Episode 111: Finish Your Lit Review Webinar DETAILS

In this week's episode, Marvette share's her recent webinar about finishing your lit review. Hear tips and information about finishing your lit review on time and without stress. 

Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marvettelacy/

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, welcome back to a new week of the podcasts, how y'all doing. I'm recording this on Tuesday today, before it comes out four 20. So for those of my friends of you, who all who are listening in today is a holiday for you. I hope you are having a good time for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Um, yes. So today I am going to be talking about how to take time away from work. Um, this is something I just, whenever people come into the membership, this is probably what I spend the most time talking to them about, um, about not only how to get more space in their week, but just, how are you thinking about the ways in which you approach work? And y'all, this is dangerous because I really have detailed notes and I feel a lot of tangents and rants in my spirit, but I am going to try to keep this short and cute because of just where we are in a year.

You may not, you may not have all the time for a long episode. And every time I say that it ends up being a long episode. Um, but let's see which clients do I want to give a shout out to today? I didn't go to do Sheniqua. She, just joined the program. Well, technically she joined in January, but she just really guys start it in the past few weeks, not there's anything wrong with that. Um, and she is someone who, while we haven't fully gotten into the story, there was a lot of things with work and her program and her just needing to take space. And so one of the main reasons why she signed up in January, but hasn't, you know, just now in April getting started is because she intentionally chose to make the decision to give herself some time, excuse me, to give herself some time to just recover from the year that was 2020.

Um, not only because we were in a whole pandemic, but because also there was a lot of life things happening for her. And she intentionally took that time away. And this was what out my coaching. So I love a client who comes in ready and we needed to talk about right, because while she intentionally took the time away, In, her mind, she thought, Oh, I'm only gonna take like a month away, but a month ended up being more like three. And so talking that outlet people, um, it's, it could be helpful. Um, because there's a lot of, we can have a lot of guilt and shame associated with that when we take time away, right? Our brains will tell us, Oh, you should be working. You should be doing something you're lazy if you're not. And so there was similar thoughts like that for Sheniqua, because she was like, I was supposed to come back in like February, but it's April.

And I'm like, you know, what's done is done. And obviously you need it that time. Obviously, there was a lot of stuff that happened in 2020 that you need to recover from. And so what if that was always what was meant to happen? What if it was always meant for you to take three, four, however many months off and now you're working. And that's something that I invite all of you to consider everything that has happened, whether it's 2020 right now, what if everything was meant to happen? The way that it's happening? A lot of times, we, what caused us a lot of stress and pain is that we think things are not supposed to happen the way that they are. But how do we know that they, things are happening? Like your life, your day-to-day is happening exactly the way it's meant to is because that is what is happening. And we don't, it's not a good use of our time and our energy to argue with what is, or to argue with reality. That's an extra one for you to hit you on your way home, but everything is happening for you and everything is happening the way that it should.

No, not on my podcast.

Okay. So the reason why, um, but before I get into this, I want to say, go, go say, Hey, to Sheniqua, she's new to the community. Especially if you're inside of Qual scholars, go say hi to her and welcome her in the Facebook group. Um, and she's been coming to some cause and connected with people. And so I'm just so excited to have her. And if you are not in the group, what are you doing? Why are you not in the group? Well, let's go into this. How to take time away from work. Now, many of you have a background similar to me. You have a background where you grew up in a family where, you know, I think about my family. Like we pride ourselves on working hard. We pride ourselves on being able to get a lot done in a short period of time and growing up, I, you know, I always received a message or like it was observe around me that, you know, it's all about how many hours are you able to work?

Most of my family come from backgrounds where they have hourly positions. It was very rare that someone had a salary position. And so anytime that someone in my family needed extra money, the conversation was around, Oh, we just need to do overtime. Right? Because if you do overtime, you have more hours, which means you get paid more. Right. And so if there was someone going on a trip or they just, and you know, one of their kids needed something, it's like, Oh, I'm gonna try to see if I can pick up some extra shifts to get some more money. Why am I staying this? Because if that's also how you grew up, right, then it's ingrained in you that you need to trade hours for dollars and is all about how much can you work? The other piece of that too, is thinking about history, right?

