I decided to follow the professional doctorate route for my PhD studies. It was definitely the right choice for me. On my course, there is a minimal timetabling structure which has created a helpful balance for giving me breathing space whilst also focusing my efforts in a meaningful way. The conversational lectures have allowed me to flex in my learning style. Assignments have helped me to experiment and the feedback/feedforward has helped me in developing my study and writing styles before I launch off more independently. Even though there are so many positives, each step along the way has been challenging. This most recent assignment has lived up to offering that challenge in its own way.

Wrong turn.

A surprising challenge in my most recent assignment was when I  realised (thanks to a tutorial) that I had taken a wrong path in my research. Rather than try to make it fit, I decided to scrap it all and start again - just two weeks before the end of a 3-month deadline. When I say scrap everything, I'm talking about my literature review, some of the wider contextual reading, methodology research AND ethics form. 

Turning on the sat nav!

I tell my own students (in the courses that I deliver) that 'no training course or qualification is worth making yourself very ill for'. Being in a position to study is a luxury and a privilege and I guess it's easy for me to forget that sometimes. 

At the same point as I was deciding to scrap everything and start over, I was trying to recover from 'a touch of fatigue', the result of the too-heavy workload I had created for myself before Christmas. Ignoring the signs of fatigue previously had led me to burnout and shutdown so I was DETERMINED to practice what I preach.

No U-turns allowed!

As mentioned, I was trying to recuperate from extreme tiredness and really needed to rest up. I was honest about that and the absence of shame dispelled a personal myth about having to keep going regardless. The solution that I suggested was to defer, to submit this assignment in another 5 months time when I could put in a piece of work that 1) I would be proud of and 2) wouldn't waste the markers' time.

In all my education, I have never asked for an extension, let alone  a deferral. If somebody else told me that, I would think that's a pretty remarkable thing. For me, it's more of an expectation - a manifestation of my 'work hard / good girl' complex and a sign of toxic presenteeism in my approach to work and education. So, to tell my tutors that my assignment would not be in on time was a first for me. I think I had built it into a definition of failing - although I would never be so uncompassionate to anyone else.

Even if my tutors had insisted on me submitting this assignment on time, I knew there was no way I could make it happen. Maybe that's what made my defer request less hard than I imagined it would be.

Hazard warning

As it turned out, the tutors were not keen and asked me to think about it. After a couple of days deliberation, I applied for a three week extension instead.  I made a deal with myself that I would do what I could in the, now, 5 week deadline. "At least in choosing this", I negotiated with myself, "I wouldn't be tackling two assignments at the same time." I set out on my new course of action, agreeing (with myself):

• to treat it like a gestalt learning experiment,
• to accept that I may submit a 'not good enough' (ooh, ouch! I just had a flashback to every school report I have ever received which said, 'could try harder') piece of work, and 
• that I would put my wellbeing above my perfection and submit the assignment on deadline day regardless of its flaws.

Arriving

Do you know what? I did work hard but I didn't work myself hard enough to take a backwards step in my recovery from fatigue. Sure, I didn't recover and I can still feel that extreme tiredness now but I didn't make it significantly worse either! While my submission had potholes, it wasn't necessarily a bad piece of work. "It might even earn a pass," I had dared to think. (You may or may not know that there are no other grading structures at this point in studies. The work is either good enough or it isn't. Some learners don't like that but I'm - kind of - okay with it.) I had an expectation of what some of the feedback might be - essentially, more reading about x,y and z. 

A short stopover.

Is it okay to admit that once I had submitted the assignment, I completely let go of it? Seriously, it did not cross my mind again until a peer mentioned her results. I opened my grade yesterday ... and I passed. Aside from the familiar relief of not having to do the work again, I was genuinely surprised. It turns out that, deep down, I was expecting to receive a Fail whilst hoping for the Pass.

Enjoying the view.

There is another surprise gift in this learning experience. I have a longstanding issue of knowing what good 'enough' means. It's not entirely clear still what that might mean for me in my developing studies, but I am a lot nearer to a felt-sense-definition now than I was a few weeks ago and that's a a pretty beautiful view right now.

 
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