I’ve started taking the idea of going back to grad school seriously. This is when I do a bit of recon and try to work out a strategy. What is the quickest, easiest, cheapest route to a doctorate?

I didn’t do any of this when I went back for my bachelor’s. I was such a blank slate, I didn’t even realize that the numbers after the course name represented what level the class was. I didn’t know what the Dean’s List was. I didn’t know what ‘undergrad’ meant or what ‘grad school’ was. Looking back, it seems like a miracle that I ever managed to get my degree.

The first question to ask about a project like this is, WHY am I doing this? For the heck of it? Or do I have a specific goal that this will help me to reach?

This is an important question because it’s common for people to attach to a plan that does not actually move them toward their ultimate goal. For instance, I want to get Rosetta Stone/ so I can learn a new language. Does that step actually follow?

The most useful question is, How do people who are successful at this get it done?

In this case, there are two questions. One, who actually completes the work and gets the PhD? Two, who gets a PhD and uses it to get a job in their field?

Corollary questions would be: Do I want that type of job? Does that job pay what I think it does? Are there as many openings as I suspect there might be? Or, moving on to hidden goals: Am I doing this to prove something to someone? Am I doing this because it seems like the most obvious next step from what I’m doing now, and I don’t have any other ideas? Am I doing this to delay or avoid something else?

My strategy, when I went back for my bachelor’s, was to get out a calculator and see if I could pay for my loans at my current wage. Even if it never got me a better job, I wanted to do it just to have the experience. That helped me to quit worrying about what I would do after I graduated.

Then I got a better-paying job doing basically the same stuff I did before, and my degree paid for itself in the first year.

The trick with grad school, if the rumors are true, is that you can get it paid for. Arrangements can be made such that you work for free, helping grade papers, teach classes, and do research for someone else. It’s also possible to apply for fellowships and maybe get your employer to pay for all or part of it - depending on where you work, of course.

I told my boss during my performance review that I was thinking about going to grad school to get a PhD in strategic forecasting. He listened carefully. I told him that if I went back, I was willing to stay in my current position for the next, say, five years. I don’t want to overtax my mental bandwidth pushing for promotions while trying to write a dissertation. My boss said there probably wouldn’t be a position for me in his subdivision, but then he listed off other departments that might make a place for me and gave me the names of some people to talk to.

Name it and claim it!

Now there are some additional obvious questions:

Where will I apply?

Can I attend remotely or would I have to relocate?

How do I get in?

What year do I start?

I’m looking at academic year 2022, because that’s what I’ve had in mind. As a COVID survivor, I’ve been pretty tired, and I wasn’t confident I could handle the load yet. I was poking around looking at a particular school that was recommended to me, and it looked like I would have had to apply this summer to go next fall. That’s more than a year’s lead time, which is why I’m planning now.

The other issue is the GRE. My understanding is that this is a big standardized test, the scores of which determine whether you can get accepted to specific schools.

More questions: Can I get in without taking the GRE? If I have to take it, how do I prepare to get the highest score?

Answers: Depends on the school and the program. Yes, there are schools and practice exams and workbooks and tutors, a whole cottage industry.

What’s in the GRE?

...Apparently half of it is... calculus.

Here we have my first stumbling block, because not only have I not been in a math class since 1993, I never got as far as calculus.

This is... well, it isn’t necessarily a Pons Asinorum, but it is an obstacle. A high GRE score is a golden ticket that would definitely make my life easier. I “test well” and I find the idea of a four-hour exam interesting and exciting, rather than intimidating.

On the other hand, I’m strictly average at math. I tried to take a practice GRE a while ago, and I didn’t even know how to approach any of the sample math problems. [Then I did a math placement test and... it looks like I’m going to have to repeat that part of 7th grade].

I have the feeling that this may haunt me for the rest of my life unless I do something about it. The real challenge here isn’t to earn the doctorate. I’m pretty confident I could get a fellowship and some letters of recommendation, get accepted to the school of my choice without taking the GRE, and walk out with the degree debt-free five to seven years later.

PhD = challenge
Learning calculus = risk

In my mind, getting the PhD is like training for the marathon. I knew I would do it, and I did, even though I was quite slow and walked with a limp for months afterward. Learning calculus might be more like my experience of learning to drive, which involved a lot of sobbing in a lot of parking lots. I also failed twice and had to face the same instructor who had already flunked me before I finally passed.

