Office Hours With Dr. Lacy

Transcript of Episode:

Welcome to "Office Hours with Dr. Lacy". Hi, I'm Dr. Lacy, your Dissertation Strategist, where I help doctoral students finish their qualitative dissertations so that they can graduate and successfully become Doctor. Let's get started with this week's episode.

Guess what? I am hosting my very first writing retreat in November. It's gonna be at home in Chicago and I'm inviting a few friends along for a beautiful, productive, rejuvenating writing retreat right before the holiday. So we are going to meet meeting in Chicago November 24th to the 27th. Four days, three nights of writing, scholarly pursuits, whatever that may be fun we are going to be talking about. So like for your scholarly self we're going to be talking about best ways of organizing yourself, how to make a realistic schedule and a realistic routine. We're going to have some time to get some eyes and you're writing to really help you flesh out those ideas. Have a really solid plan for not only getting a significant writing done at the retreat. So cause there was nothing more I find annoying that we go to an event.

You're out, you're all excited and you're motivated, you're like get them to do all the things and you go home and you're like, I don't even know how to take the next step. So we're going to make sure that when you leave, we know what to do plus you not don't like, I can't just sit there and just work, you know, that's not my emo. So while we will have 20 hours dedicated to solid writing time, we will also have time to talk about things that are happening outside of writing. Like how do you keep your motivation, how do you stay productive, how do you manage your chair and your committee and keep everybody on schedule and on the same page? How do you manage your own self to that, you know, you can continue to show up and go after your doubles plus so much more. Breakfast and lunch is included in the price and we have three different options for packages available. So please, please, please go over to Margaret lacey.com even. You're going to click the red button at the top right corner and it says work with me and there you will find all the information about the writing retreat.

I'm so excited. I have so many surprises planned. We already have people signed up and so please don't miss out. I would hate for you to miss out just on over to the website or you can DM me on Instagram and we can talk there and I can tell you more about it but please don't miss out. All right, we're going to get onto today's episode. Okay, welcome back to week four of our 90 day challenge. If you've made it this far, please give yourself a round of applause because you are showing up for yourself. And don't worry if you just started or have you fallen off, you can always restart because this challenge and today's episode is all about progress over perfection. We are not about doing everything perfect 100% of the time. We are about progress, persistence, consistency. Even if something happens, even if life comes in and like take you out, you can always start back.

You can always start back. And so a good place is to go to the basics and start there and build yourself up. And there's no such thing as me. And behind that is not a such thing. You are where you're supposed to be and you are doing the work that you are supposed to be doing right now. So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, are you, you're curious about what this 90 day challenges, please come over to my bed at Lacey dot Cobb and sign up. It is us qual scholars, the group of us, we're making this last 90 days our best 90 days. We're joining Rachel Hollis and her last 90 days challenge. We're doing our own version of it. What you get when you sign up is you get an email every week, a challenge every week and you get all the support and accountability in the world to make an are last 90 days, your best 90 days.

And so today's episode is going to be a little bit different than my normal episodes. I am sharing with you a recording from a right away episodes. I'm an episode ya, it's been a long day. It's a right away session. So before right away I will usually come in and I will either talk about something related to productivity, mindset, time management, something to help people get motivated and to the writing session or we will do like a, some like a simple check in just to see where folks are and how things have been going. So that's what you'll hear. 'em Next is the, we did this a few weeks ago now where I came in, I talked to them about progress over perfection and I thought it would be a great opportunity to share it with you so that you can get a glimpse of what is like to be in right away.

Cause I know you've heard me talk about it a lot. And maybe are curious to like what's really happening with this group. And so that's what this is about. I did not share with the, the discussion that took place and just sharing with you my initial intro with the groups. So in July is going to be really sure. I'd be curious to know your thoughts about it. And if are interested in joining right away, please come on over to my baileys.com and sign up. All right, let's get to this week's episode. Hey, they're the ones who come in the middle of this episode. Tell you about my 90 day challenge. Yes, the last 90 days. How do we finish this year strong? So if you're familiar or Rachel Hollis, she does the last 90 days challenge. And I decided to do my own version of that.

