What if you could transform your Scholarly Mama life from a meandering rollercoaster of doubt and disharmony into one of clarity and purpose?
Well, there is one single belief that will help you to do just that as you pursue your life and academic goals as a Scholarly Mama.
By the way, if you would prefer to listen to this blog as a podcast, feel free to use the player below:
In this blog post, I am going to break this down for you but before we get into the ‘deets’, let’s be clear on one thing: navigating this juggle-struggle of marriage/relationships, motherhood and PhD life is not average.
Not many Mamas out here in this world are doing what you’re doing. And even for those who are, for certain… not everyone is doing it well.
I wanted to mention that fact before we get into today’s post because it’s so easy to think that we are not enough, that we are not doing enough because we forget that the Scholarly Mama journey truly is extraordinary!
So if you are in the season of navigating PhD Motherhood, you need to give yourself the biggest pat on the back because this is not an easy feat. Trying to be a good Mama, a good spouse or partner in your relationships and also do good research is not an easy undertaking.
So, well done to you if you are in this boat! I hope that today’s episode will help you not only reaffirm your strength and resilience and how amazing you are!
But, if for any reason you are feeling like it’s getting the better of you at the minute, then I hope our discourse today will help you to reframe your thoughts about it.
“Your PhD will take over your life” doesn’t work for Scholarly Mamas
So let’s talk about the single most important belief that will help you to make your personal and scholarly goals a reality.
I remember attending a seminar many years ago when I was finishing up my MRes in Clinical Research. I remember sitting in this seminar with other students in my cohort and listening to the person who was presenting to us. He was a PhD student at the time and was sharing his experience with us about what it’s like to do a PhD and what we could expect if we chose to go down that route.
At that point, none of us in the MRes cohort had actually yet made the final decision about whether or not we wanted to pursue a PhD or not. And I remember the presenter saying to us, “Your PhD will take over your entire life. You’ll wake up and you’ll think about it. You’ll go to bed thinking about it, you’ll carry it around with you for the whole time. You won’t be able to think about anything else. Nope! You won’t be able to do anything else. You will literally eat, sleep, and breathe your PhD… It will become your whole life.”
“Well, that’s not going to work for me!”
I remember distinctly thinking to myself in that moment ‘Well, that’s not gonna work for me!! I’m gonna have to find a different way to do this thing, or I am not gonna be able to do a PhD because I’ve got real-life responsibilities. I’ve got a real-life that I actually enjoy and there’s no way that I am going to be able to sustain a PhD taking over my whole life. There’s just no way I can do it!’
So yeah, I remember thinking, ‘That’s definitely not going to work for me!’
Fast forward a couple of years as you know and I did eventually make the decision to do a PhD. However, along the way, I discovered the single most important belief that I had to adopt in order to get through it.
And that’s what I want to share with you today.
Stop constantly weighing up the options if you want to transform your Scholarly Mama life
Obviously, you go through your journey as a Scholarly Mama, especially when life is really doing its thing and “life-ing”, you know, when you feel like everything is an uphill battle and you question everything about the decision to even do this PhD in the first place. For example, when kids are sick or there are multiple medical appointments to attend when you’ve also got deadlines to meet. Or when someone’s having a play at school, or a sports day, or an extracurricular activity and you just feel tugged in so many different directions yet somehow you’ve got to find a way to try and not drop any of these balls. It’s an unbelievable amount of pressure on a Scholarly Mama.
So what happens?
You then start to think, ‘Actually, I don’t need this PhD. Who needs a PhD anyway? I could definitely do something else with my life. I have options!!! Maybe I could always just find another career path, you know…pursue something else. Even if I still want to do research, I could do that without a PhD. I could still work in academia without a PhD if I want to. I don’t really need this PhD!’
Ditch “I can’t do this!” if you want to transform your Scholarly Mama life
So you start to think these kinds of thoughts.
Or maybe you start to think ‘I can’t do this. I simply cannot do this. There’s no way that this is gonna work. This isn’t for me. Maybe this is for other people who don’t have kids and who can commit to this fully. But in my situation with my children and my family and everything I’ve got going on, there’s no way that this is going to work for me.’
You begin to ask yourself all manner of questions because, in your mind, there is always the option to quit your PhD, there’s always the option to do something else, and this PhD could go if it needs to go!
You may even give yourself some ultimatums like, ‘One more semester or one more year of this juggle-struggle and if this doesn’t improve, I am out!’
Challenging your mindset can help you overhaul your Scholarly Mama life
Have you ever entertained those thoughts? Have you ever found yourself in this position? If any of this sounds remotely familiar, then this episode is for you.
And I want to challenge you on this today.
The reason I want to challenge you is that as a purposeful Scholarly Mama, you may actually be asking yourself the wrong questions.
