I know, quite the shift in topic, right?
But yesterday I really started dreading a meeting today.
For no good reason, really. It’s a meeting to review my plan for my next study proposal. It’s with a senior faculty member. And it means that it’ll be an hour of defending my ideas, trying to improve how I present them, and tearing apart what I have written this summer.
It’s completely necessary. It’s what I have experienced so many times in the last 15 years, as I’ve shifted into research and academia.
And yet, I still dread that hour. I know it will be fine. I know the whole idea is to improve how I present what I want to do so that the funding agency will buy into it. But it’s still hard to sit and listen to your writing and ideas be criticized.
But if I don’t do this? I don’t grow. I don’t learn. And learning is a lifelong process. Figuring out how to craft an argument so that knowledgeable non-experts can understand what I plan to do is critical. And this person knows my work but isn’t directly involved in it- the perfect reviewer.
I just have to remind myself that this is a huge opportunity for growth, for improving my chances of success, for finally getting one step closer to actually doing the study that I desperately want to do.
Here’s to a mind shift in the next, oh, 5 hours or so. 😉
Now, I am not by ANY means a genius. I’m not trying to imply that. But really, this quote makes a good point. I will never improve – even one teeny tiny step – if I don’t listen and respond to the criticism.
So deep breaths this morning. Work on a few other things. Putting down some ideas from a meeting yesterday on the same topic (which I think is what led to me dreading today’s meeting, now that I think about it). Being ready for the conversation. And knowing what I want to do, why it’s important. I can do that. I WILL do that.