And so I'm here to have all of my scholar friends make the last 90 days the best 90 days of 2019. All you had to do is come on over to the website, [inaudible] dot com scroll all the way down to the bottom and you will see a button there for you to sign up. There should also be a button at the top of the page, but just in case you don't see it, it's there. And you're gonna to sign up and you're going to get emails. And what I'm doing is sitting folks, an email every week full of motivation. And a challenge for them to do every week in this challenge takes no time. Like it's asking you to take an hour for yourself and listen. If you don't have that a day for yourself, like Rachel says, do you even have a life? So yes, that's where we're going to be delivered to 90 days. It's not too late to sign up. It's never too late to start going towards your dreams. So please come on over to the website, sign up and let's get back to the episodes.

All right, back to sharing. I did this to keep myself on track because I know me. All right. So I just wanted to go all Griffin cause we will have new folks come in and out. They typically, this is what it looks like. I know we used to do like 15 minutes of catching up and talking about a topic of the day, but the way real life has been happening these past few weeks, it's more like 30 minutes. So we will, we take the whole 30 minutes every time. No, but if we need it is there and at least folks know to expect that, you know, the first 30 minutes is where has to catch up and especially for folks who can't make it both Sundays and Wednesdays or maybe something has happened. For instance, I thought she, Tina would be on, but I think she'll be coming on in a little bit like she's in the middle of data collection and it's like a marathon data collection session session where she's traveling to different cities.

So she needs some encouragement and some support because it's a lot and she has a very strict deadline. She's graduating in December and sell. If you also had something similar, this would be our time to like give you support and help you talk through anything that you may have going on or that came out wrong. But you get what I'm saying. And then we spend the rest of the time lights away, actual work, making sure to keep the cameras on as much as possible of you may have things that come up, maybe you're eating. That's usually what my camera goes off is when I'm eating something while writing. But it's encouraging to look up and see other people working your serious face and all the things because it helps sends you a signal to say, I should be writing. I know it helps me, you know, I'm hoping that that helps you all. And then the last few minutes just checking in and seeing what we got done during the call and what our plans are going to be in between sessions and how we can support each other. So that's a breakdown of right away. Again, the weekly schedule. This is an Eastern time now, which I have to get used to, so I'm not from a mountain friends. What is it? Two hours, three hours behind, something like two hours.

So this is the schedule. Oh wait, say my last Wednesday was fine because I had just got into town and I was still level. We going to see my, am I coming in on my bonnet and my pajamas because sleep. Okay. It's cynical. Like, it's kind of late cause I'm, Oh no, not really, but I'm a act like a no lemon. I want to remind or email that you know that there is a Facebook group. And if anything comes up in between, cause please go there and Margaret will be there to answer questions. I'll be in and out. I'm trying to do better at Facebook. This a love hate thing. I'm mostly on Instagram, but right now I don't have the group feature and on anything people use Instagram in that way. So for now we will be on Facebook talking with each other and anything else that comes up.

If you're not on Facebook, you know I think there's a sheet somewhere and maybe Margaret, and maybe I'll make this up, but there's a sheet where everybody's name and contact info, maybe a solider thing, but we can update that and put it somewhere so that you can get it. If anything comes up that you have a question for one of us, you can either email or Facebook group or come to the call. And we will answer it. And then I want to remind you, we talked about this last Sunday, but daily pages I sent that out in the few weeks we'll have like what do you kind of like a one line website member portal thing happening. So everything will be there because that will make it easier if you need to download something or it's schedule or even these recordings will be there.

So we are working on that for the next couple of weeks or so. And we will let you know if you need that. I will email that out again after we get done here so that you can have it. So today's, before I get to today's topic, is there any questions about what I just said or anything I went over this. Is Kayla just for the daily pages? Are we supposed to do them every day or is it like kind of what's the expectation? Well, every day in albums go back up in a minute, but it's every day. It should take you no more than like two to five minutes in the morning. The goal is to just revisit what are your writing goals. So you pay, like when do you want to graduate by? And they're like, what can you do today? To give you one step closer.

