Becoming a PhD Doctor is indeed a blessing, but for me, true Scholarly Mama joy goes beyond just the ‘Dr’ title.
However, before we talk about the ‘more’, let’s indulge ourselves in the celebrations for a moment….
Oh my goodness, I can hardly contain myself right now! I am so excited, I am so on top of the world. I am so happy because I am now officially Dr. Michelle Gibbs.
By the way, if you would refer to listen to this blog post as a podcast, please feel free to use the player below:
Becoming a PhD doctor: A journey of becoming
For those of you who have been following my journey, you know it’s been a very long one. It’s also been a challenging one because in the midst of pursuing my PhD over the past 8+ years, I have had multiple maternity leaves. I have had COVID in between all that. There have been changes in supervisors. I’ve had changes in methodology.
I’ve had so many changes and challenges on this journey, but (and this is my core core belief) when you are purposeful, when you know what you want in this life, when you are willing to take a different approach to the challenges that come your way, you will always achieve success. Why? Because that success will be on your terms. The race is not for the swift, but you can achieve that success. And I am so happy because for me, it’s not even about the title. I know I’ve called this episode becoming a PhD doctor and yes, it is about becoming a PhD doctor at the end of the day. That’s the outcome of a PhD qualification.
However, for me, the real joy of this experience has been the journey itself. I believe that with all my heart, not just because it sounds good. It literally is my core belief that the journey is what it’s all about. I have grown so much personally on this journey and I wouldn’t trade any of that for the world.
Let’s go back 4 decades… long before becoming a PhD doctor
Anyway, in this blog post, I want to just take you back a little bit.
I want to take you back a couple of decades, four decades actually. I want to take you back to four year old Michelle.
Recently, I have found myself scrolling through some of my old childhood photos and stumbled across this one that was really, really special to me.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re, they’re all special, really. I look back at those photos so fondly because I really had such a wonderful childhood growing up in Barbados. But this one in particular, I don’t know, it kind of stirred up so many emotions for me. It was pretty special because it represented so many of my earliest childhood memories growing up in Barbados.
If you follow me on Instagram, you will see because I’ve posted that photo in the Instagram post where I announced that I have officially become Dr. Michelle Gibbs. And there, I shared this photo on the left hand side with me at 4 years old next to a photo of me at 40 years old.
And so, this photo is what I’m going to be talking about in this blog post.
Becoming a PhD doctor: Humble beginnings
So anyway, when I was growing up, we lived in a small road. Well, to be honest it wasn’t even a road, it was more like a dirt track. A path laid down by the passage of vehicles to and from this little safe haven that we called home, where neighbours were either family (my grandmother literally lived right next door), or they were neighbours who became like family.
And it was this little dirt track that I walked down most mornings with my grandparents down to the main road, which we then crossed over and walked down another little track down to the beach, literally five minutes from our house.
This little dirt track, where our home was, was literally also the place that my dad and I built our little rock garden, which I talked about in a couple of episodes ago. This also allowed me to explore my creativity and build wonderful memories with my dad and just create an unshakable bond.
A priceless horizon of purpose
So as I’d run over from my house over to my gran’s house, which was just next door to our house, I’d run back and forth playing and so occasionally I’d take a few glances down the road and my eyes would land on the ocean view.
It was absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking even!
I know nowadays people would pay an absolute fortune to be able to look out their window or out their front door and see this view. It was gorgeous! You’d see the boats sailing by, you’d see the sun set because we were on the west coast so the sun always set on the west coast, so we’d see the sunset.
It was just beautiful.
And this was my everyday reality. So on one hand, we were an average family, we didn’t have much. We didn’t have loads of money, we didn’t have any big houses or anything like that. But on the other hand, we had so much.
We had everything!
Because, we had each other and we were building memories together. We were really living in the moment and we had that wonderful view to wake up to every single day.
Of course, we had the beach, which was just a stone throw away from our house, and in my view, in my little four year old mind, we had everything.
The simplicity of joy
Joy, as I said in the Instagram post, was simple. It was simple.
And I’ve talked before about this kind of love-hate relationship that I have with success, because when you’re growing up with little, you aspire to become a lot.
You want to succeed!
You have big dreams and you want to make your family proud. Of course, you want to become all the things. And yet when I look back at that photo and I reflect on what I did have as a four year old little girl, living in that little dirt track, I realised that I had everything…
I had everything!
I was happy, I was cheerful and joy was simple.
And yet, by today’s standards, I didn’t have very much at all.
On having it all…
That really gives me so much perspective on when the pressures of this Scholarly Mama life. The pressures of academia, the pressures of even society, the pressures that we may get from our families, the pressures all around us to achieve success, to chase the dreams, do all the things and have it all.
