The Mindful Researcher

A few weeks ago, an old student of mine emailed to ask for an essay I'd written about failure. He explained that a friend of his was currently struggling with the Masters program and trying to decide whether or not to continue. He said that he remembered finding my reflections on failure helpful and hoped to pass them on. So I thought I would post it here for others interested in the topic. 'Sitting with failure' was originally a plenary address I gave at the NewMac Humanities Postgraduate Symposium in 2015 at Macquarie University, and has since been published in the conference's online journal   Humanity.   This reposting feels timely. The topic of failure seems to be coming up more frequently at the university. My colleague Florence Chiew is currently working on a new podcast called  Failure Allowed,  which will contain interviews with academic staff about their experiences with failure and creativity. More on this to come later in ...

I first had the idea for this blog last September whilst teaching a new course called The Mindful Researcher . I wanted to offer research students a course that would bring the principles of mindfulness into conversation with the research process. Based on my previous experience as a PhD student and observations drawn from my current work as a Postgraduate Learning Advisor, I could see common themes and problems emerging around the experience of doing research. Doctoral research is challenging in and of itself - the sheer volume of reading and writing, designing and carrying out experiments or fieldwork, and the pressure to publish, present at conferences, gain work experience and develop networks. But an aspect of this task that often gets overlooked is the mundane, everyday experience of sitting with one's work and oneself. This can sometimes be the hardest part of a research degree. A colleague of mine recently pointed out that a 3-4 year PhD is roughly 1100-1400 days s...