It’s not ‘Can this ever work for me? Why did I ever think I could do this?
What you should be asking yourself is, ‘How can I make this work given my current circumstances? What do I need in order to make this work?’
When taking action towards your goals is no longer a ‘choice’
So a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that there was a warning light on my car indicating that one of my tyres had lost air pressure. Thankfully, this warning light came on before I embarked on my journey that day and so my husband hand-pumped it back up to the correct pressure and off I went. So I went about the day, ran my errands, took my kids to school, and did all of the things I needed to do. His remedy took me from point A to point B just fine and I forgot all about the tyre and the warning light.
However, the next day the tyre pressure dropped again, the warning light returned and my husband had to pump it up again before I left home. So this went on for a couple of days until we decided actually we have got to make a decision because clearly, there was a more serious problem here. So he pumped it back up again for me to allow me to take the boys to school and nursery but clearly finding a more permanent solution to this problem was no longer an ‘option’. It was clearly time to get this tyre sorted out. But the only challenge was that I also had other pressing scholarly things to get done, which I’d planned to do that day!
Changing the questions in your head
However, the question wasn’t, ‘Can I deal with this tyre situation today?’ Like, does this tyre not know that I’ve got things to do and I’ve got places to be?
But what I had to ask myself instead was, ‘How can I make my journey later that day to pick up my children from school and nursery both safe and possible? The question shifted from ‘Can I make this work?’ to ‘How can I make this work?’
And so rather than getting all flustered about, all the things I had to do and the reasons why this tyre was just a massive inconvenience right now, I knew it was no longer optional.
So I made my way straight to the tyre repair shop and got it sorted. The tyre had a massive nail puncture, which was so severe it was beyond repair. I ended up needing a new tyre and I was so grateful that I did not entertain any ideas to not just go and get the job done. I figured out what needed to be done, and I put the necessary steps in place to allow me to complete my journey safely.
The single most important belief that will transform your Scholarly Mama life
So, you know I mentioned that in this post I wanted to share with you the single most important belief to achieve your life and academic goals and transform your Scholarly Mama life?
So do you want to know what it is?
Should I spill the beans?
Okay, okay here we go!
The single most important decision that you need to make as a Scholarly Mama, doing a PhD, managing real life, managing your relationships, and being present for your kids and your family… in other words, the single most important belief that you need to have in order to transform the Scholarly Mama juggle-struggle into you own Scholarly Mama success, is that you have to come to a place where you decide that both your family and your PhD are non-negotiable.
They are non-negotiable.
This is the single most crucial decision to make because as I’ve said before, just because you have kids does not mean you cannot do a PhD. And just because you are doing a PhD does not mean your family doesn’t come first!
When your PhD and your family are both non-negotiable
When you reach this place of accepting that both your family and your PhD are non-negotiables, it means that they are not ‘optional’.
Your belief shifts from having ‘options’ or ‘putting things off’ or making ‘temporary sacrifices’ to ‘these two things can and will coexist in harmony with each other’’.
That Mama, is the most important decision you can ever make on this journey, because when you do that, these thoughts around, ‘Is this PhD even for me? Do I even need this PhD? Can I do this anyway? How could I ever delude myself into thinking that, juggling the PhD journey alongside marriage and motherhood could actually work for me?’
You see when you are in the valley of frustration and overwhelm and isolation, you begin to question everything. Absolutely everything.
But when you approach the juggle-struggle from a position of purpose and intention, everything changes.
Everything changes.
All of those questions, all of the doubts, all of the fears, all of the second-guessing yourself, all of the options that you think you have, they are silenced immediately because you have decided that your PhD goal will become reality no matter how long it takes AND you have also made the decision that nothing will stop you from prioritising your family, not even your PhD.
When you make this decision, you can be more intentional about how you spend your time and energy.
Scholarly Mama success is not an accident
I shared recently on Instagram stories about living life by design. For me, this journey isn’t about going along through life with no goals, no focus, no ambition, and no clue as to what you want out of life. No plan of action, no sense of direction, no mission, no purpose.
Mama, success is not an accident.
Success is individually defined, in my opinion, but it’s not accidental. It requires work. It requires intention, it requires commitment, and as a Scholarly Mama, you have this within you. You are dually committed to your family and your scholarly pursuits but you are intentional about this.
Without a shadow of a doubt you love your family, you want to spend time with them. You want to be present with them. Of course, you want to leave a legacy for your kids. You don’t want to be absent as a Mama because you’re doing a PhD, but your PhD is something you are doing for yourself. No one forced you to do a PhD. You chose to do a PhD. You wanted to do a PhD. Hopefully, your PhD has a purpose in your life but your children and your family have an even deeper purpose in your life.
So these two things have to become non-negotiables.
