Doing You: The Role of Expectations, Mindset, and Female Competition

Why do so many women question their own ambitions? And why do so many of us seem to instinctively NOT support each other? In this episode, I sit down again with Dr. Kelly Weaber to unpack how society influences the way we make decisions—whether in careers, parenting, or personal growth. We talk about the weight of expectations, the guilt that can come with putting ourselves first, and the subtle ways competition among women can keep us small. Kelly shares her journey of navigating these challenges, and we explore the power of self-validation, finding your people, and rewriting the rules for yourself. If you’ve ever felt like you needed permission to go after what you want, this episode is for you.

The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home on Amazon

Learn more about Arlie Hochschild HERE

Transcript

Mary

Today is Part 2 of a conversation I started with my friend Dr Kelly Weaber back in Episode 6. We chatted about her journey from way back in high school to embarking on a doctoral degree in the past several years, this while working full time and raising two boys as a single mom. 

Since both Kelly and I are fascinated by the impact of gender and socialization on women's choices, both personally and professionally, and because we each navigated those challenges in our own lives, we wanted to talk more about those specific themes. As a quick synopsis, Kelly successfully defended her dissertation and officially earned her Doctorate of Education in 2022. The road to get to that accomplishment was long, and as she tells it, it really began in her teens when she started to think about where she wanted to go in her life after high school. 

As often happens, options became apparent to Kelly simply as she lived life. We don't always know all the potential paths we can take until we just happen upon them. Today, Kelly and I will talk more about the role of gender in our choices, even when it wasn't, or still isn't, obvious. I think when we have the benefit of hindsight and the benefit of added insight, it gives us an awareness that can inform our future choices. When we gain insight into the role of unspoken expectations or hidden socialization on our choices, it can empower us to follow our own instincts and take up our space in a way that wouldn't have occurred to us before. 

And unfortunately, if any woman lives long enough, I think she'll recognize the role that competition among women has played in her life. Keeping her small, making her afraid of how others will judge her choices, or going along with something that doesn't feel right just to keep herself from being a target. 

So many themes to explore, Kelly. But before we jump in, let me do a quick intro. Kelly has degrees in community health and student affairs and holds a doctorate in educational leadership and administration. She is a wife, a 2-time boy mom who successfully co-parents with their father, her ex-husband, a dog mom, and a caring and capable advocate for young people. And a great skier. As the youngest kid in her family, born after three other girls, she learned early how to stand her ground as well as realizing the unique love and bonds shared by females. 

I'm happy to again share the mic with my dear friend, Dr Kelly Weaber. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets, Kelly.

Kelly

Thanks. It's so good to be able to be back with you and your podcast crew again.

Mary

All right, so let's jump in. I want to revisit a little bit your decision to pursue an advanced degree while working and raising kids. You shared in our past episode that you questioned your desire to earn a degree because it would not necessarily further your career and because of the commitment of time and energy and also money would necessarily mean that your role as a parent would become a little bit fractured. So when you think back on that, what do you think were your biggest mental and emotional challenges as you navigated all of that?

Kelly

Yeah. You know, I think it's definitely a lot of mom guilt. I think 100% impostor syndrome. People within my family, people within my immediate surroundings. And I'm not talking about my work environment. Obtaining a terminal degree was non-existent. And so it was a little scary to be the first to forge that path. And also knowing that I was operating as a single parent and I didn't want my children to have any less of me due to this decision that ultimately was not coming. It did not have the goal of coming around to better benefit the family. And so I was really mindful and I've always been really mindful of how I've allocated my time to make sure that the boys were receiving the type of childhood that I felt as if I wanted to be able to provide for them and the type of mothering that I wanted to provide for them. So there were a lot of feelings. It felt very selfish to do this and I think that that's an emotion that is really difficult for women to grapple with, and some of that can certainly come from some social constructs as well.

Mary

100%. And sometimes when I think about these themes that I often talk about on this show, I think about would a man ever say that? And so what you just described about deciding to further your education – and again it was more of a personal choice for you, an enrichment kind of decision. And for those of you who don't know, Kelly and I both worked in, and she still does, higher education. You're surrounded by people with high levels of education. Obviously you are in an environment that is all about education and often it's easier to access the degree, especially if you do it at the institution where you are. 