And you're thinking about folks of color in the US context. Um, and I'm sure it has happens in other parts of the world. And I'm speaking from my experience, right? Like our, our progress, our, the quality of our work is judged on, right. How we show up, do we look the part, right? Are we quote unquote professional? Do we speak the part? Right? Do we show up and do what is expected of us? And Dan, are we, are we a worker who shows up and goes way above and beyond what is expected of us, right. Because historically right. Folks of color are judged more harshly than others. Right. And the whole y'all, I just want to be great and record a podcast

Because what is that noise?

Okay. Let's try this again. Um, it was a train. Okay. So then the whole, the whole line, or you probably heard, like, we gotta work twice as hard to get half, right. That is true in work. Right. So our family, what we've seen growing up is like, you gotta work twice as hard to get half, right? And so if you want the whole shebang, like you've all had to put in four times the effort. And so many of our family members and parents and whatnot, went to work to put in two, three, four times the effort to not only get the full pay, but to also get a good report of like, in terms of their work. Right. Which meant if you're doing things twice, three times, four times, as much as what is expected, you're putting in a lot of effort, right. And that translate into family, right?

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Getting to keep their job, being able to put food on the table, being able to pay mortgage or rent. Oh, we're not taking care of family. And so when you grow up in that environment, you very much get that message. I have to work hard and it becomes a source of pride, but here's the thing you all, who are listening to this podcast, most likely I'm not trading hours for dollars. Most likely you are in a graduate assistantship or you're working full time and you have a salary, right? You have, um, degrees, right? Most likely you have an undergrad degree master's degree, right? And now you're working to get a doctorate degree, meaning that your jobs probably in the past few years and continue on continuing on are not going to be Hourly, but just because

They're not hourly, our mindset is still the same. We still are approaching our work in the terms of trading hours for dollars in terms of having to be two, three, four, five times better, especially in higher education and in the environment, right. Where competition, I would say dirty competition is running rampant. When I say dirty competition, I'm meaning, like, it's not about the art of competition itself. It's about like one upping another person. And so that gives you this message, especially when you see other students and you may see them winning all in Facebook, right? When you see the faculty in your program and you, and they tell you all the things that they're doing, they get to go speak here and they're consulting here and they have these presentations here. Right? All of that is reinforcing the messages you received growing up. And it's reinforced me that you have to work, work, work, work in order To getPaid, right. In order to earn the money You're making. Right.

Even though you're not getting charged us there by hours, your position is still framed in this hourly context. Right? So like a graduate assistantship, right? You have a 13 hours assistantship, you have a 20 hour assistantship, right? It's still framed in these amount of hours that you should be putting in a week, even though most of these assistantships are not tracking your hours, right. You don't have to report how many hours you've been doing XYZ unless your supervisor is requiring that of you. But like from an HR perspective, most of the time, no, one's asking you to track your hours. Like you're not clocking in and clocking out. Right. Same thing for salary positions, unless someone has an extra layer of accountability. You're not really tracking, right. You're not really clocking

In a class now, but you're still coming at it with this mindset of, but it's this 20 hour assistantship. So I gotta make sure I do 20 hours, but I need to go above and beyond because I want to prove that I'm here and I'm dedicated, I'm committed. So I'm going to do more like 30, 35 hours a week. Same is true with salary positions because there's no such thing in both assistantships and salary that there's no such thing as overtime. Right? Um, some positions where I will say, if you stayed over, maybe you had a, uh, an event that required you to come in late night or weekend that you could probably comp time later to take a half day. But there's not most of the time, there's not a formal process of tracking it. And if it is, it's probably really messy, but that's a whole other conversation went, but we were still approaching our work very much from this.

I want to be indispensable. I want meaning. I want to make sure that the powers that be in this particular job, understand how committed I am, how loyal I am, how valuable I am in this position and to this department or this company, or what have you. Right? Which in our brain translates into, I need to put in as many hours as possible. I need to say yes to as many opportunities as possible. Not only do I need to do my job, but I need to do the job as the coordinator who left and I need to do right. I need to go be on these extra committees. Cause that's about networking. Right? And I need to any other opportunity that comes up, I want to do it right? Because a lot of you are thinking about to like, you're going to be in a job search or you're going to be looking for a new job and you want to be as marketable, right. As possible as what we say, we want to be as a marketable. What I'm inviting you to do is go home, go home, home, home, home home.