Why do I want to get a PhD? Six months ago, when I was lying in bed contemplating my imminent death from COVID-19, I thought about what was left on my bucket list. What would I do if I got a second chance at life? What did I most regret not having done? One of the two things that immediately came to mind was to go to grad school.

I don’t have to ask myself what I’ll regret at the end of my days, because I already know. I thought I was already there. I’m already 45, and so far all I have done is get a year older every year. The next 5-10 years will pass whether I accept this challenge or not. The worst-case scenario is that I pay $205 to take an exam, and then fail it.

All right then, let’s do this thing!

The way I deal with stress is to look ahead five years into the future.

This was challenging when I was sick with COVID-19, because I wasn’t even sure I had five days in my personal future. Even at the time, though, I was positive that the pandemic would be over by then. Maybe things would end badly for me, but it was likely that my friends and family would be doing okay in five years.

A lot can happen in five years. It seems like a long time to a kid, but the older you get, the more you start to realize that what adults have always told you is true. Time passes more and more quickly, or at least our subjective, experiential sense of it.

I just had a conversation with my boss in which I mentioned possibly going back to school in academic year 2022. That seems like a minute from now, because I know from past experience that the application deadline for that year will come up so quickly that I’ll barely have a year to study for the GRE. It seems entirely likely that it will take five years or more to get my PhD, and that doesn’t even feel like a big deal. At 45, I know that I’ll either be five years older anyway... or I won’t. Might as well plan for what is the most likely future.

A lot can happen in five years. I started running as a complete amateur and non-athlete, unable to run around one block in my neighborhood without stopping to walk. Four years later I was chugging along in my first marathon. It never even occurred to me to aim for such a thing when I started. All I wanted to do was to run a two-mile loop, and I thought it would take me all year to train for it.

Five years is a long enough span of time that conditions can completely change. I met my ex-husband, moved in with him, married him, and signed the divorce papers in less time than that. I haven’t laid eyes on him in twenty years now. What was once the epic drama of my life is something that I now rarely think about at all.

What else has happened within five years? In a five-year span, I dropped five clothing sizes. Within five years, I paid off two credit cards and my Pell grant.

In five years, a new baby could be conceived, born, and grown enough to ride a bike with training wheels and write her own name.

It took our dog four years to learn to roll over. But by then, he could also do a bunny hop in a circle and play Red Light, Green Light.

I keep reminding myself of these things because sometimes, looking backward is soothing. In retrospect it’s often easier to recognize good times of relative peace and tranquility. In the moment, any kind of stress or drama feels major. Looking back makes it clear which were high mountain peaks and which were merely mild rolling hills.

Looking forward involves more guesswork. We aren’t always very good at that.

The thing about predicting the future is that some things will remain precisely the same - like my parents’ dining room table; I’m pretty sure that will be the same in another five years, just like it was five years ago. Other things will change in a radical way that we never could see coming.

Some of these changes from my own lifetime include voicemail, racecar-shaped VHS tape rewinders, refrigerators with ice makers, Wikipedia, Twitter, streaming Netflix, Crocs, the Instant Pot, and a commercial space industry.

We won’t be able to predict everything about daily life five years from now, in 2025. We can, though, do a lot to predict our own daily lives, by making decisions about how we will live them. This is why I like the five-year span, because it’s long enough to be ambitious but near enough that Future Me +5 is somewhat recognizable.

I can ask myself, what is Future Me 50 going to be like if I do this, that, or this?

If I choose to go to bed now or two hours from now, night after night? If I choose to eat more greens or more sweets? If I schedule that dentist appointment, or not? If I save this amount or if I spend it all on random stuff from Amazon?

Is Future Me +5 going to fit in these clothes I’ve been saving, or not? Is she going to want to wear them at all? Is that version of me ever going to [clear out the storage unit or keep paying for it] or [pay off that credit card or not] or [finish my degree or not] or reach Inbox Zero or go on the vacation I dreamed about in high school?