And so you can mention your, your dissertation and graduating in the past you like how do I want to feel today? How do you had to behave in order to feel that way? Which the sentiments that if you feel a certain way we'll help you do what you need to keep your goals. I'll talk a little bit more about it today, but a lot of times we have these goals that we want to accomplish and can still focus on a goal, but then we're like, how are we supposed to do it? Like we don't know what this doesn't do. I'm going to like day to day basis. We know like the large goals, but like what does that mean?

So those sheets are intended to help you figure out those in between moments and like small steps. And then at the end of the day or the next morning, depending on how you do that, there's a little assessment that says like, did you do, did you say you said you were going to do, why or why not? I'm just picking in yourself. The goal isn't to be perfect. The goal is to keep monitoring your progress. But if you have something that already works for you on a daily basis routine to do that is just making every day that you're checking in with yourself about what it is that you do.

You could ask other one other question. Can you hear me? Oh, we're supposed to send you a writing document on Sunday night or by Sunday. So I, by Monday morning it says that, you know, for me, I'm like in terms of deadlines, very strict. As long as I have it before Monday afternoon, I'm good. Cause that's when everything we get this from people if you're confused, like what is she talking about? I just want to know what folks are working on. Alright. So today's topic is how do you do progress over perfection? Again, on a Sacramento, we have these goals. And I think, at least for me, I'll say this I'll have a goal and I want to do everything perfect and I want to do everything as much as possible up front. And then I burned myself out like three days in and then I just give up over it.

I give up on everything. And so I have to remind myself to take little steps every day to work towards my goals so that I don't burn myself out and that I actually make progress. Because it's about momentum towards your goal instead of trying to do everything perfect every day because that's kind of impossible and it's something you have to build up to. You don't start off the gate doing everything perfect all the time without any hiccups or anything. So the first thing is how do you find your your baseline? So when you have a goal, so say you want to finish your proposal by December, what is the least amount of work that you would have to do today or this month in September to get you closer to finishing it in December? What is the least amount of work that you would have to do that you, that you would be willing to do?

So maybe it's not that you start off like, I'm gonna do four or five days of eight hour work days when maybe it's like, you know, I'll download two articles today and I read those two articles in this one week and that's the least amount I can do. That'll give me close to my go by. How can you do the least amount? This sounds really backwards, but go with me. How do you do the least amount of work that still helps you get closer to your goal? If that's a, if that's a way of thinking about it. Just stick with me. Another way could be how can I be 1% better today? I don't know. Are you familiar with the 1% rule? I got it from atomic habits, which is a very good book. When you actually have time, you're not a deep and dissertating after you graduate.

I definitely say put that on your list as a book to read because it's very good for productivity and time management. But James clear, who is the author talks a lot about 1% how can you just be 1% better today than you were yesterday? And not trying to do this big jump, but like how can you just be 1% is it like download one more article? Is it reading over one more paragraph is sending one email. Like

Transcript of Episode:

Welcome to "Office Hours with Dr. Lacy". Hi, I'm Dr. Lacy, your Dissertation Strategist, where I help doctoral students finish their qualitative dissertations so that they can graduate and successfully become Doctor. Let's get started with this week's episode. Guess what? I am hosting my very first writing retreat in November. It's gonna be at home in Chicago and I'm inviting a few friends along for a beautiful, productive, rejuvenating writing retreat right before the holiday. So we are going to meet meeting in Chicago November 24th so this one is seven, four days, three nights of writing, scholarly pursuits, whatever that may be. Fun we are going to be talking about, so like for your scholarly self we're going to be talking about best ways of organizing yourself, how to make a realistic schedule and a realistic routes mean you're going to have some time to get some eyes and your writings.

It really help you flesh out those ideas. Have a really solid plan for not only getting a significant rise in bed at the retreat. So cause there was nothing more I find annoying that we go to in the Bay. You're out, you're all excited and you're motivated and you're like, get them to do all the things and then you go home and you're like, I don't even know how to take the next step. So we're going to make sure that when you leave, you know what to do. Plus, you know, I don't like, I can't just sit there and just work, you know, that's not my emo. So while we will have 20 hours dedicated to solid writing time, we will also have time to talk about things that are happening outside of writing. Like how do you keep your motivation, how do you stay productive, how do you manage your chair and your committee and keep everybody on schedule and on the same page, how do you manage your own selves to that, you know, you can continue to show up and go after your doubles. Plus so much more. Breakfast and lunch is included in the price and we have three different options for packages available. So please, please, please go over to marvettelacy.com. Either you're going to click the red button at the top right corner and it says work with me. And there you will find all the information about the writing retreat. I'm so excited. I have so many surprises

