
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

Oct 2, 2023 • 26min
2.3 How to manage your supervisor (or boss)
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!Our professional relationships with the people who supervise or manage us can have huge implications for how much we achieve and how much we enjoy our academic work. Yet often we can be quite passive about it - "they are how they are" and we just have to cope with it. In this episode, I'll share some straightforward ways that you can "manage" the people above you to make it more efficient and more fun for everyone involved. If you want to get a full transcript or find out more about working with me, check out my website www.thephdlifecoach.com.****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.

Sep 25, 2023 • 34min
2.2 How to manage negative feedback
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!When did you last get some negative feedback? As PhD students and academics, we get negative feedback quite often, either comments on drafts of papers, rejections from journals, applying for jobs, all sorts of things. We get bits of negative feedback and it can really hurt. So what do we do when we experience negative feedback? What do we do with the fact it hurts and how could we perhaps do something different in the future? That's what we're going to be talking about in today's podcast.****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.

Sep 18, 2023 • 21min
2.1 What to do if you already feel behind
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!Welcome to Season 2 of the PhD Life Coach! In this first episode, I talk about feeling behind! It's easy to spend a lot of time telling yourself that you're behind your own plan or you're behind other people. Neither feel good and neither help us make more progress. I'll talk through why these sort of thoughts hold us back and give some ideas about what to do instead. None of this needs us to be a super human - the tips are simple and achieveable, and help us move towards our goals with less pain. ****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.

Jul 24, 2023 • 21min
41. Seven things I've learned this year that might help you too
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!In this final episode of the 2022/23 academic year, I reflect on seven things that I have learned since starting this podcast. Whether it's managing perfectionism, staying consistent or building community, there's loads that you can apply to your own journey. After this, I'll be taking a short break and returning at the beginning of September. There's 41 episodes up for you now so perhaps revisit some of the ones you've missed, or that you've found particularly useful and I'll see you next year! ****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.

Jul 17, 2023 • 1h 14min
40. On Being Unreasonable in academia with guest Kirsty Sedgman
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!In this episode, I welcome Kirsty Sedgman, academic and author of On Being Unreasonable. We talk about Kirsty's fascinating route into her current academic role and what encouraged her to write a book about unreasonableness. We also discuss the tricky subject of what is considered "reasonable" within academia and how we can push boundaries to create our own meaningful paths. In this episode, Kirsty Sedgman talks about her book On Being Unreasonable: Breaking the rules and making things better. She also briefly discusses her earlier works Locating the Audience and The Reasonable Audience. She mentions several other scholars, including Eleanora Belfiore’s work on cultural policy practice, Jess Thom co-director of Touretteshero, Ellie Mackin Roberts and her TikTok work, Salamander Street Press, and Howard Zinn and his work on civil disobedience.You can also find out more about working with me at www.thephdlifecoach.com and find a transcript at www.thephdlifecoach.com/podcast.****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.

Jul 13, 2023 • 9min
BONUS - start your day!
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!Do you start your day not clear on what the priorities are and just feeling indecisive and unmotivated? We all do sometimes. What we often need in that moment is to be a bit reflective, think about what we need, get clarity on our tasks and remind ourselves why we do this. But it's so hard! When you're already in a funk, it's so difficult to regulate yourself like that. I know! I try and fail often. To support you, I've made a start the day video that can guide you through it instead! Watch this every day, or at least any day that you're struggling and let me help you start the day with clarity and intention. Let me know what you think! I have a bunch more of these planned so let me know any comments. ****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.

Jul 10, 2023 • 29min
39. How to prepare for your academic summer - structure and freedom
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!This is the second of a two part series about thriving in our academic summer. This time we consider the balance between structure and freedom and how to plan a summer that meets all of our needs. In this episode I talk about another episodes of my podcast: How to use role-based time-blockingYou can find a transcript at www.thephdlifecoach.com/podcast and also find more details about working with me****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.

Jul 3, 2023 • 31min
38. How to prepare for your academic summer - acceptance and resistance
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!The summer period can be particularly stressful for academics, whether it's because you miss the structure of "normal" term or because you don't feel like you even GET a summer any more. This is the first in a short series of episodes considering how we can make the summer ours again and enjoy this part of the academic year. Today we're talking about the benefits of combining some "acceptance" with some "resistance" so that this doesn't feel more painful than it needs to! In this episode I talk about some other episodes of my podcast, including: - How to rest during the holiday period- How to be your own best supervisor- How accepting where you are is the first step to getting where you want to be- How to make decisions you loveFor a transcript and other links, check out my webpage www.thephdlifecoach.com/podcast****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.

Jun 26, 2023 • 53min
37. What is an academic adjacent career and why might you want one?
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!When PhD students (and even academics) think about their career options, it often gets divided into "academic" or "non-academic" careers. In this episode, my guest Holly Prescott, a careers consultant for PGRs, talks about academic adjacent careers. She explains what they involve, why people should consider them and we discuss some of the issues that sometimes hold people back from discovering, and moving into, these interest careers. In this episode, Holly talks about: - her theatre company Ottisdotter and their latest production Lady Inger- her blog, PostGradual and an article on academic adjacent careersand the podcast Research Adjacent with Sarah McLusky.****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.

Jun 19, 2023 • 26min
36. Why we should be more proud of ourselves (and how to do it)
Send Vikki any questions you'd like answered on the show!Lots of people struggle to feel proud of themselves, even when on paper they look really successful. In this episode, I talk about why this is, why it can cause problems and how to develop a habit of being more proud of yourself. Find the transcript at www.thephdlifecoach.com/podcast****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.