So, having said all that, you know, doing it as a point of enrichment is a little bit of an interesting facet, but also I can't imagine often that men would think about that in context of how they're going to parent or whether their parenting would be affected.

Kelly

Yeah, 100%. I mean, even the research will tell you that when a woman picks up an additional role, and when I say woman, I'm specifically referring to mothers and mothering. So when a mother picks up an additional role, she is expected to do everything and so if you were a working mother, you were expected to continue to be the worker, the mother, which also subliminally. According to how many people will operate within their own household. The management of the household is another one of those invisible responsibilities that mothers, women are carrying on and that work is not becoming any less. And again, research is showing us this and the households are still living this today. So the man is not picking up any extra work in order to be able to assist the woman. The mother, when she has picked up additional responsibilities, the scales are absolutely tipping. And men, they are the the person who needs to work or is expected to work in order to bring in money that then allows for the household to be in existence. That really is, historically speaking, their primary purpose. And the woman is continuing on with some of those other roles as the single income family needed to go to the wayside just due to sheer economics within our country. The double household double income. There wasn't a time where the man and the woman started renegotiating any of those responsibilities. 

I know I'm generalizing here, and I mean no offense to households who have successfully done that. I was very fortunate because my husband was one of those people – we did sit down and talk about what can he pick up? Because I was now assuming this extra responsibilities, going back to school. But I know that it was very special in terms of my circumstances and not everybody else has that and it all really does come down, in my opinion, come down to the society expectations and what is expected of you. What are others expecting of you and hence you feel as if you need to carry on with certain expectations.

Mary

Well, it's ironic that you pull on that thread of the sort of the labor in the home because in a past episode, I talked with my friend Dr Christine Nowik, and we talked about invisible labor, which we had talked about earlier on in this podcast, invisible labor in the workplace. But the most recent episode was about invisible labor at home. This was the whole idea of that there is this embedded expectation and you know I think even some women in college right now think about there being these rites of passage where the next thing you're going to do is find your partner, and then you're going to settle down, and then you're going to buy a house and then you're going to have kids. 

And that might be a little different now, but I think some of it is still part of the expectation that we are supposed to find this person. And then our life's work becomes raising kids and it's really difficult when you have two working parents and I'm talking right now, really about heterosexual couples. But when you have this dynamic of – and again, we'd have to acknowledge, usually the expectation on the man is you're supposed to be the predominant breadwinner. And then women, when they start working, I mean, nowadays when it's very common for women to work, this wasn't really the case say, in the 1950s. So then we're navigating people leaving the home to work, and then when you come back together in the evening, what does that look like? It's typically not equal. And so Christine and I talked about how do you then navigate that, if you get even a few years into your relationship and you realize you know what, this doesn't feel good, like this is uneven. I'm experiencing burnout at work, home, both. How do you start to have that conversation? And one of the things that I actually mentioned in that episode was your situation when you talked about the last time we had talked. In episode I think it was episode 6. You talked about how your boys would just simply witness what had to happen to run a home. You didn't necessarily sit down and say. Here's all the tasks for the week, or have to tell them, or assign them things. They saw, how did dinner get made? How did laundry get done? And you even talked about having shared study time.

Kelly

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because Arlie Hochschild wrote the book, The Second Shift, which to me is a must read for any woman who is doing something during the day and then shifting to a different something at night. We can use the example working during the day and coming home and starting her second shift in the home right, and it really does dive into a lot of what you're just saying, and it really, it's a great read. I highly recommend it. But you're right. I think that how we are preparing the next generation and our youth for how to properly adult, I don't think that we're doing a very good job because we're not being intentional and we're not being diligent with it. I think it's probably happenstance, and I think that there's core values that families have really instilled and make very well aware their children, aware of what their core values are. But I'm talking about everyday living. Like you just indicated. You know, just by the boys being able to watch me do some of these daily household tasks. And I think most kids, they mimic behavior, and so they were able to pick up on some of that perhaps their friends are not picking up, and it's interesting too, because even my husband now is very intentional and I'm so proud of him and I think it's probably because of my work in the dissertation and my doctoral degree. You know, I think it really opened up conversations just with the two of us, in regards to how we were both raised. What were the messages we received growing up? What is the messaging that we want to give to our children? How do we want to role model, right? 

