Ask Doctoral Advising

I’ve happened on quotes about learning that have captured my attention.
Too often we scurry on in our lives and forget to learn.  That happens during the doctoral program, too.  We are so busy accomplishing the assignments, the discussion posts, that we don’t really learn.  We react.

How do you know you are learning?
How do you know you are not learning? 

Are you comfortable?  If you are comfortable, you aren’t learning.
“All learning begins when our comfortable ideas turn out to be inadequate”  John Dewey

Do you learn when you make mistakes? Are you striving for a mistake free life?
“If you never make mistakes, you are not learning anything.”  Unknown.

What about failure?  Striving to avoid failure?  Embrace failure.
“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.”
Gen. Colin Powell

What might you want to change?
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”  – W. Edwards Deming

And two thoughts on perfectionism from the Ripples Project :

Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism,
while messes are the artist’s true friend.
…We need to make messes in order to find out
who we are and why we are here…
-Anne Lamont

Perfectionism is NOT a quest for the best.
It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves,
the part that tells us that nothing we do
will ever be good enough–
that we should try again.
- Julia Cameron,