Thanks everyone for the advice!! :)

I'm just back from a trip home for Christmas which was a wonderful break.
I had hoped that the break would motivate me and it did a small bit. But to be honest last night the idea of returning to the lab this morning filled me with panic.
Then any remaining motivation I had was destroyed by my supervisor...who didn't say hello or happy new year when he came out of his office - instead I got yelled at for not being in over the weekend and told that he needs the results of a certain experiment by tomorrow (even if I work all night this is impossible).

So a great start to the new year!
In other news our one and only post doc has quit!

It's all a huge mess and even though I am in my 4th year, I am seriously considering quitting!

I'm new to this forum too! :)
Due to submit on the 11th Oct 2013...but unless things improve I am quite likely to need an extension.

Also this video got me through my BSc exams...

Hi PhDscientist,

I also started in the fall of 2009 and am also struggling with motivation (and a crazy supervisor!). :( :(

However, in the past few weeks I have received some motivational vids/poems/quotes etc from friends...
Here's a poem I got today:

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

Not sure why, the main reason is it's such a new lab. So a lot of time was spent in the first year or two setting stuff up that would not usually be an issue in labs that are already up and running. In this way there has been a struggle to build momentum!

Feeling a lot more motivated this week...probably because Christmas is closing in pretty rapidly.

But it seems like a huge percentage of PhD students from all across the world seem to go through a period of sometimes quite extreme depression. I think it is crazy that this is universal and is often written off as normal! But I guess if it was easy then it wouldn't be worth doing?

I wonder how many people on this forum are depressed with their studies?

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum...hello everyone! :)

I am in the 4th and final (hopefully) year of my PhD in biological science. I am just wondering does anyone have any advice for getting through and making yourself work even when you are hugely unmotivated?

I am to a point where I feel like I have hit a wall and I think about quitting everyday, which is crazy! It's been a disaster from very early on but I've make excuses and hoped it would get better. My lab has been quite toxic, we have not published any papers in the past five years and the whole lab has produced little or no data in the last three years! I have gone from loving science to feeling completely disinterested and have lost all confidence in myself and my work. I am usually a happy go lucky sort of person but the continuous failure over the past three years has started to really depress me. I have tried everything, have talked very directly and honestly to my supervisor (and have broken down in tears in front of him a number of times...and I NEVER cry!), my secondary supervisor and others in the department, the welfare officers and have even gone for counselling, but the general message is always man up and get on with it. I have very little data and not even half as much as I would need. I used to be really enthusiastic but now it's a struggle to even get up in the morning and I am barely getting any work done at all. I need to motivate myself, I need to get the work done or else I am never going to finish!!!

Any advice would be fantastic!
Thanks guys :)