And we already have people signed up and so please don't miss out. I would hate for you to miss out. Just gone over to the website or you can DM me on Instagram and we can talk there and I can tell you more about it, but please don't miss out. All right, we're going to get onto today's episode. Oh, okay. Welcome back to week three. [inaudible] I'm going to try to make this fast because I'm not feeling well and my congestion and starting to overtake my throat and everything. But this week, which is a perfect segue this week is about execution, is the name of the game. And I said it's a perfect segue because I don't feel good and I just want to go lay back down cause I think I tried to do too much today. But I said I was wanting to do these episodes and it's about executing.

And I know that this is going to be a few minutes. And then I get to lay down after that and I get to keep the, with my words and myself. And that's really what I want to talk about today, about the, like many of us are great at making plans and I'm saying all the things that we want to do and daydreaming about that and you know, scheduling it down in our paper planner and all I'm planning is like how exactly we're going to do it and how much time we're gonna spend on it. And then we don't put that same energy into executing, to showing up day after day when it gets difficult or tedious. We don't put the same energy into it and we don't execute. And that is a difference between people who have PhDs and people who don't. Are you executing? Like the people who give up, they didn't execute.

And so [inaudible] we're going to be talking about how to execute today. I was thinking back when I was working on my dissertation and how I got really into planners. I'm not quite sure all the way how I got there. I think I saw one video on YouTube and then it went, it went down a rabbit hole and then I had a friend who was also into planners and we just got so into it. I think she, I mean she's still into it. I don't think it's the same as it was when we were writing dissertations. But we would like, I mean at least three, four times a week, I'm not exaggerating. We would go to like Michael's or Joanne's and buy all the planner supplies. I had so many planners, I had a planner for like writing my like dissertation. I had a planner for working out.

I had a planner for class cause I was sick like one or two classes. I had a planner for self care and I even at one point I think I had a planner for like what my future life would look like cause I was about, I was about other things and I would decorate all of these planners each Sunday got to the, I'm side recording YouTube videos about it, but I'm, I would decorate it like full washi tape full of stickers. Cause you know me, it's not even, I can't do it a little bit. I didn't do any all the way. And I would do that. Like I'll spend hours decorating my planner. It was just like for me, it was my way of having stuff cares what I thought and plus what's happening. Say, organize, right? Yeah. W I was spending all this time making this pretty planned for the league and how's going get all these things done in different areas of my life.

I also had like a business planning, cause I was starting a business in the middle of a dissertation. Who does that? I do. Well I had all these ideas of black clothes. I was gonna write everything in hours and hours on Sunday, only to get to Friday and Saturday and realize I may have done 25%, if that of what I said I was going to do. And so then I would feel like a failure. I feel like yeah. Bottom of like that's inappropriate. I would feel like yeah, like I just didn't do, I gave up. I didn't do it enough. All right. I took the easy way out. And then I would go and, and recommit myself for the next week and spend another three hours on Sunday. And like this week I'm serious. And you know, I created a whole cycle after psycho.

And y'all, that's not true. And the funny part, I do like know that next week, so at the time of this recording, the following, we're in October and the following week I'm letting to be going to Austin, Texas with my sister in law to go to the Aaron Condron headquarters in Kadra. It makes the life planners kind of like one of the original, not original, but like one of the main people are the first people to really get big in this planner world and these planners can, I don't know, I felt like they range from like 50 to like all the way up to like two, $300, like depending on how you customize it and what you get. But anyway let's just, and I was really excited. I said I'm going to go with her to see it and I'm going to record it because I'm just really curious. But anyway, I'll let you know how it goes. Anyway, bags of my plan and story.