Most things happen to us when we live in default mode. I recognize this tendency in myself, to hold my phone in my hand and scroll, scroll, scroll. Fortunately, I set my algorithms to include a lot of reptile news, so I probably read more about gator-related events than a lot of people. How many hours of my life, though, am I going to fritter away getting three-minute updates?

When we’re distracted in this way, we forget to reset our strategies for all the major things in life. Are we going to keep working at the same job, train for something else, change careers? Are we going to stay at the same address or pack and move? When are we going to retire? Do we have backup plans for when our parents or kids reach a certain age? Are we ever going to finish our passion projects - or start them?

It’s a mistake to get sucked too much into current events, passive entertainment, and shopping. What I mean by that is that research shows that it doesn’t make people any happier. It also doesn’t change a single darn thing. It’s up to each of us to find interesting and constructive ways to spend our time.

My recommendation is always to look ahead five years and ask, if things keep going along like this, what is likely to happen? Is that what we want for ourselves? Or is it not? And if not, what are we prepared to do about it?

I’ve had the pleasure of reading Benjamin Hardy’s work for several years, having stumbled across his writing before he published his first book. I was utterly blown away by Slipstream Time Hacking, and he has only improved since then. I would call him a “must-read” author, and he’s given us an instant classic with Personality Isn’t Permanent.

I read this book literally in one sitting and wanted to review it immediately.

Aha, so this is what someone can do with a doctorate in psychology!

The premise is that Personality Isn’t Permanent - we can determine what character traits we want to develop, we can change our behaviors and beliefs, and we can design our own lives. Hardy backs this up with psychological research and examples of various people’s life experiences, including his own. He describes himself as a loser who played World of Warcraft 15 hours a day, until he decided to change his life. Now he’s a married father of five kids and he has a PhD and a couple of best-selling books.

There are a couple of points in this book that a lot of readers will find challenging. The first is that personality tests are worthless. The second is the idea that it’s possible to transform trauma, using traumatic experiences as material to build a better and stronger self-image. My suggestion would be that most people can finish reading a short book even when they don’t automatically agree with everything in it. I’ve been through the process of reexamining personal trauma, and Hardy is right, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to accept!

Personality Isn’t Permanent, and this is a fabulous finding. It’s the path to freedom. This is an inspirational book, one that is worth pondering with full engagement.

Favorite quotes:

When you decide who you’ll be and the life you’ll live, you can have anything you truly want. You can become an outlier.

If you experience resistance through your reading, take heart. You’re on the brink of facing the truth of who you are.

Right now, you don’t truly want what your future self wants.
Your future self is an acquired taste.

Peak experiences are rare for most people, but can happen regularly. You could have a peak experience today if you choose to. You must be intentional. You must be courageous. You must move your life in the direction you genuinely want to go.

Thinking about yourself, what would happen if your future self came to you and told you that everything you want to see happen was going to happen? Would you believe them?

This book came to me at a really helpful moment, a time when I was struggling with whether I had it in me to fill the role I was in. The idea of The Alter Ego Effect is basically to pretend you’re someone else when it’s time to do something that doesn’t come naturally to you. I really think Todd Herman is onto something here.

I invented a persona for myself when I was 11. Her name was Veronica Vanderbilt. She was in her early 20s, she lived in Beverly Hills, and she drove around in a cherry-red convertible. She had everything a little kid doesn’t have: money, a driver’s license, the right to vote, her full height, and every other privilege that adults take for granted.

Now that I’m actually an adult, I don’t want to be Veronica anymore. I don’t particularly want to live in Beverly Hills, I hate driving, and if I did drive I wouldn’t choose a red convertible. Pretending to be her - an extroverted, wealthy young blonde - gave me feelings of freedom and possibility.

Though now that I think of it, I have grown up to become a blonde who lives in Southern California... Hmm...

What The Alter Ego Effect asks of us is to figure out what we really want, and imagine what we could feel like if we had it. The perfect job? A conversation with someone? The opportunity to pitch? What if what is holding us back is nothing more than a self-image that doesn’t match what we want? What if we just never ask? How would the world be different if each of us stepped forward and went after our dreams?

The Alter Ego Effect is a great, short, fun, approachable and uplifting guide to creating an alternative persona for yourself. If you aren’t going to go after your dreams, maybe your persona will?

Favorite quote:

Admitting you want something isn’t egotistical. It’s honest.