“The biggest barrier was the imposition of expectations upon myself.”
Anitha, Conflict Studies and Human Rights
Internship Country: Nepal
Canadian NGO: Mines Action Canada
Local NGO: Campaign to Ban Landmines Nepal (NCBL )/ Women Development Society (WODES)
My biggest ongoing learning process in terms of skillset is in relation to establishing and maintaining a workflow for each task, both independently and in revising and acting upon my supervisor’s feedback and advice and maintaining the confidence in communicating with her effectively. The biggest barrier was the imposition of expectations upon myself of having to figure things out when I no longer knew what questions to ask and felt like I couldn’t initiate further conversation until I knew exactly what to say. This was especially true for the final report I had been asked to draft for the project I had been providing communications support for, as I would hit dead ends even after gathering as much source material as possible and attempting as best I could to hit the desired topics and angles.
When I lack enough of a vision or understanding of exactly how I plan on doing something, I tend to draw blanks and talk myself into corners in terms of troubleshooting. The real challenge is that I often don’t pace myself and conserve enough mental energy to persevere at times, as I’d often stress myself over having difficulties in the first place; as much as I don’t identify with the term “perfectionism”, I know that I often hold unrealistic expectations for myself. This is something I work on continuously, as it had mostly affected me in regular school semesters. When physical and temporal distance brought on by public health measures made my work environment resemble my pre-existing study and academic writing environment, it spread to my work environment too, where previously work had often been easier for me to manage than school.
Progress on the report came in fits and starts, and I did my best to break up what felt like spinning my wheels over one particular task by filling the time with others. My ongoing task of copy-editing landmine and IED survivor stories helped me do something productive, and I got through a total of 119 stories, 101 of which would be selected for publishing. After briefly losing contact with my supervisor for logistical reasons, I gathered myself to schedule a call with her and discuss where I was stuck and what kind of information, I felt I needed to help me. I was given more resources and ideas to try, and I realized that I tended to create too rigid of a structure for my working draft. What ultimately helped the most was to acknowledge my frustration over not being able to execute the task smoothly from start to finish with no addition feedback and ask for help even when I didn’t have precise questions.
I had acknowledged the actual issue and likely solution before being able to gather the determination to apply it, as I know I would often avoid trying to course-correct when I grew guilty or ashamed of not having course-corrected earlier. Unrealistic expectations of being self-sufficient and the irrational insecurity that comes with them create a vicious cycle. Accepting uncertainty by asking for help in spite of doubts of it not making a difference means accepting that you deserve the help, and that you are capable of moving past your mental block, even if your trajectory deviates from your plans much more than you expected.
Moving forward, I set out to be more honest with myself. When you know what needs changing and what you need to do about it but you’re momentarily stuck on how, it’s best to acknowledge when you need help, especially when the first thing that needs changing is your willingness to ask for help without knowing exactly where it will land you. You don’t need to have your entire trajectory planned in your head in order to ask for guidance because the roadblocks themselves are to be expected. Honesty also means confronting the unfounded anxieties around having gone off-track and letting down yourself or other people; when I was able to accept my earlier avoidance of asking for help, I was able to get to the point that I finally made more progress in writing my report.