Hey girl, the ones that come in the middle of this episode until you about my 90 day challenge. Yes. The last 90 days. How do we finish this year strong? So if you're familiar or Rachel Hollis, she does the last 90 days challenge and I decided to do my own version of that. And so I'm here to have all of my scholar friends make the last 90 days the best 90 days of 2019 all you have to do is come on over to the website, my bet at Lacey's dot com. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and you will see a button there for you to sign up. There should also be a button at the top of the page, but just in case you don't see it, it's there. And you are, you're on a sign up and you're going to get emails.

And what I'm doing is sitting folks, an email every week full of motivation and a challenge for them to do every week in this challenge takes no time. Like it's asking you to take an hour for yourself in. Listen, if you don't have it, Howard, a day for yourself, like Rachel says, do you even have a life? So yes, that's where we're going to be doing for the 90 days. It's not too late to sign up. It's never too late to start going towards your dream. So please come on over to the website, sign up and let's get back to the episode.

I mean, I spent so much money on stickers and washy and when I moved from Georgia after I graduated, I had at least three boxes, like large boxes. We're talking of planner stuff and supplies. And that was just ridiculous. And it wasn't until I transition into my job in Milwaukee that I realized I was using all of this planners stuff. As a form of procrastination. Like in my mind I thought I was doing something to help me be more productive and work smarter and to use the, I have the best use of my time to save you time in the end. But really it just ended up being hours and hours of procrastination. Me spending money I did not have on stuff that I did and I need. And it wasn't until I started doing things and executed on things that I saw a change in my level of productivity, a change in my wallet, a change in like the amount of time I had.

And

I also had to like stop at one point and just work. So I was a executing his wife finished that dissertation of four months executing and that's why I was able to grow my business so quickly and is best two years because they became stop planning and start doing sure you need a plan because you need to know that the direction you're going in. But there's no way you can figure that out in your head. You cannot account for everything that's going to happen and how that plan is going to need to change and shift or how life is going to come at you because you can't do the future. And so at some point you just got to do it some point you just got to start. So how do you execute? First you have to make the decision that you're going to do whatever the thing is.

So if your goal is I'm graduating in may, make the decision and be done with it, stop going back and forth about a chapter in may or should I aim sorry about that. Should I do it in may or should I do it in August or maybe I December, I don't know. Let me go ask someone and stuff. Let me go talk to 10,000 people about it. No, make a decision, make a decision and try it on for 30 days and then evaluate to see how that's going. But you gone back and forth and spending all this time, it's you indulging in this indecision because you don't want to do the actual hard work that it takes to actually do the thing. So the first thing is to make the decision and stop saying things like, it's saving me time or I'm saving myself on the backend.

You're not, you're wasting time. That's what you're doing. So make the decision is the first thing. The second thing is your top three. We're going back to the basics here every day you should have a top three. I would go further to say you should have a top three for the week and a top three for the month and even it's after for the year, but at the very least every day, top three, top three cause especially the times when I'm like, I just don't feel like it. I'm tired today when I wake up I have to do my top three. These are three things I'm getting done. It guides you, it gives you a clear plan of this is what you need to do. And when you finish those types of three things, you feel so accomplished and everything else is just icing on the cake and you just had three.

Each items should take less than 20 minutes to do. So we're really talking about an hour of your day to do these things. And listen sometimes on my top three is to take a shower, brush my teeth and drink my water. We're not trying to like, you know, I dunno, reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it is that simple. Now. Other days it's more productively not per Deb because I feel like brushing your teeth is protective, but you get what I'm saying like some days is more complex things I should say, but having a top three. So first make a decision. Second habit top three. The third thing is your morning routine. Your success is in your routine. So if you're in this Langley day challenge, follow the basics in the morning. That's your morning routine and the basics are you wake up, you have an hour for yourself.

That's your routine. You drink at least 64 ounces of water. You move for 10 minutes, you write for 10 minutes and you write your top three. That should take you about an hour or less. But if you don't have an hour for yourself, that's, that's ridiculous. Rachel, how this is like you don't have a hour for yourself. You don't have a life. I believe that an hour for yourself, your morning routine, if you start your day off giving to yourself everything else, it puts everything else in perspective. Everything else will get that. Everything else will fall into place. You not at you has your back enough in that day to give yourself an hour to set yourself up properly so that you can face today and things are not just happening to you that you're more intentional about what's going on in your day. And then the fourth thing is you have to evaluate your progress.