And so he's so funny, because he's the one that does most of the cooking. And in the house, and he's the one that does the dishes. And especially when the boys are home from college, he's very intentional to make sure that the boys are seeing a man do some of this. “woman” work because it's not just a man, woman thing. This is something, boys do. This is something girls do when you're in a relationship. A partnership and any partnership needs to be a compromise of rules and responsibilities, and the beauty is that you get to define that however you want to.

Mary

Yeah. And overall, you hope it averages out to 50/50. It's never 50/50 day-to-day, but you hope that it averages out. One of the things that I know from, you know, just knowing you as a friend and our past episode, is that you had a couple times during your navigating your doctoral degree where you were thinking, do I really want to pay for this? Do I continue? Your husband encouraged you, but I also want to make sure that you get the credit for standing in your space. I mean, everyone's going to have doubts and you have to weigh what's happening. What your family needs, what's happening in that journey for you. But you also, I think, made it very clear that this is important to you and so too often, I think, women kind of fold in on themselves and sort of walk the path and I talk all the time about guardrails. That road where the guardrails were put up by somebody else and you didn't do that. And I think that's important.

Kelly

Yeah, I love this conversation so much, Mary, because I think it's talking about things that again, we as women may not take the time and take the space to be able to do, because I do believe that we probably are are far more capable than what we believe that we are capable of doing, and again, I think some of that just comes from naturally, it's how do you want to balance the work and the – that you're that others are making of you and you're making of yourself right? 

It's interesting, because I think everybody, regardless of what your gender is, when you're embarking on something new, there are points that it's a little bit easier to discontinue what it is that you're doing, and then you kind of hit this point of no return right? Where it's like, this would be really silly if I stop this right now because I have, I've gotten to this point. You know, I should just really see it out and finish this through. 

You know, once I got over it and Mark was continuing to remind me that this is a great financial investment because it is a personal goal of mine, was a personal goal of mine, that money is OK, like I should no longer be using that as my excuse, right? I really am kind of at that point that if I discontinued the program, you know I was a year and a half in, there was more time on the other side, right? The return on investment. And I was like, damn, you know, I gave it my all for a good year and a half and I'm gonna walk away. But you know, once I knew that I was continuing on well, now I was over that halfway point and to me, that was my no turning back time. And then I think once I really was able to start working on my topic and I start started to to zero in on that. 

Having ongoing conversations like around the dinner table and with the boys being there, it really motivated me because we were having conversations about topics that were never discussed with any adults in my life when I was their age. And so I really was somewhat jealous of their opportunity to be able to engage in those conversations because I wish I would have and I could have, but also I was just really proud that they were willing, as men, as young men, developing men, willing to still sit at the table, literally and figuratively, in the conversation, and because I hope that that helps them to be better partners with whomever they partner with, you know, in life. I wish that we would have more of these types of discussions. Because without it, I worry that so many of our young women are unaware. Because that's what they know rather than different ways of being or different opportunities that may exist for them. That's always a concern of mine. 

And I, you know, I always strive really, really hard on being as authentic as I can be because I'm not perfect, I don't think anybody is perfect. But I think that those are learning opportunities too. I think I added this into my dissertation at one point when my oldest was in kindergarten: Their school district had a rule that you had to be at the bus for after school drop off. And I lost track of time and I looked at my watch and I noticed it was his exact drop off time and I was like, Oh my goodness. I sprinted out the door. Right. I was in mid conversation with some students. Sprinted out of the door. Literally sprinting out of the door. Am running up the street. Trying to catch the bus because they will not drop a kindergartner off without the adult escort, and so what would happen is the school would take the kindergartner back to the school. The parent would be called. The parent would have to go to the elementary school to pick up their child. So I'm sprinting. Fortunately, the bus was just pulling out. They saw me and the bus stopped. My oldest got off of the bus. And there we are kind of walking back and, you know, I named it. I was just like, Mommy lost track of time. I'm really really sorry. We walked. The students were still sitting there laughing at me because they had never seen me react that way. And you know what we talked about it. I’m not perfect. I'm doing the best that I can in that moment. Like, things happen and then you just figure out how to course correct and be able to move on. 