What happens is that we actually forget that becoming purposely whole begins within.
Joy is simple.
You know, there’s a certain innocence that comes with childhood because you don’t know life’s challenges yet. You don’t actually know what challenges you’re going to face, what you’re going to become, or who you are going to be.
And yet, I think about the horizon that I had full access to every single day. That wonderful view that you can only get a little glimpse of in the distance just behind my little four year old body in the photo I’ve shared on Instagram. When you look at that view and reflect on the journey from that four year old version of yourself to the 40 year old version of yourself with all of the experiences, with all of the the accomplishments, the journeys, the joys, the sorrows, and you’re reminded that your purpose is greater than these external sources of validation. It’s greater than the material things and the physical things that you may or may not have access to.
And this is so profound to me because there are a lot of people who are (for lack of a better word), obsessed with achievement. They are obsessed with success and obsessed with prestige.
And yet I didn’t have any of that. I didn’t know any of that.
Yet, joy was simple.
Joy was simple then, and joy is simple now…
So, in looking at that photo, I remember my four year old self (I do have early memories of living where is pictured in that photo)… the innocence, the fond memories of doing things with my family, my dad, my mum, my gran, so many things.
I remember so many memories are in that little dirt track. And then, I think about myself now becoming a PhD doctor. And when I think about myself now as, having completed my PhD and having completed four other degrees before that and excelled in all of them, I realised that I’ve come a really, really long way. I realised that joy was always simple…
This is one of the reasons why I stay grounded. When people are trying to impose their own expectations on me, impose their definitions of success on me, I remember that joy is simple.
If you take nothing else away from this episode, Mama, remember that we don’t have to complicate joy. We don’t need to be perfect to be purposeful. We do not need to follow a certain trajectory in order to be considered successful. And we do not have to achieve certain things to give ourselves some sense of purpose and meaning.
Joy is simple.
Becoming a PhD doctor and the simplicity of success
It may seem a bit strange to say this because yes, I am now Dr. Michelle Gibbs. But success is not determined by your titles. It’s not determined by your accolades. Your worth is not determined by those things… the prestige and all of that. Your worth starts with knowing who you are. It begins with being grateful for what you have. Start with living every single moment, because those moments are the building blocks for amazing lifelong memories and success.
That is what it means to have it all. That is what it means to experience the simplicity of joy.
And like I said, fast forward almost 40 years after that photo was taken and everyone wonders how I do it all as a Scholarly Mama.
But the inherent assumption here is that I want it all and I actually don’t.
I simply want to live a life of purpose. I want to love hard, to learn as much as I can and I want to leave my sphere of influence in this world (whether that be big or small) better than it was because of my contribution. That is what it means to have it all, to live a life of purpose, to have a positive impact in this world and to leave it just a little bit better than before you came.
That for me is what it’s about.
I talk often about these journeys of becoming… well, that is what it’s about!
A PhD journey of growth…
So, now I have come to the end of my PhD journey, I am beyond happy and beyond grateful. I am just on top of the world because only I know how hard this journey was.
Only I know the growth I’ve experienced along the way. Only I know the purpose behind everything that I am doing right now in trying to build these platforms and trying to help other mothers who are doing PhDs to take a purposeful approach and to experience the simplicity of joy. And on top of that, the uniqueness and the simplicity of Scholarly Mama joy in particular.
Conclusion
So, as we bring this blog post to a close, I hope that you’re inspired. I am living proof that you can do this… you can succeed on your own terms. You can pursue and achieve your life and academic goals without sacrificing the purposeful work. Without sacrificing the simplicity of that joy. And, without sacrificing what really, really matters to you.
Now, as I step into this new version of myself, I want to do so with the utmost humility, and with the utmost appreciation for all of the support that I have had. I have not achieved any of this on my own. And I’m so grateful to God for bringing me through this to this point. I really hope that in some way I can be of some encouragement to you. I hope I can be an inspiration that you can do it too.
You can achieve your academic goals, your life goals, your personal goals without compromising your personal values. You can do this without compromising what matters to you… without compromising your precious time with the people who matter most to you.
I pray that this will be a reminder that you can do hard things.
You can do this Mama.
Success is what you make it and you do not have to define that success by other people’s interpretations of success. You don’t have to want the same things. Nope, you don’t have to pursue things at the same pace. You don’t have to pursue things in the same way, but it doesn’t mean you cannot have success.
So Mama, until next time, I am sending you so much love and gratitude.
Remember Mama, these are our journeys of becoming…
With much love and gratitude,
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