Rethinking how we chase big goals through postgraduate reflection

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

There is a particular kind of panic that comes from standing in the shower, soap slipping between your fingers, gripping tighter and tighter as it becomes more determined to escape. The harder you squeeze, the faster it shoots out of your hands. It lands on the floor. You laugh, a little embarrassed, and bend down to pick it up. Then you keep washing.

It turns out this small, ordinary bathroom moment is one of the most honest metaphors for pursuing a doctorate or any long, demanding goal in life.

Anyone who has pursued an advanced degree, launched a business, or chased a long-term ambition knows the instinct: hold on as tightly as possible so nothing slips away. But effort and anxiety are not the same thing. A white-knuckled grip on a goal often produces the opposite of what we want. Fear tightens the fist, and a tightened fist cannot hold anything smooth for long. The goal like the soap begins to move faster the more desperately we try to control it.

This is the quiet trap of ambition. We assume that intensity equals commitment, that gripping harder is a sign of seriousness. In truth, over-gripping usually signals fear, not focus.

Perfectionism convinces us that if we only tighten our standards a little more, refine one more draft, or delay submission one more week, the work will finally be “ready.” But perfectionism is not a stabilizing force it’s a lubricant. It makes every attempt to hold the goal steady even harder, because the target keeps moving further from “good enough.” The more we chase flawlessness, the more the goal slips through our fingers, taking our confidence and momentum with it.

Fear of failure rarely protects us. It usually does the opposite it speeds up the very outcome we are trying to avoid. A student terrified of failing a proposal defense often freezes rather than prepares. A professional afraid of rejection often hesitates rather than applies. Like a nervous grip on wet soap, fear amplifies the slip instead of preventing it.

Here is the part of the metaphor that matters most: the soap falling is not the end of the story. It slips, it lands on the shower floor, and as the cartoon so simply puts it “it’s okay, I’ll pick it up and keep going.” That is the entire arc of resilience in one sentence.

Progress was never about maintaining a flawless, uninterrupted grip. It was always about the willingness to adjust, bend down, and continue. The people who complete PhDs, build organizations, or sustain long careers are rarely the ones who never dropped anything. They are the ones who stopped being surprised by the drop and simply built picking-it-back-up into their process.

This is perhaps the most freeing realization for anyone doing difficult, multi-year work: you were never meant to control every variable. Research committees change their minds. Data collection gets delayed. Life interrupts timelines. None of that is a personal failure it is simply the texture of long-term work.

What actually builds a doctorate, a business, or a meaningful career is not iron control. It is a quieter kind of discipline: showing up again after the slip, adjusting the approach, and trusting the process even when the outcome feels uncertain.

Notice what stands beside the shower scene in the image a stack of books labelled research, learning, growth, and impact, with patience placed right next to them like a bottle of shower gel. These are not separate from the struggle; they are made possible by it. Every slip that gets picked back up becomes part of the learning. Every adjustment becomes part of the growth. And eventually, impact.

So the next time your goal starts to feel like slippery soap in your hands, remember: loosen the grip. Let it fall if it must. Pick it up. And keep going the process, not the panic, is what gets you clean through to the end.

Dr. Yusuf Muchelule is a Senior Lecturer & a Consultant.

Reporting originally appeared via KBC Digital. Read the full source for additional context.