Developing meta-cognitive and emotional skills during PhD? I am convinced that I possess sufficient "cognitive skills" to succeed doing my PhD. Reflection on myself, however, confronts me with the fact that my "meta-cognitive" (time management, mental discipline, focus) and "emotional" skills (motivation, patience, work-life balance, monitoring own health) are underdeveloped.


I feel that I am always making the same mistakes. I am often working hard for days. Stress and coffee distort my sleep pattern, making my mind empty for days. I recognize clear patterns. I also have trouble maintaining a healthy life-style. Instead of taking a little bit more time to eat healthy or sport, I am captivated in "the illusion that there is always more work to do." As a consequence, I am (on average) physically sick two days in the week -- eventually, losing more time. Finally, though I was happy living my introvert life before, the long days of no social interaction and just staring at my computer screen are becoming more dreadful.
My meta-cognitive skills also seem to be weak. I have trouble focusing on one subject for a very long time. I often get bored after some weeks, wanting to jump immediately to something else. As a result, it appears that the first phase of my research (almost 9 months) is very fragmented. I don't see any linear progress. I often doubt that the time I am investing in some subject will be useful later. I feel that I am not really spending my time the best I can. I keep track of my work hours in Excel files to be sure that I accomplish my weekly goal of 45 hours. In order to accomplish this goal I mostly have to push many hours to the weekend. I am aware that this bad time-organization will affect the quality of my relationships in the long term; and damages my work-life balance in general. I feel that I am working 24/7 at half capacity, whereas I would prefer to work 5 or 6 days in the week at full capacity.


I am starting to have less and less satisfaction from my work. The butterfly feeling of wonder and passion for science are disappearing. I am feeling more like an input-output machine which needs to be managed. The work I am doing also seems to be driven and conditioned by external factors (deadlines, presentations, publications, expectations promoter) instead of internal factors (pleasure, interest).

More concrete questions:

(1) Is it possible to improve one's meta-cognitive and emotional skills? How would one do this in practice? Can a person really change?

(2) How can one restore those feelings of wonder and true passion, and step out of the "routine" where one feels like an input-output machine which needs to be managed?
I empathize, as this is something that I (and many others here, I am sure) have also struggled with.

My first piece of advice is simple but difficult: you need to start valuing yourself. Eat well. Sleep well (or at least defend an eight hour block of time where you lie in bed and rest). Get outside and move around. Your mind lives inside your body, and you cannot build on a broken foundation.

My second piece of advice is to help yourself do this by getting help from a therapist. I particularly recommend looking into cognitive behavioral therapy, given your description of self-regulation: it is very good at helping people get out of dead ends that are more intellectual than organic.