PhD motto: If you think it, you can do it

If you don’t think you can do it, you’re probably right, but if you do think you can do it, you’re probably right, and you probably can.

One of the most memorable phrases that I have ever heard was during secondary school. I was never ‘top of the class,’ but I was part of the year group that was selected for an ‘aiming higher’ course. Basically, those that were above average achievers with potential, but not ‘top of the class’ were chosen to attend a series of classes on how to achieve more. These were held in the school or at the University of South Wales, Caerleon campus, and the purpose was to motivate us to try harder, achieve more, etc. by teaching us how to revise more efficiently, how to use different tools to reach our potential, and so on.

Some would think this is really boring and useless, but I found it particularly useful. At the time (2004), there were 15 members in the EU, and I can still tell you who they were in alphabetical order forwards and backwards, and count to ten in Japanese. These were taught to us using techniques like visual association and memory accession. These are techniques I still use today, to remember lists or particularly complex things, and sure, it isn’t for everyone, but it works for me. Mind maps, for example, I find of no use to me, but others swear by them. Each to their own, right!?

Anyway, back at school, one Mr. Alan Bootle gave us a lesson on how to revise. I hadn’t really had an awful lot of face-to-face interaction with him, but knew who he was and what he did, and I assume he didn’t know anything about me either! In this class, Mr. Bootle told us that he didn’t do particularly well in secondary school, but then discovered how to learn and retain information, and ended up getting a first class degree at university. He went through a range of techniques and gave us hints and tips, which were very useful indeed. Not only that, the motivation and passion he showed us really rubbed off on me, and from that point I held him in really high regard and had a great deal of respect for him (more so than I had before).

One of the things he talked to us about was believing in yourself. Having confidence in your own ability and believing that you are better than you think you are. He said to us, “If you think you can do it, you’re probably right,” and it is this positivity that has really stuck with me since then and is a motto that I live by in everything I do. It translates really well in every aspect of life – for me, doing this PhD is a hard slog, and sure, not everything works, but maintaining positivity, no matter how hard it gets sometimes, is really important. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and you will get there, because ‘if you think you can do it, you probably can.’

Dr. Daniel Morse (@danieljmorse) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Cardiff University. This story was published on August 24, 2016, on Dr. Morse’s blog, I’m A Scientist (available here), and has been republished here with his permission.