A big week

Happy Monday. Last week had a couple of major events for me. On Tuesday, I passed (!!!) my dissertation proposal defense. The proposal defense is a key step in the PhD process and indicates my committee’s approval of my topic, theoretical framework and understanding of the existing literature, and design of my research study. From here, it’s a question of collecting and analyzing my data and completing my dissertation. I’m relieved to have this hurdle behind me and also excited because it brings the completion of my degree that much closer.

The day after my proposal defense, I had a call to discuss returning to my firm and resuming my career in January. My therapist and psychiatrist are supporting of that timing and I feel like I am getting to a place where I will be ready to come back. Although I had a lot of trepidation before the conversation, I feel confident and assured now. It took me a moment to recognize the emotion as enthusiasm for the future. For a long time, the thought of the future has filled me with dread because it felt so uncertain and ambiguous. Although I do not have a prescription for my future, I do feel like I have agency in charting my course. It’s a good feeling.

This coming week, I am doing something I haven’t in almost a year. I will be a guest on Living Corporate’s new web series The Access Point (TAP) tomorrow night (Tuesday, 7pm Central). TAP is a new initiative of Living Corporate aimed at bringing valuable insight to underrepresented early career professionals. On this episode, I’ll be debuting a new framework for understanding workplace supporters, digging into the issue of power, and (I hope) offering some useful tools and concepts for building a coalition of support on the job. You can register here (it’s free). If there are people in your network who you think might benefit from it, please share it with them.

The last seven days have been busy, but good. I’m looking forward to seeing what this week has in store. Be well, my friends.