My wife has just completed a PhD. Completely completed: no more corrections, nothing else to hand in. It took a long time, delayed by illness, work and redundancy battles. It was very hard and sometimes things went wrong. But now it is behind her. The awards panel sits next month, so she can’t use the title yet, but that will also soon be dealt with. It was clearly a massive relief when she got that e-mail to say her resubmission had been accepted and she had passed.
So, having lived through all that, the logical decision I have reached is to start a PhD myself! My application was accepted last month and I officially start on 1st January 2021. My supervisor is well-known in his field and took me on after saying he already had enough candidates to supervise, stating that my proposed research was “important and challenging”. This worries me! It is the first time I have started any kind of learning where I feel there is a real chance of failure. But that is real development happens, so I am looking forward with both trepidation and excitement.
Have a think about some kind of development that might take you a little outside your comfort zone. You never know where it might lead.