
The PhD Life Coach
Whether you're a PhD student or an experienced academic, life in a university can be tough. If you're feeling overwhelmed, undervalued, or out of your depth, the PhD Life Coach can help. We talk about issues that affect all academics and how we can feel better now, without having to be perfect productivity machines. We usually do this career because we love it, so let's remember what that feels like! I'm your host, Dr Vikki Wright. Join my newsletter at www.thephdlifecoach.com.
Latest episodes

Feb 19, 2024 • 53min
2.23 What to do if academia feels unfair (special coaching episode)
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!This is the first in a series of episodes where I share a real life coaching session! In this episode, I talk with Ruth, a PhD student, who worries that succeeding in academia relies on having connections, rather than the quality of your work. She agreed to be coached for the podcast and we discuss why this bothers her, how it affects her work, and reach some conclusions that will help her move forwards. When you're listening, make sure that you relate it to your own life and think about how you can apply her experience to your own concerns. The session is slightly edited for time but mostly runs like a full session, so it'll also give you an insight into what it's like to be coached and how insightful it can be to listen to other people getting coached. Hope you enjoy! ****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Feb 12, 2024 • 26min
2.22 What to do if you want more reassurance
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!Wouldn't it be nice if sometimes someone just told us that we were doing a good job, that we were enough, that we were doing things well enough and that they were proud of us. And yet so often, that doesn't necessarily happen in academia. Lots of us feel that our supervisors could give us more reassurance, our collaborators or heads of school could give us more reassurance, and it's really hard to keep pushing yourself to work as hard as we all do, when we feel like we're not getting the praise and reassurance from other people that we think would really help. In today's episode, we're going to be thinking about what you can do about that. And, clue, it's not all about asking other people for reassurance. *****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. My weekly podcast, The PhD Life Coach covers the most common issues experienced in universities, including procrastination, imposter syndrome, and having too much to do. I give inspiring and actionable advice and often have fun expert guests join me on the show. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.If you already listen, please find time to rate, review and tell your friends! I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach.com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.#phd #academia #lecturer #professor #university #procrastination #overwhelm #amwriting #writing #impostersyndrome #timemanagement #support #coaching #highereducation #research #teaching #podcast #community****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Feb 5, 2024 • 32min
2.31 Eight things that PhD students and academics can learn from The Traitors
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!This is the first time I have ever had to put a spoiler warning on my podcast. I'm so excited. If you have an intention to watch series two of the UK Traitors and you haven't yet seen it, please go listen to a different episode! You don't have to have watched The Traitors for this to be an immensely useful episode, but if, like me, you got a little bit obsessed with The Traitors, then you are going to love this episode Because we're going to be identifying eight things that all PhD students and academics can learn from The Traitors. This started out as five things you can learn. I got carried away. I might add more as we go through. Who knows? I'm a little overexcited.*****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. My weekly podcast, The PhD Life Coach covers the most common issues experienced in universities, including procrastination, imposter syndrome, and having too much to do. I give inspiring and actionable advice and often have fun expert guests join me on the show. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.If you already listen, please find time to rate, review and tell your friends! I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach.com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.#phd #academia #lecturer #professor #university #procrastination #overwhelm #amwriting #writing #impostersyndrome #timemanagement #support #coaching #highereducation #research #teaching #podcast #community****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Jan 29, 2024 • 45min
2.20 How to improve your writing (with special guest Katy Peplin from Thrive PhD)
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!How to be a better writer is one of the most common questions asked by PhD students and academics of all levels. While there are tons of useful "how to write" books on the market it can be difficult to translate this learning into actually improving your own writing. In this episode, I talk with writing coach Dr Katy Peplin about ways that you can support yourself to get better at writing and look after yourself at the same time! Hope you enjoy - there's some great advice! Here are some links if you want to hear more from Katy:Free:Template Webinar Work more intentionally toolkit Paid:Community Your Guide to Running a Writing Group Self-paced workshops ****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Jan 22, 2024 • 21min
2.19 How to stop procrastinating (part 2)
This podcast explores how to prevent procrastination by building a clearer relationship with your past and future self. It discusses the negative effects of procrastination, the importance of effective planning, and strategies for setting realistic goals. The speaker emphasizes the need for accountability to past and future selves and encourages self-reflection to tackle procrastination.

Jan 15, 2024 • 28min
2.18 How to stop procrastinating (part 1)
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!It's the biggie! Procrastination! The bane of everyone's lives and common at every level of academia. In this episode, I will help you understand why we procrastinate and then introduce a quick and easy model you can use to help you reduce your procrastination. This episode ended up being way too long, so I've split it in half and you can have the second half next week! ****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Jan 8, 2024 • 46min
2.17 How the PhD Life Coach university membership supports students
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!In this episode, I'm chatting with Tara Wittin, Head of the University of Birmingham Graduate School and Danielle, who is one of the participants in my university PhD Life Coach membership programme. We talk about how the membership works, what benefits the students get from it, and how it fits with the other student support available at the university. Whether you're a student or an academic, have a listen and hear why consistent long-term coaching support is so important for all PhD students****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Jan 1, 2024 • 37min
2.16 How to achieve your goals using the self-coaching model
Learn how to achieve your goals this year using self-coaching techniques. Topics covered include effective goal-setting, balancing big picture and detailed plans, creating conducive circumstances, and reflection on goals and achievements.

Dec 25, 2023 • 26min
2.15 Seven things we can learn from Santa
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!Santa completes the biggest project of the year every single year, delivering all those presents all around the world, and I think we can learn a lot from how he does it. This is slightly tongue in cheek, but I still think there's some important lessons in here for anyone studying or working in academia!****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

Dec 18, 2023 • 36min
2.14 How to stop feeling guilty when you rest over the holiday
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!I've spent so many holidays where I've kind of intended to do some work but not really planned when or what, and then didn't really feel like it at the time, so I didn't, but I felt guilty about the fact I wasn't working because really I should, in inverted commas, be working, and then I also wouldn't do any of the really fun stuff that I wanted to do either because I should be working so I shouldn't do that stuff. But then when I did work, I'd feel guilty about the fact that I wasn't resting and really I probably needed to rest and I wasn't spending more time with my friends and family and doing the other things I'd intended to do over the holidays. And it just turns into this big pile of guilt where whatever you do, you just feel bad about it. And you don't get either the work done or the rest, or the quality time with your families. And just finish the holiday feeling a little bit like well, I don't know where that went. And now it's turn time and we're back on again till Easter. It's not a good feeling. I know you felt it too. I don't feel it anymore because of some of the things I've put in place. So let me share those with you today and let's figure out how not to feel guilty over the Christmas break.****I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. Please make sure you subscribe, and I would love it if you could find time to rate, review and tell your friends! You can send them this universal link that will work whatever the podcast app they use. http://pod.link/1650551306?i=1000695434464 I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.