Turning self-doubt into the weapon of choice
Self-doubt is more common than some might wish to admit. As I draw a little nearer my PhD completion – third year of three/four and so now months not years away – I am reflecting differently upon what progress looks like. Specifically, progress can be as subjectively simple as turning self-doubt into a weapon of choice. However, I think this a process that must be worked toward – it is unrelated to the idea of faking it; quite the opposite actually. I am now into the most enjoyable time in the PhD process; something I just need to keep reminding myself to feel. Self-doubt is now a different thing, at least subjectively to me.
I wrote about self-doubt way back near the beginning of my PhD process. I will link to that blog later, but for now I just want the reader to have in mind this has changed over time. Self-doubt is subjective, but I want to first reflect upon what PhD progress has become for me, as both a subjective and objective notion. Subjective being more personal, whilst objective is more outwardly measurable. Both aspects become important in the transition I have identified in myself. I therefore need to outline this objectivity first, and dig into that a little, before then returning this blog post to the underpinning idea of “weaponised” self-doubt.
An overall objective of the PhD wannabe can be express as “to gain a doctorate”. As such that one objective measure has a clearly demarcated end. The process of getting to that end can be approached in one of two ways. First, conducting a doctorate by publication. Key milestones then become the three or more publications in journals that is the output to objectively achieve. Many of my peers have gone this way, and each can therefore count their papers as moving toward the overall objective. The second way is to conduct a doctorate by monograph, as I am doing. This way progresses differently because it lacks those more obvious milestones as publication outputs. Nonetheless, an objective measure remains in place by checking against stated objectives necessarily made plain in one’s research plan. Whether by publication or by monograph, a final output is the thesis; which frames the viva defence which then concludes the doctoral process. This is the objective means, and the associated tangible outputs, one can measure progress against.
The distinction between the two objective paths merits further expansion. My experience of this objective sense of progress is that the monograph basis of a doctorate leaves more room for self-doubt in this final year. This is because less has yet been truly scrutinised by peers – i.e., nothing yet published in a journal. This lack of outputs is the space in which the individual and their research is less advanced, because it is yet to be truly subjected to external scrutiny. My supervisors warned me of this concern quite early on. This is where I reflected upon doubt initially {here}. This added place for doubt was therefore something I have been preparing for in two supplementary ways. The first way around this is familiar to most PhD students: submitting papers to conferences. I had early success with this at BAM in 2023 (discussed here). More recently, I submitted a full-paper submission to EURAM 2025; now accepted and due to be presented in June. The conference is an important space as a peer-review stepping-stone. It is used by many pre or post-doctoral researchers to gain some early academic scrutiny of research-in-progress. My second supplement toward external engagement has been directed to professional peers. This is more particular to my field of project management. Between December and April I volunteered my time in collaboration with the Association for Project Management and an external emeritus professor. We combined our knowledge and audience reach to prepare a background piece on the future of government procurement using private finance for public delivery of services. The detail is not important here, but this has also been addressed and contextualised elsewhere by my university (link here). For me, this second supplemental publication relates directly to my professional background and current research. Both of these supplemental methods reflect a progress which can be objectively shown.
The objective measure remains important to the subjective sense of weaponised self-doubt. For me at least, turning self-doubt into a positive has required some objective sense of success or acceptance. The subjective sense of progress is of course more a personal sense of positive change. What that means to each of us is perhaps quite different. For some it might relate to progress towards the doctorate itself, for others it may be something different entirely. For me, the subjective sense of progress is related directly to a needed sense of belonging. From the objective success I outline above, I now place myself a little nearer to the fringes of the academic world I have silently looked upon. Until five years ago, I looked upon that world as if it were from an unreachable distance for me. Only by this more objective progress can I now begin to relate more closely to this same subjective sense of belonging via contribution offered and accepted.
The weaponised sense of self-doubt is from this point onwards what I think progress becomes. In reality, the sense of doubt as to whether one truly belongs is never lost. I have confessed this openly to others and in return other confess it true of themselves, too. The inner-critic seems strong in academic circles and I think this an important aspect of doubt we should each hope never goes away. It is however different. Different particularly to that doubt I was expressing two years ago which I can now highlight as distinct from (discussed here). For example, I am assured that the double-blind peer review process that all researchers continually encounter remains unapologetic in tone, brutal sometimes, and with no regard for seniority and experience. The self-doubt returns at moments such as this (so I am told). As an early-stage researcher, my changed sense of progress is simply that sense of now having the same quiet confidence one builds slowly in time within themselves: “I too will endure”. This progress is not about being immune to criticism, more the sense of knowing how to be wrong to oneself before needing others to chime in. The researcher intentionally lets the inner-critic in and uses it productively.
This empowerment of the inner-critic is my progress. Objectively, I am not yet sure if I am a few months or many months from my being ready to truly defend my research. However, I am now beginning to defend aspects of it to others. This is objectively evidenced. There are now objective markers to satisfy my subjective sense of belief in being capable and thereby being changed. It is now within my power to make this a “when I will” and not an “if I can” defend my yet unfinished work. That is not to say I will, but it is to be more assured that I can. I know now well enough the many ways academia can (and will) judge me as wrong. My inner-critic no-doubt the quicker study and all the keener to be first in that queue. The inner-critic as self-doubt let in of what is being enacted not whether one can act. Progress in of itself…
…to be continued