One step forward, two steps back.

Lack of perspective

I think the fact that I do not have an outside perspective on the research is a contributing factor. It might be easy to conclude from the outside that progress is continually being made, for example by looking at measurable outcomes like a mostly completed ethics form or a set of draft interview questions. From inside the research though, I find myself focusing more on the parts that are not yet done, or the parts where I do not yet have any idea of how they can or should be done. The feeling of “doing a PhD” has been extremely non-linear. So far the timeline has gone something like this...

On the up and up and things feel good

In late 2021 I decided I was going to start reading into my chosen topic, then spent many months building my research notes and increasing my understanding before I was ready to submit my proposal. A few weeks after submitting that I went through the interview process, and some time later I was very happy to hear I had been accepted as a PhD student. I enrolled near the end of an academic year, so it took a few more months for my supervisions to start, so I just continued to read academically and add to my increasingly unmanageable collection of research notes. This all felt like progress, and I was becoming more and more confident that I could actually do this thing.

Everything becomes increasingly opaque

Then my supervisions started. They’ve been great, every time digging a little deeper into the project, although for the first several months after they started I felt like I was going backwards, becoming less confident, less sure of everything, until one day I realised I couldn’t even confidently answer what my project was about any longer. This was a curious and not particularly comforting feeling, where it felt like I knew considerably less about my project 6 months after enrolling than at the time of submitting my proposal. I realised that this was almost certainly not accurate, but it felt quite real nonetheless. I was trying to get my research questions rewritten at the time but every next iteration was less focused than the last. The neat, manageable idea for a project that I had proposed felt like it had dissolved into an unclear mess without easily identifiable goals, and the more I tried to push the project forwards, the more confused I became. It was like I had created a puzzle for myself that was like mental quicksand, where the more I struggled, the deeper into the unknown I sank. And then I caught covid.

Things start to click

Getting ill turned out to be exactly what I needed. I was out of action for a week, then catching up with work, then Christmas and New Year happened, and all in all I didn’t touch my PhD for about a month. When I finally came back to it, all of a sudden the answers to questions which seemed completely unsolvable a few weeks earlier just rolled out of my brain one after another. Things seemed to make sense again, I knew what I wanted my project to achieve and was able to write some revised research questions which felt right for the first time in months. This was a huge relief and it felt like the end of a phase. It also marked the beginning of a new phase as now I would start working towards my early progress review.

The fog sets in again

Filling in some new templates made it feel easy to make progress for a while, and now things are starting to get gradually more obscure again. Just like the last time this happened, I recognise that in reality I have made a lot of progress and the project is much further along now than it was at any point in the past. However, I’m finding myself getting less and less decisive, probably because I’m unsure of what to do next. Perhaps there’s also some fear of doing the wrong thing, although I suspect that the biggest mistake of all would be to do nothing.

Maybe this is just what happens, this is how it feels to really push yourself into unknown territory, to question every assumption, to try to achieve things you’ve never done before. Interestingly, this concept is closely related to what I am researching, and what I ask my own students to do as well, to push beyond their comfort zone and confront the unknown with confidence and an open mind.

When I embarked on this journey I started with the belief that as long as I didn’t give up, I would get there eventually. When I was getting more and more confused a few months ago, my mind started introducing thoughts of not needing a PhD, introducing doubts about the validity of choosing to pursue one. I never took these thoughts too seriously, and reminded myself that the key is just to keep going and not give up. As I find things starting to get more difficult again now, that will be the key message to take forward. As long as you don’t give up, you’ll get there eventually.