I must admit that travelling to a foreign country on your own and leading a research project within six weeks does not immediately lend itself to temperance. My expectations and those of others can create a whirlwind of ‘do, do, do!’ as I try my best to juggle this incredible opportunity with the lingering burn-out of an Oxford term (and a very large reliance on a work-hard, play-hard culture), a new environment and landscape, and the personal wish to do a good job on my project. With so much to do in work and free-time, I found it easy to continuously plan: what would I do next? What should I do next? However, whilst I was seamlessly ticking off the must-dos and clocking in the hours of work, this week I realised how restricted and narrow my focus had become. 

My project started off slowly again this week, and I was beginning to feel quite frustrated. I tend to struggle with group-tasks/tasks that rely on other people, especially when I end up in the mindset of continuously doing and ‘every minute must be productive!’. To me, it felt like a very unlucky state of affairs — I desperately needed the organisations to internally process and approve the interviews so I could find the answers to my questions and complete the puzzle. I tried to look for other bits of work to do, but the fact that my mind-set had been so narrowed down on the interviews, and the fact they were not happening, meant great negative talk set in. I felt like my project wasn’t achieving much, I was worried the interviews would never be approved and my work would not come to anything, I felt guilty that I had been given this opportunity to work on a leadership project yet felt like everything was out of my control. This, of course, did not get me anywhere. After a particularly low-spirited day mid-week, I realised that in order to take leadership of both my project and emotions given the situation, I needed to slow down and alter my perspective. 

What I found useful here was asking myself what I wanted to get out of this six weeks, what I could do to facilitate this, and what I was grateful for. This simple check-in with myself really helped me focus on the importance of the process of the LiA as a whole, not just the outcome and whether my project achieved the most impact and changed the world! I realised the way this project has affirmed my desire for an action-centred job where my work has purpose within the context of sustainable development, how I’m learning to listen to myself in solitude and truly understand what can positively and negatively affect me (digital detox incoming!), and of course better understand my leadership style.

A big step for me this week has been realising both socially and professionally that I need to focus on reality rather than my own mind. It is very easy for my mind to catastrophise, creating false narratives. As a leader, this stops me from reaching out for help when I need guidance and support, and also lose perspective on the state of the situation, thereby losing time and energy on the worst-case scenario. I think this in-turn also makes me hyper-focused on the simplest fix to the solution, that would mean the worst-case scenario was avoided i.e. the interviews and the reassurance my project could go ahead! After my internal reflection that I could take more ownership of the situation and how I was feeling, I expressed my concerns to my supervisor. The output of the conversation was a very flipped mindset and once again excited researcher! Having been in this situation many times before, my supervisor had excellent suggestions of ways I could do my best to gather as much information on my own — namely searching for existing YouTube interviews with the stakeholders. I never would have thought of this own my own as all I could see was the wall of fear that the interviews would never be approved. I’d tried to work on different sections of the project, but hadn’t been able to work out an alternative to the interviews themselves.

After seeing how slowing down helped me feel more positive in work, I took a similar approach to my time off this weekend. I went on a nice hike with colleagues yesterday, but today decided to stay in and let my mind and body relax instead of another long car-ride across the country. I’m hoping that I’ll start this penultimate week with a brain that is awake and attuned to creative solutions to whatever challenges arise. I also need a sharp mind for the week of Spanish interviews that I’m about to tackle as on Friday at 4pm we received confirmation that we could start organising them for this week!