What you measure grows. Isn't that the saying or something like that. And we're talking about something really simple. So at the end of the day, and if you have my daily planning sheets, then you would do this too. But essentially if you don't, you just wanna at the end of the year, end of your day or at the next day, during your morning routine, you want to ask yourself, what did I say I was wanting to do? Which is your top three? Did I do what I say I would do? Did you do your top three? Why or why not? And then what can I do differently tomorrow or next week or next year depending on when you're doing this, this evaluation, because you should be evaluating every day, every week, every month, every year. But at the minimum, evaluating your day, what did you say you were going to do? Did you do what you say you were going to do and what can you do differently the next day?

Answering those questions, we're talking two to five minutes, but it makes all the difference in, holds you accountable to yourself. It helps you to start to see things or areas where you may need a little bit more assistance in and you can go ask for help for the thing you actually need help with instead of vomiting words on to someone and they have to try to figure out what it is that you need help with. This helps keep you organized. And then the fifth thing is to rest and repeat. Taking some time for yourself. Yes, but not too long, but going back up. So the first thing of making the decision, writing out your top three, doing your morning routine and evaluating your progress, doing this every day, day in and day out, we'll take you so much further than you try and sit down and liking, getting the washy tape out and the stickers

Transcript of Episode:

Welcome to "Office Hours with Dr. Lacy". Hi, I'm Dr. Lacy, your Dissertation Strategist, where I help doctoral students finish their qualitative visitations so that they can graduate and successfully become Doctor. Let's get started with this week's episode.

Guess what? I am hosting my very first writing retreat in November with Jen and be at home in Chicago and I don't know, guiding a few friends along for a beautiful protective rejuvenating writing retreat right before the holiday. So we are gonna meet meeting in Chicago November 24th, so this one is seven, four days, three nights of writing, scholarly pursuits, whatever that may be. Um, um, fun we are going to be talking about, so like for your scholarly self, we're going to be talking about best ways of organizing yourself, how to make a realistic schedule and a realistic routine. We're going to have some time to get some eyes and you're writing to really help you flesh out those ideas. Have a really solid plan for not only getting a significant writing bed at the retreat cause there was nothing more. I find it annoying that we go to in the bank.

You're out, you're all excited and you're motivated, you're like get them to do all the things and you go home and you're like, I don't even know how to take the next step. So we're going to make sure that when you leave, we know what to do. Plus, you know, I don't like, I can't just sit there and just work, you know, that's not my emo. So while we will have 20 hours dedicated to solid writing time, we will also have time to talk about things that are happening outside of writing. Like how do you keep your motivation, how do you stay productive, how do you manage your chair and your committee and keep everybody on schedule and on the same page, how do you manage your own selves that you know you can continue to show up and go after your doubles. Plus so much more.

Um, breakfast and lunch is included in the price and we have three different actions for packages available. So please, please, please go over to marvettelacy.com. Then you're going to click the red button at the top right corner and it says work with me. And there you will find all the information about the writing retreat. I'm so excited. I have so many surprises planned. We already have people signed up and so please don't miss out. I would hate for you to miss out. Just gone over to the website or you can DM me on Instagram and we can talk there and I can tell you more about it, but

please don't miss out. All right, we're going to get on to today's episode. Welcome to week two of this 90 day challenge. And today's episode is all about getting your team right. Now. Last week we talked about the basics in the foundation of this challenge and beyond this challenge. These are the basics as a scholar, as a person, that she, you should be committed to. Um, if you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode, please go back and listen to that episode. Um, and sign up even for the challenge so you can get the printables and stuff. Um, to make this challenge easy so we can finish the last 90 days shrunk. But today's episode is about your team, your team of people. So if you don't know, um, I am an avid YouTube watcher. I love, love, love YouTube. Like I watch you two more than TV.

