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Introduction

Key terms: personal development, resilience, value-based decision-making, strengths-based development, navigating academic challenges by using your inner compass, relevant for students in any phase of the PhD trajectory

ECTS: 2.5
Number of sessions: 4
Hours per session: 4

In this training, you will explore how to make authentic choices that help you stay true to yourself in the short and long term and that help you showcase your personal power. You will do this by examining how you connect with yourself, with others and with your professional environment.

Why do we offer this training? A PhD programme is not something you take up lightly. You invest a great deal of your time and energy over several years of your life. You find yourself in a sometimes challenging (new) dynamic. You are busy meeting deadlines. Much is expected of you. In short: you face plenty of challenges.

Especially in such a challenging environment, it is useful to consciously pause for a moment and reflect on who you are and where you are going, what holds you back and what moves you forward, and what you stand for and what you strive for. 

Yet these insights are important ingredients for shaping your own inner compass. A compass you can fall back on when things get tough. And one that helps you recognize opportunities that help you grow both as a person and as a professional and capitalize on them.

Attendance at all sessions is required. There is no homework.

Who is this for?

Relations with other courses

This course complements two other courses offered by the EGSH: 

1.  Bounce back: handling the mental and emotional challenges of doing a PhD. Compared to Personal power, Bounce back has a stronger focus on coping with emotional and mental challenges, and pays less attention to the importance of a value-driven inner compass. 

2. Intervision for PhD candidates: Peer support for resilient and sustainable academic work. This course facilitates discussion among peers about a wide range of challenges at work. Personal power is an instructor-led course that has a more narrow focus on one’s inner compass.
 

Sessions and preparations

Session 1: Connecting with the inside, with your(inner)self (part 1)

• Introduction – you are a PhD student, who else are you?
• Explanation of the training’s theoretical framework.
• WHY – what drives you, what gives you energy, what do you want to contribute, what comes effortlessly, what makes you shine?

Session 2: Connecting with the inside, with your(inner)self (part 2)

• What are your talents and natural qualities? We look beyond content-based qualities to what else you have to offer.
• Which values ​​are important to you? We look beyond norms and expectations.

Session 3: Connecting with the outside, with others and your professional environment (part 1)

• Recognizing and guarding boundaries. How is this influenced by the way you look at harmony and conflict?
• The importance of managing your energy. How do you recharge?
• The physical aspect of your inner compass. What does your body tell you about your boundaries and energy? Do you recognize the signals? What do your emotions tell you? 

Session 4: Connecting with the outside, with others and your professional environment (part 2)

• Which limiting beliefs are holding you back from where you want to go? Which ones are actually helping you?
• Knowing your own needs = expressing them more easily. Using ‘non-violent communication’, we explore your needs and how you articulate them to others.