This is a big week for me. By next weekend, I will officially be Dr. Margie Johnson! My manuscript has been officially approved and I will defend my dissertation this week. I can hardly believe it! I started my masters degree about seven years ago and have been in school ever since. (Yes, that is a VERY long time.) During the past seven years, I also did a two-year intense “Master Teacher” program based on Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy, my family relocated from central Florida to Atlanta, I took on a new job leading a middle school, we made it through COVID-19, I started writing a book (or two), I lost my dad to Parkinson’s disease, my older two kids graduated from high school and moved out and on to college and adulthood, and my “baby” is now a freshman in high school. These last seven years were not the most convenient time to go back to school for a masters and a PhD…and yet, here we are!

So today I sit in reflection and am considering how I was able to do something so “big”, despite the many obstacles along the way. The truth is, I just did the thing. I did one reading assignment, one class, one paper, one task at a time. Some assignments were simple, some were significant and difficult. There were many times I would confess to my husband or sister (who was also working on her PhD, now Dr. Audrey Ayers!) “I don’t even know how I thought I could do this. Who do I think I am?” Yet somehow, one step at a time, I was able to move through it and get to the end of this particular road.

I was listening to a podcast this morning (Negotiate Anything by Kwame Christian, Esq.) and Jefferson Rogers, the guest on the show, said, “what truly separates the greats and the people that accomplish incredible things are the people that can apply these simple concepts, consistently, for a long period of time…that turns into a life of productivity and progress and growth and accomplishing incredible things.” I marked that portion of the podcast in the moment, knowing I wanted to come back to it later. This idea resonated within me as I thought of my own journey to a PhD. It also reminded me of one of my favorite books of all time, “The Slight Edge”. In this book, Olson talks about the slight edge that tips the scales through continued intentional work past the moment of perceived success. Once we feel we’ve “arrived” often times people begin to back off the pursuit of a goal and/or the behaviors that were helping them gain ground toward the completion of that goal. It’s hard to stick with something when the momentum is gone!

While it is easy to be overwhelmed at the mountainous goal setting that one can do as we approach a new year or new phase of life, we must remember that accomplishing a goal is made up of singular acts that are done with intention, consistently over a period of time (usually longer than you think!). Jon Acuff just wrote “All It Takes Is A Goal” and it was a fantastic, easy read about how to change the way we look at our pursuit of a goal. If you haven’t read that yet, I highly recommend it. (He also has a podcast that is easy to listen to!)

Hopefully these few words I’m sharing with you today can serve as a little boost of encouragement to stay with your goal. Remain consistent in the little things you are doing, knowing that they will add up over time. These behaviors can become habits that help create new ways of being and doing! Charlotte Mason talks about habits in terms of them being the thing that can “lift us up above our nature”. I don’t know about you, but I have to lean into those things that help lift me above my nature! Left to my own…well…let’s just say I wouldn’t have finished my PhD.