Surviving, maybe thriving?

So, its time for some honest reflections on my placement. Before I say anything else, the placement experience has been brilliant, and all the SLTs in my team have been so supportive and encouraging. I have learnt so much and had brilliant experiences and I've learnt so much.

I think my main battle has been with myself. I noticed early on that my mind jumps to the negative first - I come out of a session I've led and my mind is thinking about the things I did wrong first. It's taken some hard training to think about the positive first.

And I'm becoming aware that I need to listen to what others think about me and accept the positive, rather than putting myself down. 95% of my feedback on this placement has been positive, my placement educator said on the last day they had to scrabble around to find things for me to work on. They see me as working at a high level, whereas at the slightest negative comment I think I'm failing.

There's something about being a perfectionist and setting high standards for myself. But there's also something about taking for granted what I'm good at and so dismissing the good.

So forgive me for blowing my own trumpet, but I'm choosing to work on my self confidence right now, so here's what I'm proud of - presenting my learning from B1 placement to two different groups of qualified SLTs, Twitter consent based on good research for LD week and end of placement, being proactive and curious which meant SLTs were willing to give me more time and training college staff on dysphagia.

Placement has been really tough, emotionally challenging and intense, there has been so much other uni work and things going on with my family too, so by mid placement I was utterly exhausted. But I have finished it, and I have things to be proud of, and that is good.