘Geniuses’, btw!). There’s lots of wisdom & knowledge out there & I genuinely think I’ve saved a small fortune taking this approach, & have also gained useful information to pass on too.
Intuition: I think the biggest thing I learned was to live more intuitively as I was time-poor - this has actually changed my life in the long-term. I learned to never argue with a hunch, & that if I felt called or moved to do something that’s when I should do it. The spontaneity was far more enjoyable than scheduling things in all the time.
Rules & reminders: I learned to make some general rules to live by to keep myself on track. Here are a few things I told myself:
‘Get a year out of a day’ (whatever that meant that particular day!).
‘There are lots of things outside your vision.’
(This was from something I’d told myself in 2013 that’s stuck!) ‘When you’ve gone down a list of possibilities & reached a dead end, make a new list of better possibilities and work your way up it’.
MONEY BONUS!: I learned to have an ‘amber alert’ for how much money I had left before I had to stop everything I was doing & just focus on getting money in.