How to finish when you know you’re leaving

There are all kinds of names for it. Senioritis. Lame-duck season. Whatever you call it, it’s that soul-sucking period between the time you’re emotionally done with something and when it actually, mercifully comes to an end.

Maybe you’ve decided your marriage is over, and you just want to be apart now, thank you very much. Maybe you’re pregnant and there’s a few more weeks to go before you get to transition from too-uncomfortable-to-sleep-and-large-as-a-house to baby-holding mama. Maybe you’ve decided this job is eating your life, and you want to quit. Maybe you’ve decided this career isn’t for you, and you want to tie up whatever stage of it you’re in with a bow and move along.

In some cases, you can short-circuit that awful, soul-sucking period by, well, just shortening it. You were intending to move out at the end of the year, but the car is packed and you’ve got a couch with your name on it before you knew what you were doing. You were planning to get another job lined up before you quit, but that last meeting pushed you over the edge and your letter of resignation is now on your boss’ desk.

But often, too often, it’s not that simple. If you want the baby, you have to wait for her to be fully cooked. If you want the degree, you have to finish the dissertation.

And there’s the rub: To do the thing you want to do, you have to do the thing you most don’t want to do.

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Let me start by saying this: This is an awful, shitty place to be. It’s depressing, demoralizing, and alienating. And? It’s not much fun.

A lot of people will likely tell you that everyone hates the end of their dissertation! Buck up! (And okay, yes, most people want nothing to do with it by the home stretch, it’s true.) But it’s not the same thing everyone else is experiencing.

The people who plan to go on, however much they hate the dissertation right now, have a clear motivation for finishing and finishing well: This work is part and parcel of getting them a job and jump starting their academic career. They have an overarching goal that they can keep their eyes on.

When the goal is just to finish so you’re done, because you’ve come this far, well, that’s not much motivation at all.

So what can you do?

There are a couple of tricks that will help you finish even when you’ve lost all motivation to continue.

First, focus on your goal. Finishing is always a means to an end — and in your case, that end is a more expansive, joyful, fulfilling life. Imagine what your life will be like when this weight is lifted from your shoulders. Imagine what your life will be like when you can take back your evenings and weekends. Imagine what your life will be like when you can divorce your fucking laptop and actually spend time doing things you love.

Find a way to remind yourself of this future awesomeness. Maybe it’s a list taped to the desk by your computer. Maybe it’s a collage of all the fabulous things you’ll be doing once you’re done. Maybe it’s a song that epitomizes the life you want to be living.

There is a reason you’re doing this, it says to you. This pain is not meaningless.

And if there isn’t a reason you’re doing this, please rethink it. Seriously. If it’s not going to satisfy something in you, if it’s not going to help your future, if it’s not going to get you to something you want, then consider walking away.

Second, assuming you’re committed to doing it, break down the task into little, teeny pieces.

When you’ve got the finish line in sight, it’s really tempting to chunk everything into motivation-killing huge lumps, because you’re so! close! But if the chunks are too large to deal with without triggering all of your apathy and hatred and stuck, well, they’re not actually getting you closer to the goal.

I know, every other “how to write your dissertation” book tells you to break things into pieces, but their “tiny pieces” and my “tiny pieces” are worlds apart. Their “tiny pieces” are things like “write the next section of the chapter.” My “tiny pieces” are more like “find the title of that fucking book I can’t remember the name of.”

Make a list of teeny, tiny pieces — your feeling about each piece should be a kind of inner eye-rolling, a sense of “of course I can do that.” If the piece doesn’t feel like that, it’s too big — make it littler. Do one teeny, tiny piece. Then walk away from it for 24 hours or until you want to do another piece, whichever comes first. When you run out of pieces, make more. The goal is always to do one teeny, tiny thing that will move you forward.

Often, when I talk about teeny tiny chunks (Martha Beck calls them turtle steps), the response is that they’ll never get done at that rate. Let me ask you this: How well are you finishing now? There will be days when, for whatever reason, you’ll feel motivated to do a whole pile of teeny, tiny tasks. Some days you’ll struggle through one. Let both of those days be okay.

Third, notice when you’re telling a story about yourself, your dissertation, and your leaving: “Oh, I can’t believe I got so far into this without realizing how wrong for me it is. I’m so stupid!”; “I’m just so bad at all of this”; “Everyone knows I’m not going on the market and they probably think I’m a big loser.”

Part of resistance and lack of motivation is the way we talk to ourselves. We often think that being mean and critical is somehow going to make us leap up and start working like mad. I’ve never found that to be true.

Think about the last time someone else was mean to and critical of you. What was your reaction? Did you suddenly feel motivated and engaged, or depressed, despondent, and in need of comfort food and crap tv? The same thing happens when we talk to ourselves in mean and critical ways.

So notice when you’re having negative self-talk, and do your best to replace it with something kinder: “This really sucks, and it makes total sense that I don’t want to do this, but I’m doing my best and I’ll be done as soon as I can be.”

And finally, make sure that you’re engaging in as much self-care as you can stand. Get enough sleep, try not to mainline the coffee, eat something with nutrients in it every so often, spend time with people who love you and believe in you.

One last thing

This part of things really does suck, and it really does end. I promise.