What I'm inviting you to do is to question that question, that line of logic that I have to say yes to every opportunity I got to be the first one to raise my hand. I gotta always be prepared. Ray, I gotta put in all this extra question. Why do you have to right and know the whole thing? Like we, but you know, I've been taught. We got to work twice as hard, but why is it true? And if you think it's true or not true, what is your evidence for that? A lot of, most of the, let me make sure I say this in a way. I mean, it, uh, most of the like marginalization, the oppression that we experience is in our own mind, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. What I'm saying is that because we have grown up right in society, listening to these messages over and over, it is so deeply ingrained in us that usually someone outside of us, as a have to say, Oh, you need to work twice as hard. Right? Usually it's us telling ourselves that, well, you know how it is. I got to work twice as hard again. Let me repeat. I am not saying that that's not a real thing. I am not saying oppression doesn't exist. What I am saying, though, it has evolved in a way that it's less overt. That is less in your face, but it's more so about the mindset. It is about the messages that you received growing up, that you continue to reinforce yourself. Whether that's conscious or not In that

Someone doesn't have to outside of you come and tell you these things, you're doing it for yourself. And the reason why I spend so much time at my clients, focusing on mindset, focusing in on the stories that we tell ourselves, right in questioning those stories is because of this exact reason, a lot of you are doing research around highlighting and breaking down systemic oppression. A great

Place to start is in your own mind, right? The first rule I feel like of social justice is like, you got to do your own work before you are telling or showing someone else how to do their work. And part of doing your own work is looking for those stories, for those beliefs that you have that reinforces white supremacy or patriarchy or xenophobia or whatever, right? Like we

Already have the stories. And so how can we start to recognize the questioning and decide or purpose whether or not we want to believe them. And just because you believe something doesn't mean you have to act on it. But if you never question it and you're going through life being like, that's just the way it is. It's not that I could do about it. How do we ever break this cycle? The most courageous thing that I believe that you can do is to recognize those beliefs in those stories, question them and then decide what you want to do instead. And A great place to start is work.

This country, we do not use our paid time off. We don't use our leave. We don't use our vacation. We don't use our sick days. Right. Because it's all like, no, we can't do that. We got to go into work. If I, if I'm sick or I want to go on vacation and I take time off, I'm going to be letting the team down. I'm going to be letting people down. I'm the only one who can do these tasks. What would they do if I'm not there, right. That type of conversation is running in our brains and

So that leads us not to take the time off that we earned, according to the guidelines of whomever we're working for. We earned that time. We're paying for that time. Right? Because when you leave a position, depending on the rules, you get the cash at that time. Right. And maybe you're thinking like, well, that's fine. I don't use it. Cause I want a big payout at the end, at when expense though, how, what Are you really paying for that money? You know, Anytime.

And then this goes to the question, how valuable do you think your life and your health and your wellbeing is that you're not using the time that was designed for you to take off and take care of yourself where you're constantly in this data. But I have to, I gotta do this. I gotta stay late. I gotta go early. I got to say yes to everything. I got to always be prepared. Well, why is it true? Is it true that if you did all these things that you are guaranteed a job, is it true that you did all these things? You're you have a better chance of getting a job? Like for real question it and a big question is, are you willing to say that that job that you go to is more important than your life? Is that job more important than your health?

Right? Because a lot of you are listening. You're young or relatively young, you're probably relatively healthy. And so maybe you think like, Oh, that's a long ways away. Right? When I finally make it, when I get that director job or I get that like executive leadership job, everything is going to be fine. Or when I get tenured, everything was going to be fine. I got news for you. Look at the faculty in your program, look at the people around you at your institution. What do they look like? What does there health look like? What is their working life balance? If there's such a thing, what does that look like? Do they seem happy? Do they seem well? Do they seem like they have a great deal of like they get work done and they have a great deal of leisure and fun because I'm willing to bet that most of the people around you, that's not true for them, but you're telling yourself the story that, Oh, I just need to put in all this work and effort and go above and beyond right now, because it's gonna pay off later.