When you change your mindset in this way, you will be able to adjust your perspective. How you allocate your time and energy will be different.
Transform your Scholarly Mama life and start living by design
Remember how that presenter said in the seminar that your PhD will take over your whole life and you will literally have no time or energy for anything else?
Well, that is not our approach as Scholarly Mamas. It’s simply not an option for us, I’m sorry. If you are ambitious and you want to pursue a PhD, then why should you not be able to do that just because you’re a mother?
And just like the situation with my car tyre, when taking action is no longer an ‘option’ but a non-negotiable, you get the job done.
Sure, there will be challenges, and there will be difficulties as you juggle things, but it’s not about ‘Can I even do this?’, it’s about ‘How can I make this work? What can I do to make this possible? Where can I find the motivation and the encouragement to keep going? Where can I find other like-minded Scholarly Mamas who can help to keep me accountable on this journey and help me to meet my goals?’
It all comes down to the non-negotiables. Your PhD and your family are non-negotiables.
From ‘optional’ to ‘non-negotiable’ to transform your Scholarly Mama life
When you are tempted to think about your ‘options’ that’s when you go back to your why. Why did you start this? Why did you choose this journey? Let that ‘why’ guide you. Let it inspire you to keep going.
When I think about my own journey of navigating PhD life and motherhood and marriage life, the only thing that I can think of that separates me from other people is literally a mindset of purpose.
My goal is to become purposefully whole.
That is THE goal.
Everything in my life that I choose to do is done with purpose. Nothing is accidental. Everything is done with intention, including marriage, motherhood and my PhD. Everything has its place and its purpose in my life.
The decision to shift my thinking from ‘optional’ to ‘non-negotiable’, because of that purposeful mindset, is the single belief that helped me to keep going, even in the face of challenges.
Trust me, it’s not been an easy ride getting to the point of submitting my thesis. I actually published a post with my raw reflections after submitting my PhD thesis after 8 years! So, if you haven’t heard that one, make sure you tune into that episode after this one!
What to do when you’re feeling stuck in the Scholarly Mama juggle-struggle
Mama, I want to encourage you. When you are feeling stuck in this valley of frustration, this valley of overwhelm, this valley of feeling like you cannot do this anymore, I want you to just take some time to challenge your mindset.
What does your PhD mean to you? What value does it create for your future self? Do the actions you take right now, improve your future prospects or even your perspective? Are these journeys that you are on right now helping you to become better, a better Mama, a better wife, a better researcher, a better whatever.
When you have a purpose (and I keep going back to this), when your actions and activities in life become purposeful for you, you can live life by design and create your own version of success because certain things become absolutely non-negotiable.
So when doubts begin to creep in and you start to question, why on Earth am I doing this, you need to get very honest with yourself.
Do you need a new strategy?
A new approach?
Do you need to challenge your mindset?
Perhaps you need additional support?
Do you feel alone on this journey? Perhaps you need to connect with a community of Scholarly Mamas.
When do you feel most motivated?
What inspires you to wake up every morning and be excited about what you are working on, or what activity you’ve got planned for the day with your family?
What you are working towards?
Our purposeful Scholarly Mamas community
If you want to be able to confidently adopt a mindset of ‘I will finish my PhD, but I will not do so at the expense of my family life because they are both non-negotiable for me… if you’re ready for a new approach to academic motherhood, then I want to invite you to join the waitlist for our community of Scholarly Mamas. I want to connect you with other purposeful Scholarly Mamas who are also on this same journey, and who are also committed to achieving their scholarly goals WITHOUT sacrificing what matters. Without sacrificing their kids and their family time. This doesn’t make them any less motivated or any less driven to get there. It doesn’t mean that they’re any less willing to put in the work to do what needs to be done to reach their goals, but they are absolutely clear on what matters to them.
Are you ready to transform your Scholarly Mama life?
If this is your jam, if you want to transform your Scholarly Mama life and become part of a community that adopts this new approach, then our Scholarly Mamas membership community is your opportunity to do just that! It’s a new community of purposeful Scholarly Mamas launching very soon, where we will cheer you on when you win, and be a collective source of support when the journey gets tough.
Hop on the waitlist today so you can hear more about Scholarly Mamas and also get an irresistible and exclusive waitlist offer!
As Scholarly Mamas, we’re not about compromising the things that matter to us but we are equally driven to complete what we’ve started and to achieve the goals that we’ve set for ourselves. But we are not willing to do so at the expense of our family.
I want to see us all get there. I want to see us all enjoy the rewards.
So if this is what you are looking for, then I cannot wait to see you on the inside, and until we speak next time, I want to just encourage you to keep going but I want you to make sure that the things that truly matter to you become non-negotiable.
Until then, I’m sending you lots of love and gratitude.
Remember Mama, these are our journeys of becoming!
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