have you ever been completely drowning (metaphorically speaking), and someone comes in and asks “what do you need?”
did you want to punch that person in the face, or did it send you even deeper into the spiral?
i’ve been known to yell “IF I KNEW WHAT I NEEDED I’D GET IT FOR MYSELF” as i go back to laying on the floor (a slight exaggeration but only slight lol) because that question is really overwhelming. if i knew what i needed, i’d have more ideas about how to get it. i’d have more ideas about where to look. i’d have more ideas about what to ask for.
so, here are my patented steps for figuring out what support i need:
notice that i am actually needing support, or having a hard time, or struggling with something (this can be harder than it looks!)
take care of my nervous system - very hard for me to make a plan when my brain is at an 11!
dial in to what feels hard - “everything is hard” is a place to start, but “it’s hard to figure out when to stop reading and start writing” or “it’s hard to know what a first draft looks like because i’ve never seen one” or “it’s hard to know if my work is any good because all i have is my supervisor’s opinion and that’s not a super stable foundation for making career decisions” are all a little bit more specific. sometimes it helps to journal until you get underneath the initial "everything is hard response”.
see if there’s somewhere or something or someone that can help! maybe you ask your supervisor when they start writing during data collection, or at what point they start drafting during a research phase. maybe you ask to see a colleague’s first draft. maybe you show your work to more people in more places to get a wider sense of the reception. but specific problems are much easier to support than vague ones.
i use these steps on a daily basis. i loop back to the beginning all the time - because as i grow and change, i need support with different things. it has helped to decide that needing support isn’t a problem. i’m not wrong or broken because i need help sometimes, or even a lot of the time. it’s just part of learning to do new things, and learning to do new things is a huge part of human and phd life.
this is also part of being part of a community that values the wisdom and brilliance of others. this is the kind of community i cultivate in my spaces, the kind i created in my classrooms, and the kind i see popping up (in pockets) in scholars all the time. asking one another for support is a way of saying “i see your smartness, and i’d be honored if you shared a little bit with me, and promise to return the favor if i could ever do the same.”