And I worry about social media and how everything just looks so perfect. And that's not how it is. And I think we know that. But do we know that?

Mary

Yes. And I love that that communication was part of the experience for Jaden, because too often I think kids can just draw the conclusion of, oh, I wasn't important, or she forgot because of, you know, that the child’s brain is much more simple, and so when you make it a conversation and put it into a context, I think it helps everyone. Then there's no assumption, right, about how much you care. So yeah, I think that's really important. And I want to circle back on something, but before I do that, I want to remind people that might not know: your dissertation was actually about a lot of the stuff we're talking about. Could you remind me of the title? Because I don't want to get it wrong.

Kelly

Yes, so the title of my dissertation was The Boys will be OK: Exploring Mother-Learner-Workers Experiences.

Mary

So that just basically sums up exactly what we're talking about. I wanted to make sure people knew that. Now I want to circle back on something that you touched on when we first started talking today and that was that you didn't always get support from people in your personal life, so that juxtaposition of being in a career where there's such a value on education. I mean, I think in higher Ed we do talk a lot about first gen. Like first generation students and that's big. We make a big deal of that at our colleges, as we should, because sometimes breaking that barrier and actually embarking on a four year degree is a big deal for families. A big deal for students. So we are immersed in that as the employee as the support system for students, but then to have that sort of come into this juxtaposition with some people in your personal life that might not have understood why you're doing this or might have judged it. What was that like?

Kelly

You know, it's interesting. My family, when I say family, I mean my immediate family. So my mother, my sisters, my aunt, were probably the closest family. My father had passed away prior to me starting my doctoral journey. I did not share this information with them. They had no idea that I was going back to school for a terminal degree. And exactly what you're saying: there would have been a lot of judgement. There would have been a lot of assumptions. There were comments made prior about that. I feel as though I'm different from them, and we all make decisions in our life that are in our best interest. My path and my journey looks very different than the decisions that they make. Those were their decisions. I'm not passing judgment. I'm not making any type of, you know, call on what the outcome of their life was. If they are happy, that's all I want for them. You know, because what I want for anybody is to just be happy. So to avoid some of that ridicule and probably knowing that I was already going in on this journey with some insecurities, definitely imposter syndrome. I know I've said that before, but you know it. I really do this. I didn't want their comments weighing on me anymore and so I didn't share that with them. It actually was not until I received the date of my defense, and I completely toyed with the idea of, do I invite them or do I not invite them? 

I was defending still on the offset of COVID, so my defense was virtual. So there was an opportunity to be able to extend and invite others that may not have made the trip to be there in person for the defense. It was a challenge to be able to, to really decide as to whether or not I wanted to do it. Not until the couple days before the defense did I invited my mom and my aunt, mostly because I just felt as if that was the right thing to do. If I were a mother, I would have wanted to be there for my own children. 

I think our circumstances, I really hope our circumstances are quite different and the boys wouldn't even question whether I should be there or not, but I just really did want to be there and I think at that point I had already accomplished it, right. I had pretty much already won that battle and there wasn't much more that they could have said to me that would have taken away the work that I had put in and the pride that I have within myself about what I had accomplished and ultimately at the end of the day, if I'm being completely honest, I still had Mark and the boys. Like I could just see the pride in their faces. And so whatever, whatever other snide comments that would have come their way are from them. You know. It just would have been overridden by them. So yeah, I mean, not everybody's story is the perfect Rockefeller family picture, right? And I think finding your people who are going to support you and finding the people who you can create your own family however you want to define that. That I think is important too, and I think that's a whole other conversation, perhaps for another day, because I do think that family dynamics are interesting in themselves and for not everybody are they the source of inspiration and the source of support.

