I stayed at home over the last week to try to force a start on my Master’s thesis.
I’d been delaying it for almost a year, with not even an idea of what I was going to do. I needed to get a good start to it. So once I had a project proposal in place, I started to do some work. But was not making enough progress, so I said I’ll take a week and make a dent in that sucker.
Not so much.
While I’ve made some progress, it wasn’t the type of dent I expected to make. It was more like a scratch on the left fender.
Needless to say, I’m disappointed and angry with myself.
I mean, I planned well. I scheduled my time, blocked off distractions, and set clear deliverables for the end. So I should have done better than I did.
But I didn’t.
It’s all a matter of expectation: that, and perfectionism.
After a year of no work, I somehow expected that within a week or two, I’d have taken a significant step in progressing with my thesis. It should have been clear that this was an unrealistic expectation, but yet I set it anyway.
I need to be more compassionate to myself.
I should accept that some progress was made.
- I have a clearer idea of what needs to be done than when I started.
- I have a better idea of where I’m going and what I’m going to do to get there that when I started.
- I’ve already started to play around with chatbots, which is the area of my study.
In all, that’s not so bad for a week’s work. So I shouldn’t be so wound up about it.