There's no doubt that grad school is a challenging yet rewarding time for any grad student. It's impossible to be able to predict the diverse challenges and obstacles you'll come up against during your degree, however there are things you can do to promote resilience so that when challenges come up, you are able to navigate them successful.
Resilience is our ability to overcome adversity and challenges (Shillington et al., 2023).
Resilience is not only how we deal with challenges but it also includes certain protective factors that can prevent negative outcomes on our mental health. Using strategies to reduce stress and enhance resilience is crucial for grad students (Shillington et al., 2023).
When I was in grad school, and I've talked about this on our podcast a few times, I was proactive in setting myself up with some protective factors for grad school. Protective factors are attributes that promote mental health and well-being. As we talked about on episode 6 of our podcast, the definition of mental health I like is that it is separate from mental illness (e.g., anxiety, depression, PTSD) and comprises psychological, social, and emotional well-being (see Keyes, 2003).
Three things I did during grad school to promote my own mental health were:
make friends outside of grad school through playing hockey
take weekends off and breaks throughout the year
do fun (and often free or low cost) things with my grad school friends.
In Shillington et al.'s (2023) study, they examined the resilience-building factors of grad students who participated in a peer coaching program. Participation in the program, which was delivered through group sessions four times per month, experienced the following:
increased self-reflection and awareness
development of skills
relationship building
acknowledgement of self-improvement
decreased anxiety
Findings from this study and others inform the work I do on How To Grad School and I hope you too can build your resilience so that you can feel more confident as you navigate challenges and successes in grad school.
References
Keyes, C. L. M. (2003). Complete mental health: An agenda for the 21st century. In C. L. M. Keyes & J. Haidt (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived (pp. 293–312). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10594-013
Shillington, K. J., Labadie, C. T., Johnson, A. M., & Irwin, J. D. (2023). PROmoting Resilience During GRADuate School and Beyond (PRO-GRAD): A Motivational Coaching Intervention. International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 21(2), 232–249. https://doi.org/10.24384/c66k-8f84
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