Mary

Yeah, that's very true. And interestingly, we're talking about all females, right? Sister, your mom, your aunt. And kind of what I alluded to in my intro, that's often where we do find the most competition and judgment. We just have this… I don't know…I think when you're younger, you have a sense of it, but you don't really know how to name it. It just feels that somehow women are set up to compare. And so you made a boundary with that, and I think that's very important to be able to look at a situation and recognize that sometimes making a boundary is the healthiest thing. I just read, let them the Let Them theory by Mel Robbins and, you know, it's very much, too, about radical acceptance which is a much bigger idea, but it's this idea that you just have to let people react how they're going to react. They're never going to understand your journey, and I know when I watched you and and for people that don't know when, Kelly says, defend she wasn't in a courtroom. When you get a doctoral degree, you have to defend your dissertation and your research, and it's kind of high stakes and really nerve wracking, right, Kelly?

Kelly

Oh 100%.

Mary

Well, when I had the fortunate opportunity of being able to watch you do that virtually, I was very proud of you. I'm still very proud of you, so I want to talk about sources of unexpected support because I know when I think back over my career, I have probably had more obvious support of my wanting to reach beyond where I was so in, in other words, often I would be in a job and I would want to do more and when I was working with you in a different department. But I saw these needs and so I built out some programs and I had a male supervisor. Wonderful man who was really supportive and that happened to me at my previous institution, to the Dean that I work with is one of my very good friends, very, very supportive. 

But also, if I think back over my career, the women that I worked with or supervised me at those levels – and this could be a fluke, because again, I don't want to stereotype - but they were probably the least supportive and I think that's so interesting because we talk about, you know, in the home how often times the wife, the mom, takes on more than the male partner and a part of that we just gotta be honest, is socialization of both genders. But when I look at the workplace, I feel like certainly there's competition if two people are interviewing for a job. Male. Female. But generally, I don't think that women support each other when they are at the same level or they feel any kind of professional competition, it's very hard for women to have goodwill and support each other. And is that me? Do you agree with that?

Kelly

I think that there's a lot of truth to what you're saying. I do believe that the queen bee phenomenon is real. I think that there is this need for women, especially in higher leadership roles, for these women to feel the need to protect their position rather than open the doors for others to bring others through. I too, as you indicated, Mary was really, really fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful men who were very supportive of me as a mother and as a worker and they provided a really nice balance for me and gave me that flexibility without feeling judged. So if one of the boys got sick at school, I would just let them know I would leave, go pick up the boys. You know, whichever 1. Then come back and depending on what it was, either I would (I lived where I worked at the time, so when I say I worked at home, it's very different circumstances than where you know, saying how today being able to work remotely). Depending on what those circumstances were, I'd either go back out to the office or I would just stay in the apartment and I would just finish up the work day there. But they knew that I was getting the work done and they were very supportive of that, which allowed me not to feel that guilt. Right, but there were definitely other women not in a supervisor line. But would make comments about the flexibility that I had, or oh, did you notice when she left the office at a certain time? And it just really does grate on me, one woman to another woman. Because if you have a concern about my work, then let's have that conversation. But if you're jealous about something in my life, that's on you to work out. And I think that that's probably what gets muddled and I think it's a lot easier to make the comments regarding work right or not being able to provide promotion or opportunity if you are in a person of power, because do you have that little bit of control on that person? So yeah, I do think in some regards that that is, you know, very much the reality. But I wish that again in conversations we shouldn't be in competition of one another. We should be in support of one another. I just think it's wasted energy to be constantly in competition, when there's so much other great work that we could be doing, if we combined efforts.

Mary

Yeah, and you know, I think too, sometimes there is going to be inequality. There's inequality in everything in the world, and I think when I ran up against this, and I had to really look inside my heart very deeply and carefully, because when COVID started, we went remote, the department that I was in. We were doing therapy, so we had a lot of training we had to quickly do to be able to do online therapy. We had new software. It was a whole thing.

