{"id":2870,"date":"2019-06-07T11:41:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T11:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/taking-small-steps-to-make-a-big-change\/"},"modified":"2025-04-05T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T12:43:58","slug":"taking-small-steps-to-make-a-big-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/taking-small-steps-to-make-a-big-change","title":{"rendered":"Taking small steps to make a big change"},"content":{"rendered":"

After all of my recent travels, spending this week in one place, at home, has been the most incredibly indulgent feeling. I have loved every minute of it, knowing that I can finally relax and focus on my work, my home, and my cat. This weekend, I have had the house completely to myself, and as much as I miss my housemate, it was nice to just do nothing but binge on films, sort through my things, drink wine, and eat chocolate. I don\u2019t remember the last time I appreciated my own space this much. I genuinely feel like I\u2019ve been on holiday, especially as the sun has made an appearance several times in the last few days!\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Staying in one place doesn\u2019t mean that I haven\u2019t had a lot of work to do. This week, I spent most of my time working on my 6-month progress report; both for my doctorate centre (STREAM<\/a>) and my university. Because PhD students don\u2019t have formal assignments, or exams, before our\u00a0viva voce<\/a>, we have to produce progress reports, which are records of all of the skill development activities we have carried out to improve ourselves and the quality of our research. It also helps the university to keep track of our progress with the project, spot any weaknesses, and develop appropriate training needs to work on these.\u00a0Skill development can include things like doing poster presentations, attending conferences, presenting at conferences, going to relevant workshops, etc. Now, I remember mentioning on several occasions that I feel like I haven\u2019t achieved anything; that I\u2019m slacking, and so on. I have also quoted several people who have told me that feeling like this is normal, and in reality, it isn\u2019t true. It was only when I was putting together my progress report that I started to (kind of) believe them. I realised that since mid-October I have:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n