What My PhD Taught Me About Creative Living

How I found flow, faith, and freedom in the most unexpected journey

Parul Kapoor

Jun 17, 2025

Hello and welcome to,

✨A newsletter on Creative thinking & living. A safe space to embrace the power of Creativity✨

I’ve been carrying stories from my Ph.D. journey for years and now I feel ready to share a few of them in the hope that they help someone who’s in search of wisdom from a first-hand experience.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich

Let’s admit. A Ph.D. research is tough. It’s a long, treacherous road, with no signages, wayfinding or guiding lights initially, but a faint track to walk upon, without knowing what lies on either side of the road. It’s like a valley filled with heavy clouds which have descended on the path leaving a trail and some supplements to survive the road ahead. It’s up to us how we navigate and consume them in the long run.

It’s not easy to keep walking a path so uncertain, where you can’t tell if you’ll ever reach the destination. And you know what’s the worst part? To try and walk back from where you started, as we have undertaken a long, tiresome, lonely journey already, and now we wonder while standing at a fork road,

“Should I move ahead, or turn back? Did I make a mistake walking on this path, knowing that it would be one of the toughest life journey’s?”

Well, the answer will vary for every individual, but let me tell you one constant — this question crosses almost every Ph.D. scholars mind once in their journey, and that is when the real test of time begins.

This essay although doesn’t focus on the hardships, but on the life lessons that have shaped and are still shaping my journey as a PhD scholar. Some of them might sound simple, but when you are trying to balance your normal day-to-day life while walking on an unknown terrain, you need to brace yourself strong.

1. Stay focused and disciplined courage will follow

What if I were to tell you the #1 trait to survive this journey is not being courageous but being disciplined and focused. Since it’s a long battle, one needs to ensure they have some sort of system in place to maintain an everyday routine. Even if it’s spending a few minutes contemplating the next step in the journey, you are in sync. Our brains thrive on repetition and sensory engagement. When we feed our brain with bits of information about our goals through daily practices involving feeling, hearing, writing or touching our goals, we strengthen the neural pathways tied to our goals. Without this constant engagement the mental image we are building, will either be blurred or lost.

Tip: I would take small notes about my research into my notebook, so that any mental thought coming to my mind would not be lost and I am able to recover it once I sit down to do focused work. These tiny bits of information are the plugs which would bridge the gaps between topics which might seem unrelated at first.

2. It might feel lonely, but this is your path to walk. Trust yourself

In this journey, mostly you would be walking all by yourself. There would be occasional times when you will meet some companions in the form of mentors, guides and friends but majority of the path needs to be covered alone. If you happen to trust yourself, this arduous path will start to feel more like an adventure where all you need to do is keep your spirits up. There might be places where the terrain would seem rough or patchy, but then no journey is linear. For these times, remember the tips and tricks taught to you by the companions you met on your way uphill. Also, this is the time to know yourself deeper, as you are immersing hands on in a lifetime experience which is likely to shape you in ways deeper than you think. Be prepared to be bruised, chiseled and sculpted to become better versions of yourself.

Tip: As I came to accept that much of this path must be walked alone, I realized it’s my own consciousness that will guide me forward. To stay focused, I keep positive affirmations on my desk which are quiet reminders that even though the journey is not easy, it holds deep meaning.

3. Keep going. No one else needs to get it

The whole concept of a Ph. D research is to discover something unknown. And thus, it becomes a challenge to channelize our emotions as the research take its own time to develop. In this process, we might become overwhelmed and lean to others for validation or to seek solace, while expecting that they understand the turmoil we go through. Building such expectations would always leave us disheartened, as no one else can feel this journey as much as we do. The pain, sweat and hard work cannot be imagined leave alone acknowledged by anyone other than ourselves. Therefore, I would suggest that keep moving, without seeking for validation or comfort as you would only invite a heartbreak.

Tip: To release the build-up of heavy emotions, I pour my heart out through reflective writing, where I document my inner thoughts and emotions when I feel down. I do not do it with an intention of seeking answers, rather with the idea of decluttering my mind to ensure I make space for clarity and focus. Journaling helps; it doesn’t judge, just quietly holds whenever I need to let out, especially when no one else feels available or trustworthy. It’s only my thoughts, a pen and a paper — and the job is done! Of course, it does not mean do not look for support, but for me writing helps immensely.

4. The journey teaches more than the destination ever will

When we seek the unknown, we do not have any roadmap with us, and thus the journey cannot be planned. But if we can give shape to this path by layering it with the skills we learn, the wisdom we gather, the perseverance we build, and the passion we nurture—it starts to feel more fluid, meaningful, and even joyful. Many research are open-ended ie. they do not intend to draw conclusions, but rather are exploratory in nature, thus they might not have a result, but draw upon the researcher’s wisdom and observation. While we do intend to finish it with a sturdy conclusion of some sorts, I would suggest build a strong foundation ie. the process which has led to the conclusion as that would become the stepping stone to move forward. Also, it’s important to stay open through the process, because it will test your patience. Changes may come you way that completely shift the direction of your work—and that can feel overwhelming at times.

Tip: I made this habit that any change in direction that came my way, I took it up as a challenge rather than a setback. I went back to my base ie. from where I started and looked for emerging patterns. This process helped me stay away from feeling overwhelmed as I soon realized that I had been building on a body of work all the way along and that reflected in my future learnings as it was always the process of shaping, reshaping and presenting which made it authentic and valuable.

5. Observation is a quiet superpower

Remember as a child you used to observe small insects in the park? Or quietly listen in on the conversations adults had around you? While you were doing this unintentionally, your brain was collecting tiny bits of information and storing it for later use. Similarly, treat the research as the playground where you need to observe tiny bits of information which might otherwise seem irrelevant, but can add as plugs to scattered pieces of information. They could come in form of data, conversations, silence, ignorance or even decline from an interview call. Every bit of action, information, data has a meaning and our job as a researcher is to decode that information to be fed into our metadata. And observation is best done quietly and discreetly. Think Sherlock Holmes!

Tip: I learnt to become a daily observer from conversations, texts and sometimes even body language. This habit trained my mind in a way to not miss minute details which might otherwise be easily ignored by the brain. This practice helped me track subtle details, break them down, and draw out the information most useful for my research work

Eventually, we all go on to complete our tasks and move on to the next projects. But the real thrill lies in learning new things through the process and understanding the nuances within, which make each journey unique yet interesting.

I intend to do more writing around my learnings and experiences from this phase of my life as it has shaped me differently and I owe a lot to it.

It feels different to walk on this unknown path — one just needs to be crazily seeking for some answers and keep walking. One day, the destination will draw closer and you would not realize it when you have reached the top of the hill

Do you have such life altering experiences which have shaped you as a person? I would love to listen and connect. After all we are all living the journey called Life.