How is that true? How is that true? Because know that's not true for the people around you, why would it be true for you? And if you have never practiced right. Having yes. Do good at work. I'm not saying do a job at work. I'm saying, what is it do, could you imagine having a life where you show up do what is expected of you at work? Right. Kill it. I mean, I have a high quality output, right. And having clear boundaries around it. When I'm at work, that's work. I'm going to be here from eight to five at five o'clock. I am out the door and I'm going to do something. Whether that's like working out being with my friends, doing something fun, sitting on the couch, watching TV, going to cook, whatever it is that you like to do, or are you going to work at 6:00 AM and leaving it? Six, 7:00 PM. Cause you like I had to, I got to catch up on emails. I got to catch up on these projects because I had all these meetings.

Are you burning the candles at both ends? And how with you practicing that on a daily basis, if that's how you're continuously showing up to work, how do you ever get to a life where you now have all this free time more money does not give you free time, just because you're gonna get a new job at a higher level, with a higher pay. That doesn't mean you're going to have more free time and all money. Ain't good money. Okay. But that's not the point of this episode. How can you have something that you never went out to get? Or you never practiced, right? How do you have a life of balance or harmony or leisure have fun and work if you're not even practicing it now, how can you have a life that's different when you're following in the same footsteps as the faculty and administrators are around you, how does that happen? Why would it be different for you?

Why does it doesn't make sense? Right? I can hear you saying, well, we're short staffed or such and such just left. And I had to pick up these extra things and I already sick. Yes. And what am I supposed to do again? This is about questioning. Why are you all short short-staffed? And if you are fully staffed, why still feel like you're short staff? Why is that? What would be the benefit of that? Like higher ed likes to sell this lie that it's like, no, we're for the person to holistic people. We're about helping people know it's a business. It's a business there's benefit for being short staffed. You know why? Cause we get some extra budget and lives that we get to use the other places.

Right? And your through your actions, you're encouraging the behavior by like saying, Oh no problem. I'll take this on. Oh, no problem. I'll do this. There's no point to get any addition, no staff. When you're doing the work of two or three people, what motivation is there? The other thing that I see, right? Cause you're like, okay, but what can I do? Right? This is the cards that I've been dealt again questioned meeting. Is that true? Or are you so stuck on this story that you're not allowing yourself to think of other possibilities? A lot of you need better boundaries around your time and your schedule.

I would encourage you to go look at your calendar, pull up, pull up outlook or IPL or Google calendar, whatever you use and set. When you will have meetings, a lot of you are just letting people dictate your calendar. When is best for them to meet, have set times or in days where you will take from other people. Number one, number two. If the meeting is scheduled for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, that's all you give them. I don't care if they talking right. When you roll up into that meeting or you cut on the zoom. For those of you who are still at home, you want to start that meeting off by saying, Hey, I have a hard stop at such and such time. We said this meeting would be for 30 minutes. I got a hard stop. I have to leave also about having better boundaries around meetings is being very clear.

What the purpose of the meeting is for what are you going to be discussing? What are the outcomes of that meetings? Or like, what are the deliverables of that meeting? If you don't know the answer to that, then don't meet. I don't care if you're meeting with your chair or the program director, there is a way to be very clear about why you are meeting so that you can get down to it. I know that people like, but that's we got to do the small talk again, but this is a bigger thing. What is your time worth? What is your health work worth? What is your wellbeing worth? Get better boundaries around your calendar, in your meeting times, the other things, what is your goal? Right? Your goal is to finish your dissertation or your goal is to eventually leave your job. How are your actions lining up to that right now?

Because just because like Just, because look at your actions right now. How has that lining up to what your overall goal? You want to finish your dissertation yet You're saying yes to everyone who asks you to meet with them, go do something with them, come hang out with them. Right? And you keep putting your dissertation related tasks to the back burner, right? A lot of you, we just had a planning call last Sunday. A lot of people are, what they're doing is they first put their work tasks. They prioritize their work tasks, like their assistantship or their job that maybe they got the kids, right. Maybe family wants them to come do this. They got to do emails, right? And then they try to leave their dissertation related stuff to the end of the day, like seven, eight, nine, 10 o'clock at night. How does that work?