People are, uh, out here talking about shows and things and I have no idea what they're talking about. But I know YouTube burstow and this is something, wow. I mean, I've been doing this for YouTube has been my thing for 10 years now. Like it's my main source of entertainment. But anyway, um, if you are familiar and when you go to the homepage of YouTube, they're usually recommendations for you, um, to watch and based on like your watch history or things that Google just thinks you may be interested in because Google knows your whole life. At least he knows my whole life, my whole business and life is on Google. Um, and one person popped up, um, Indian, it was a black woman and she had a really, really low haircut, like not even lower than like a fade. And she just looked beautiful. Melania's Papyrus, she was real snatch.

She had on his dress and there was a Ted talk Indians. I don't know about you. I mean, I know things are changing, but when I first saw this video, I didn't see many videos with folks of color, especially black women doing Ted talks. And I mean like Ted talks, like with the regular, like Ted talk on the, um, screen. But it was Stacey flowers, um, and her talk, which I think is like how to be happy. Let me get the right title for you because you know, I don't want to be butchering this cause this is a, this is really important. Um, but yeah, she was essentially talking about how to be happy and how she was working towards goals and, um, what she has found to be the most helpful in her achieving her goals and happiness. Um, it's called how to be happy.

Ted talk, excuse me, the five key people you need. Um, and I'm going to get it together. This, this word is trying to see, it's taking me out. But anyway, she talks about the five people you need. But before I just want to let you know, um, I watched this video and then I went down a whole rabbit hole because she has a YouTube channel that she puts out videos just documenting her life. So she lives in Chicago, she's a speaker, so she's traveling around and doing that. And she's also starting to branch out in other areas of her business, helping other people with their business, helping people become speakers, um, helping people with debt management, money management, and she's chronicling her life of, uh, focusing on her health, being really dedicated to her health. Um, so getting a personal trainer, eating, changing her diet, going to see a therapist, working with her coach, and you get to see like her, like coaching other clients, things of that nature.

Um, she is following the day for him. So you plan to get out of debt. Um, it was about $200,000 in debt and she's been working through it, like killing it and she works part time. She works roughly 25 hours a week. Um, and she has, um, a very, I think he's grown. It's like not grown, but like if 17, 18 year old son, um, I've known C I know all her life because I've been watching the videos. But anyway, I've give you that background so you can have a little bit information about who she is. Um, and share my joy to, um, of like this wonderful woman. So I definitely will link it in the show notes and you should definitely check out her in his Ted talk, um, because it's hops about the people you need on your team. Um, and so I used to get it done framework and my business and essentially to get it done framework says that you need three main things to finish your dissertation.

You need systems like our routine, a schedule, like a playing in things that you do consistently on a daily basis that guide you, um, to towards achieving your goals. You need mindset because that's what is really preventing us from getting to our goals and writing. You need a way to like work on that every day to remind yourself why you're doing what you're doing. And the third thing is you need community. And I'm really big on building community because that is really what takes people out in this dissertation game of you started to feel isolated. You don't have people around you. People start to be at different levels, especially if you're in like a cohort or something. Um, and I know the power of community and people how that helped me to finish my dissertation in four minutes. And so I'm always telling people that you need to get you some people.

Um, I, that's why I have my writing group right away. That's why I have Facebook groups. Cause I know the power of people also want to make a side note y'all. So this new place where I live is very, very loud. And so you may hear cars and things on being picked up out of microphone. But I literally hear this all over my apartment and there's nowhere for me to go. And so we're just going to enjoy the silence of this city. And this pack has from now on until I find another solution. Okay. And up side note. But yes, back to Stacy. So she has this Ted talk and she talks about five people that you need. Um, you know, the chief for it goes with being happy. The first person is the cheerleader. So they cheer you on when you cannot cheer yourself on.

They are your, they're your pep squad or your people in the corner. Like they don't quite understand what it is that you do or why you doing this or like why you still in school, but they love you and they went and see you when, cause while they don't quite understand what it is, they know that it's big. They know that it's important for you to do this goal to become a doctor. They also know and can see probably more than you that this is this, you getting this PhD or you achieving this goal. Sure it has something to do with you. But at the same time has nothing to do with you. Like you're doing it for your family, for your friends you're doing for all the people who are watching you that you'll never realize are watching you. And they know that their job and their role is to just cheer you on and keep you going.

