It is easy for doc students to become frustrated in the cycle of  “revolving revisions”… especially as they approach the end of the doctoral journey. Chair and committee requests for revisions are often met with reluctance. Sometimes it's difficult for doc students to recognize the value in revisions, and there is a sense of resistance... that the work we are doing has somehow become a part of who we are. We are too close to our research. We have a deep feeling of connectedness to our ideas and the years of work we have accomplished. This is a painful (and natural) part of the dissertation journey. We’ve talked about perfectionism prison before, and sometimes, this resistance is how it rears its ugly head. 

 

So... how can we move past the frustration, the reluctance to accept when our committee requests revisions?

 

We do so, by aiming for detachment. 

 

Eight weeks before my own dissertation defense, my chair...