I don't have children, but I wasn't in a situation where now I'm in the home with my school aged children, so some of my colleagues just simply couldn't put the effort into work because they had children at home, so here comes this fractured role and I think what we need to do as women, it's easy to say, just support each other. When you come right down to it. We are now natured to look at somebody and say, well, she only got this because of this or I'm working harder because I'm putting 100% into work, but I think we have to look at it like that was obviously something that I could do, you know, I could put 100% in. I probably did more. I had a bigger workload when my job description was the same, but I was fortunate that I could do that. I wasn't fractured. I didn't have to think about, now how do I have to figure out how to teach my kids at home, you know that's an awful lot of pressure. 

And so I think if we can come from a place of empathy of wow, that must be really hard. And even if we feel that resistance inside, I think we can have the conversation with that person. Like, wow, this seems like so much. What is that like for you to try to juggle all of this, and even when we name it like we've just talked before about naming things, if we name that, I think when we give air to things, it lightens them and I think it puts us on the same side as teammates versus sort of looking at somebody else like, well, they were not online for five hours today and I was online for seven hours today. It's because they can’t. I know when everything went remote there was a whole worry among managers of what are people going to do? So what if I put a little wash in the dryer right before my meeting? So I think that we start to recognize that the people that really show up and do good work are still gonna do that good work. But we have to be empathic and compassionate when their backpack has way way more other things in it than sometimes other people like mine. I could focus on work basically.

Kelly

Yeah. And Mary you gave some really good points there in that one, when you were, you know, when you were explaining about showing empathy and suggesting to a colleague about, you know, what the observations of what you've been seeing. That's requiring communication, right? That's opening up dialogue. And I'll extend that with the communication, possibly even offering a different perspective of how something may be perceived or maybe because sometimes people can be varied, like stuck in their own ways, right, and not being able to see any other alternative. And so by allowing for dialogue, allowing for communication you also may be expanding and exposing different options. I find that really appealing. 

I think the other you know piece of this as well and I think regardless if it's a man or whether it's a woman, this came out in some of my research too. I think we have to do better with not being so stuck in a traditional work definition of what something needs to be. For example, the work day. Maybe 8 to 5 does not work for people. Use your time during COVID. That was the time that schools were trying to provide their online instruction. That was the time that work was requiring the parent to be working. Allowing for some flexibility there might allow the parent to be able to assist with school and be able to do some work when school was not a primary focus. And I understand we're not in a pandemic time. I hope we don't end up back there anytime soon, but I'm suggesting though that if there is an opportunity to be able to be more flexible, or perhaps it's the responsibilities that the person had, and maybe there's different responsibilities, that may better. They're capable of doing in order to be successful, which allows the team or the department to remain successful. That should be explored as well. I get really frustrated when people will be like, you know, the same old, same old. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Sometimes the people may not be comfortable enough to be able to voice, you know, speak up and be able to say, you know what? Actually this isn't working for me and I am a valued employee. And I can do XYZ but it needs to look like this, or it needs to be during this period. And again, I'm not so sure that we're very open to hearing those suggestions at this time, and maybe that's the challenge that I would put out to any manager, any supervisor, any leader listening to this. Maybe take some time and touch base with your teams on that when there's an opportunity. What could that look like?

Mary

Yeah, I think that's a great point. And when we talk about also advocating for ourselves, of course, now we're talking about these societal scripts where you're supposed to be able to do everything, and if you have to ask for help, you're not doing something right. We need to discard that. And you know, and I also want to make sure that I note that as I've been exploring a lot of different things in my own career, my female friends, including you, have been some of the most supportive people. 

And so I think we tend to see competition on social media between women and when we get to certain roles in the workplace, I think that's when it has to do with beauty and you know how we show up physically and then in the workplace. Those are two areas where I think we still need to let people be who they are and find a way to soften that someone else's success doesn't mean that we're less successful. It has nothing to do with us. I think it's a great point too to look at these, in some cases, archaic structures and really let people have a voice and get some input. Yes, there are some roles where you need to be there in the office. I mean, when I do therapy, I prefer to be in person with the client. You're missing too much information if you're not in the room with them. However, Teletherapy can be really impactful so it's really what works for each person, and so having that conversation I think is really important. 