They don't have to understand it and I'll have to get the nitty gritty details. They just have to cheer you on. And that's what they do. They give you encouragement, they tell you you can do it. They may listen to you and again, they may not get it, but they're still like, but you can do it like they know without a doubt that you can do it. This is the person that you want to talk to or call or text when you're like [inaudible] you know this degree they can have it. Cause I have other ones. I don't mean this one. That's who you call when you, when you need some sense of like motivation. Um, and I think about this, like when I was trying to figure out who was going to be on my dissertation committee, I was, I, it is important that I have somebody who is really supportive and encouraging and that they don't have to get my methodology or my research.

They just gotta be encouraging. It's gotta be happy. Um, and the person I had was name is Dr. Dunn and if you know her, you, I mean, you, people instantly melt when you hear her name. Like you just, you just feel like safe and like everything's gonna be OK. sure. It as a fire all around me, but she said it's gonna be okay, so it's going to be okay. And, um, she's, she's been doing this for years. Yeah. Like it's not like she's brand new or anything. Like she gets it, she knows the process. She's helped tons and tons of doc students finish. But her main thing for me that I was, I just, I just need to know that if I look at her and I'm about to freak out or I'm just not, I'm not doing well. I know she's my cheerleader. So who are your committee or in your circle or then this process is going to be your cheerleader.

I had other cheerleaders as well. I wanted to share that example because a lot of times we think that your committee has to be this rigid idea and that you can't be more intentional about how you select committee members. Now I get that like politics are real and some programs have some very strict rules, but if you can, if there is some room for you to have a cheerleader on your committee, I'm telling you, it makes a huge difference. A huge difference. Okay. The second person is a mentor. They point you in the right direction. I like to think of this person as your advisor or your chair. Now I'm gonna get to the wrestling and be like, shouldn't my chair be all these things? No, no. Your chair cannot be all things for you.

They cannot, they cannot do all the things they have other people they have other other tasks they got, they got lives, they got busy schedule.

You my friend are very, very, very small part of their life or what's on their plate and they can't be all things for you nor did you ever expect anyone to be all things for you. That's a lot of pressure and very unrealistic. You can't even be all things to one person. And if you are,

I'm sure the way your life has looking, we need to talk, Hey girl, the ones who come in the middle of this episode and tell you about my 90 day challenge. Yes, the last 90 days. How do we finish this year strong. So if you're familiar with Rachel Hollis, she does the last 90 days challenge. And I decided to do my own version of that. And so I'm here to help all of my scholar friends make the last 90 days the best 90 days of 2019 all you had to do is come on over to the website, my vet, Lacey's dot com. Scroll all the way down to the bottom. You will see a button there for you to sign up. There should also be a button at the top of the page, but just in case you don't see it, it's there. Um, and you're, you're on a sign up and you're going to get emails.

And what I'm doing is singing folks an email every week full of motivation and a challenge for them to do every week in this challenge takes no time. Like it's asking you to take an hour for yourself in listen, if you don't have it, how every day for yourself, like Rachel says, do you even have a life? So yes, that's where we, we're going to be delivered at 90 days. It's not too late to sign up. It's never too late to start going towards your dream. So please come on over to the website, sign up and let's get back to the episodes.

Okay, back. So your mentor or your advisor there pointing in your right direction, you tell them like here's look, I'm a finish this dissertation and may here's my plan to do this. This is what I came up with on my on like what feedback that you have from me. And they're there to give you like advisement. Like they're there to like listen to you and very like overall big picture, here's what you need to do, here's the direction you should be going into. But they are not the ones there to like give you step by step instruction of how to get there. And this is probably one of the biggest mistakes or I don't know, misconceptions that I see with doc students with clients that they think that their chair, their advisors as opposed to sit down with them and walk them through step to step.

Again, nobody has the time to do that and it's not that they don't care. Maybe I don't care, but like it's not about you personally. It's if they don't have the time to do that at tops, you should have 15 to 30 minutes with them just to tell them what it is that you're doing and them to give you the advice that you need to move forward. Again, they are not there to get into the weeds with you step by step. And if they are doing that with you, that is so much care for you and so much time and labor on their part that they don't have to. I'm going on a tangent. A lot of people think, um, they feel entitled to that their chair has to do this. Their chair needs to sit down and, and as their c