When you've been up since four, o'clock doing other stuff you're tired. And then you get frustrated with yourself. When you can do anything at nine o'clock at night, after a long day of working, then you go into shame and guilt spiral of like, you need to stop being so lazy. You need to get it together. You need to make better use of your time. No, you need to go to sleep, go to sleep, go drink some water, eat a real meal and go to sleep your bod needs. Rest. You trying to do it all in a day. Again, it's going, it's leading back to what is your life worth? What is your health worth? And you may need to go. Re-examine all of the things that you're doing at work that you don't even need to be doing. Right? I like be honest with yourself. How many of those tasks and things that you volunteered for, they, you said you would do, they, you just assume that you're the only one who could do it or you're the only one who can do it.

Right? And so you just take it amongst yourself to do it and then have the nerve to be upset at other people. Because it's like, nobody helps me. Nobody supports me. I gotta do everything myself. I'm running this department by myself. You chose to do that. You gotta get mad at people cause you chose to make the decision. And just like you chose to do it. You can choose, you can choose to undo it. You can be like, you know, no thank you. all I've been, I've been doing two or three people's jobs for the past six months. Are you going to give me an overload? Oh, you're not. Okay. No, thank you. You can have that back. And being willing to be misunderstood by other people being willing to be judged by other people, because that's the other thing, a lot of you are working yourselves to the bone to death because you're worried about what other people think about you and your performance. Sure. You got evaluations at work. Sure. But what I want you to do is go look at your position description. A lot of you haven't read that thing since you applied to the job. And so you probably have a lot of assumptions about what you think you should be doing and you probably don't need to be.

Look at your job description. What are you actually supposed to be doing? And what are the things that are not on that list and the things that are not on those lists on that list? Do you want to be doing it? If not, how do you get rid of it? How do you, how do you bow out? How do you exit? If those are things you do want to do, ask yourself why and whatever reasons you come up with, just to make sure you like your reasons and keep doing it. But y'all, this is important. I'm coming off this way because a lot of people are having so many issues because they're overworking themselves. Right? And you may think, Oh, this is not a big deal. I just have a migraine. Every once in awhile, that's rare. Like I probably have a migraine once a week.

Oh, it's not a big deal. My back just hurts because you sit down at the computer for too long. Oh, you know, my, my lower back really hurts. It's higher. My sciatica acting up. Cause you probably got stress and negative emotions. Trapping your hips and no, you got to lower it back in because you don't ever get off your chair and move around and do anything to release to energy is just building up and creating more chronic issues for you. Yes. It's all connected. Oh, nobody appreciates me. Nobody helps me. Do you ask for help? And do you receive the help?

Oh, I got to do everything by myself. I wish people would help me. Are you taking on everything about yourself or have you learned the art of delegation again? I'm coming off real stern and I'm not saying this is all your fault and you have to take radical responsibility for your decisions and for your actions, you can't expect someone else to treat you with kindness or to treat you with consideration when you're not doing that for yourself. When you're forcing yourself to do these things. So yes, maybe some people are triggered. Maybe some people didn't cut off this episode already, but I invite you for those of you who are still listening. Thank you. Shout out to yourself, Pat yourself on the back and get to work in terms of what are things that you can cut out your life because our parents, right? The ancestors didn't work this hard for us to continue having to do this.

Our work looks different at this stage. We don't have to trade hours for dollars. We don't have to go above and beyond. Yes, we can do great work. Yes. We can have a huge impact, but that doesn't mean that we have to do every single thing that is presented to us in order to do that. This is about focus. This is about constraint. What are the things that are most important to you right now? And how can you align your actions and your decisions towards those things that are most important to you right now? Because there is a cost to everything that we do. And there is a cost to you working in working and doing and doing. And you may not have to pay that cost right now. You may not have to pay that cost in a few years, but eventually that costs somebody is going to be knocking on your door. Being like it is time to pay. And the cost that you may have to pay later is probably going to be way greater than you want it to be is probably going to be something deeply connected to your life, your health and your wellbeing, your family, et cetera. What do you want to pay? Do you want to pay the cost of being uncomfortable right now? And half the people misunderstanding you, but do you want to pay with your life later?

So that is all for today. Love to know your thoughts. Come on over to Instagram, apply underscore scholars and let us know. I will talk to y'all next week. Bye for now.