And the other thing that I'll note for my own experience when most of your work is as a therapist, you are the receiver of information typically. You don't talk a lot about yourself. That's not your role. But as I've moved out of that and started to add other facets, especially this podcast, it really can be uncomfortable, because now I'm deciding here's what I think we need to talk about. You're moving past the safe zone. Because now you're opening yourself up to other people judging and so I have to kind of walk the path that I'm talking about. So I mean, I think that part of the journey is interesting too. What I think about your research and now you're in a position where you coordinate a lot of really important things or functions on a college campus. How do you think you know your journey through your doctoral degree has changed you? Does this insight into gender roles still rear its head now or what are your thoughts on that?

Kelly

You know, Mary, that's such an important question. Because what's funny is I don't think what is happening is what I would have expected to happen. So for example, sheerly having “doctor” in front of my name has given me a heightened sense of reputation. All of a sudden, the day before I had Dr in front of my name, and then the day I got Dr in my name, it's like I was a whole new person in many people’s eyes, and and it's probably because of the respect that comes with earning a doctorate degree. But I found that to be very interesting to me, that people that were willing to listen to me a little bit more because now all of a sudden I might know a thing or two versus prior to that. Even though I still had known a thing or two, they're just wasn't that same level of respect. That's probably the one thing that I did find interesting. 

And that wasn't just in the work. That was, you know, elsewhere as well that I was just kind of like, well, that's interesting. So I guess this is what the doctoral degree does for you, you know, and just being able to add that title. I think some of the other pieces that I really was not prepared for and in a good way. I'm not saying that that was a bad. At all. But being able to speak with other women who I really felt that my journey was almost like a Unicorn, right? I'm probably the only mother learner worker who was going through and feeling these things. And then I started speaking with other mother learner workers to discover I'm not as unique as I thought I was, and you know, I had a small subject sample and it really had me intrigued to want to, like, throw the net wider to see how many other mother learner workers are feeling this way as well. And again, I think it was just I was intentional. Obviously I had a goal because I was trying to finish my research and my writing, but I think having that interest really brought to light that there are others who are like me, which when you're talking about community and you're talking about a sense of belonging, that's a really important feeling to have, is that there is somebody else who you know can share that similar journey with you. And so that was really something that I very much valued. 

I was also very pleasantly surprised that four of my subjects have since reached out to me after, like, still to this day, reached out to me because of where they're at with their doctorate journey. Asking what did you do? Or I need a pep talk and that is a role that I'm just so giddy and so honored and humbled that they are taking time and felt as if I have something of value to be able to share with them. I just get tickled when I see an e-mail from one of them, or a call or text from one of them asking to be able to help them and assist them. So that's really cool as well. 

It's also very interesting with the boys. And you know, and Mark and just being in conversations when they're talking about things like their pride. That sure does feel good. You know when you can see the pride in your family and then knowing that I really did do it, that has helped my own security, and as you were saying in regards to if you can't receive that from family, for example, from those that you feel as if you should, just knowing that you have that for yourself, I think is really cool as well. And you know, I'm sure that there were other benefits that came out of it. And the other things that I wasn't quite expecting, but those are some that probably surface to the forefront that I think is pretty cool.

Mary

Well, and too, I think about situations where you earned something… So for instance, you got the Dr in front of your name and people treat you differently, but of course I'm also intrigued about when we're externally validated. How does that make you show up differently? So, for instance, I think about somebody who they just get their hair done. And they're walking, thinking, my hair looks really good, and they're seeing all these people. They're engaging with people with a lot of enthusiasm and they get home and they realize they have like a salad leaf in their teeth. You know, and if we knew that was there, how would we have acted differently that whole walk? It's you also, I think internalized this amazing accomplishment and I wonder, to use a yoga term, were you standing in mountain pose? Your shoulders back and down. I say that to my clients all the time. Take up your space. Did you take up your space? And this is kind of rhetorical, but you can speak to it if you want. Did you, you think, take up your space differently because you had this accomplishment?

Kelly

Yeah. You know, Mary, that's such a great question. I do think so. You know, I think accomplishing a doctoral degree may not be for everybody. But I think what we're really trying to get to here is that whatever it is that you're trying to achieve, wherever you are in accomplishing that goal, you are probably your own biggest barrier to accomplishing that goal and putting yourself in the position and doing what you need to do. Even if that involves taking 2 steps back in order to keep making progress forward, keep making those baby steps forward, because when you hit your target, when you accomplish what you sought to go and do, I think that those wins, those victories, really do allow you to take your space and to build your own confidence. I think oftentimes we are looking for others to validate who we are. We need to do that for ourselves.

Mary

Yeah. So that's a great point to start to go out on. That's a whole mindset. And of course, again, that's a whole other episode. But we can easily talk ourselves out of something. You talked about that. It's like, oh, well, I did all this and we know by how many people get through coursework, which we talked about last time, the doctoral coursework and don't go that last mile. And sometimes it's the hardest part, right, to push through all the research and write your dissertation. And defend your dissertation. But oftentimes I think we have an idea of what we want to do and then we look around and we think, what are other people going to think about this? There's the saying, Comparison is the thief of joy. Really it's not. I've said this. It's judgment. That's the thief of joy. We have to compare. We are wired to compare. It's important sometimes that we check because we're part of a community, but when we start to judge ourselves or other people, that’s just defeating everything so. I would add on to what you say, if you have a gut feeling–  and this goes back to my essential nature – if there's something that inside you sense you want to do, you don't have to get external validation for that. You will have people in your tribe that will support that and it can be something that's non traditional. Or even traditional. Let's say your family has an expectation that you go to college. You don't want to do that, you want to try something else? OK. It doesn't have to be this big, huge long journey. Live your life. Find your people. Give what you want. You know, it's a lot of this stuff we've known forever, right? Golden rule. Treat people like you want to be treated, and even now what you put out into the world, what you put out…the more positivity that goes in the world, that just magnifies. Negativity just magnifies. So I think, decide what you want to do. Who you want to be. Find your people and allow yourself to be vulnerable. Ask for help. You might not always get it where you want, but you're going to be surprised too, at who shows up.

Kelly

Yeah. And I would also just add to that in terms of when you're starting to doubt that you should be doing what you're doing, I would really ask yourself and be honest, why not? And typically it's because of some expectation which then I would also follow that with, whose expectations? Because you need to answer to yourself. You know, rightfully so if you're taking care of others and responsible, you need to certainly take that into consideration as well. Well, but ultimately it's allowing you some space to be able to question is the answer yes or no because of something for you and by you and about you? Or is the question yes or no because of someone or something else and that might help weigh some options in regards to, is it because of a societal expectation or is it legitimately something within yourself?

Mary

Great point. And one more thing I'll say is failure is part of accomplishing things. If you look at people who have achieved amazing, amazing things, especially now that we have social media, it can looit really wasn’t. Because there were tears along that route and I have a hear this alot and this is mostly when I worked with college students: They would talk about, you know, how they're measured all the time, every day, they're measured on exams, all kinds of things that, you know, we don't have that in our lives after we graduate from with a degree in as far as academics. Think about the language that you're using, so failing isn't an end point. That's just, OK. That didn't work. Where am I going to go next? There are no mistakes. They're just learning experiences. So Kelly. Could take this on the road as motivational speakers.

Kelly

Sign me up. If it involves getting a pair of shoes, I'm in.

Mary

I want boots, just for the record. I want a new pair of boots .

Kelly

Perfect. Perfect.

Mary

Well, this of course, as always, has been so fun. Thank you so much for being with me again.

Kelly

Oh, Mary, it's my pleasure. And I certainly am just tickled that you asked me to come back and certainly anytime that you reach out and ask, I'll be there.

Mary

Sounds good. And of course, since we don't really get to see each other as much anymore, 'cause we don't work together, we just have to do podcast episodes so I get to see your face. 

Anyway, thank you to everyone who listened. If you like what you heard today, please follow, review or comment or better yet, share this episode with a friend. You can also find a link above the show notes to text me directly. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode or ideas for future topics. And until we meet again, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.