Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / Why You'll Never Be Consistent (And What to Do Instead)

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Why You'll Never Be Consistent (And What to Do Instead) · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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Is consistency something that you keep trying for and just can never
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seem to figure out or get there?
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You can't attain consistency, and it's frustrating you, or maybe you've even
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just given up The problem is probably your definition of consistency.
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The way that you're picturing it in your mind is setting you up for failure.
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Hi, I'm Misty Winkler
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I'm a homeschool mom, homemaker, grandma, and author of the book
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Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done.
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I wanna help as many women as possible become competent,
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cheerful Christian homemakers.
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If that's you, you've come to the right spot, the Christian
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homemaking podcast, Simply Convivial
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Convivial means enjoying life together, and that's the kind of atmosphere
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that we want to create in our homes.
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I run Convivial Circle, a community helping women to excel at
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homemaking and do life cheerfully.
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And today, I wanted to share a clip with you from one of our weekly
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seminars in Convivial Circle.
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This month's monthly topic is consistency.
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And so in the kickoff seminar for the month, I talked about what consistency
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really means for us as women, homemakers, mothers, and wives in the home.
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Consistency does not mean living like a machine.
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And whenever we let machines inform our productivity analogies, we
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are going to feel broken because we're comparing ourselves to the
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wrong mental image, the wrong ideal
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Let me help you fix that picture in your head of what consistency is
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supposed to be like and how to make it more like a tree than like a machine.
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Grab a basket of laundry to fold and let's dig in
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Speaker 2: August is all about consistency, and we have to get
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straight what that really means.
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Because it's so easy when we are setting a goal to be more consistent, we just tell
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ourselves, "I should be more consistent."
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Then we start getting the default picture in our brain of what
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consistency looks like is really a machine-like consistency, right?
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A machine, a factory machine in, in manufacturing or something,
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is designed to give evenly spaced exact same results every time.
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And we live in a mechanical age, we've just been through 100 years of
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industrialization and mechanization and materialism, which teaches that the stuff
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you can see and touch is all that's real.
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There is no spiritual component to the world.
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All of this creates a set of beliefs and pictures of the universe where
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the ideal is machine, is machine-like.
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And we as humans should be striving to become more and more
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like machines, which is false.
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But we fall into this picture in ways we don't even recognize because
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it's just in the air that we breathe.
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It's in the books that we read or the TV shows that we watch.
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It's in our vocabulary and our analogies.
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And in that way, even the word consistency can pick up analogies of the machine
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And the solution isn't to throw out the
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word consistency.
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It's a good word, but it's a word that is multifaceted.
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It can mean many different things, and consistency for a machine
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is one thing, but consistency for a human being is another.
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And it's not like, well, machines are 100% consistent and humans are 80% consistent.
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The thing is, machines are consistent in this one way, and human beings
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are consistent in this other way.
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They have different natures.
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They're different things.
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And so consistency for each one is an entirely different thing
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so consistency for women in particular needs to not be, how am, how am I going
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to be the same day after day after day?
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Now, I'm also not myself super into making my plans according to my cycle, and I,
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I just can't keep track of all that.
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Like, I have not invested the time to figure all that out.
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But I do know the days where it's like, "And I need to go to bed today earlier
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than usual for the sake of everyone."
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Generally speaking, I can say, "Okay, well, now I know that tomorrow I'm
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gonna be a little bit out of commission.
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I'm gonna be more, like, just on the couch doing stuff from the couch."
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And then I know that that means that next week I'm probably gonna
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be, like, peak productivity.
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And so when I'm down with cramps, it's a time to plan the projects
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I'm gonna work on when I wake up wanting to take on the world.
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Like, oh, wait, that version of me is coming.
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It's not now.
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It's coming.
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I have a minute where I have a legitimate excuse to just sit.
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I'm gonna plan for that.
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I'm gonna read more.
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And we can fluctuate, and we canâ¦
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Like, we can enjoy the fact that we fluctuate, that we're not the same.
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We can enjoy that variety and use it well.
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We can steward that well so with consistency then, our goal shouldn't
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be figuring everything out so that we can do the exact same thing every day.
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And you can see if you think about just how not only do we ourselves personally
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operate on a cycle, but we also are put in a context where we are caretakers.
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We're caretakers of the home, which is inanimate, but we're
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caretakers of the people in our home.
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And so you have multiple people who are all different, doing different
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things and not predictable.
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And so if we get it into our head, and if we are operating as if it is our job
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to make ourselves and our life and our home consistent, then we are going to
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focus on controlling other people, because
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people are variables.
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And becauseâ¦
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Well, if consistency, sameness kind of consistency was our goal, we would have
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to try to orchestrate all of our other people to somehow be the same every day.
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And that's micromanaging and controlling and generally not helpful or good.
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And then you can see how, you know, someone who's really
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into that says, "Well, I can only have one or two children."
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It's like, because that's about as much variability as I can control.
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And then you have moms who have large families who realized after about baby
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three or four, control's not possible.
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We're not gonna try for that anymore.
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And sometimes you could dip off the end when, when you realize that you can't have
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that sameness consistency and you can't control everyone, then the temptation is
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to just give up and to not do any kind of management because the only kind of
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management we can think of is control But managing is providing every person in
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each situation what they need to thrive.
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Like, what is going to help them long term?
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That's what I'm going to give them.
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And we have the experience of being kind of multiple people in one.
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You know, there's multiple versions of us in a way that there's really not with men.
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We have all different kinds of mixes that we've experienced at different times,
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and so even if we aren't in a particular mix moment right now, we kinda, we know
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how to do it And so you kind of channel that, like, "Nope, this is hardcore mode.
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This is like brick wall mom moment."
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And then you're like, "Oh, this is soft mom moment.
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We need soft place to land."
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Like engage that mode.
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And so we adapt to what we see the particular need is right now
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to the situation, to the person, because our long-term vision is
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building up people who are capable, thriving, contributing adults.
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And we do have to keep that goal in mind.
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Our goal in our homemaking, in our mothering is not right now peace.
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Peace and comfort right now is a bad goal to control for, to work toward.
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That's short-term thinking that is going to not pan out very pretty long-term.
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Always discipline, hard work, good things come by discomfort and sacrifice and
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effort and inconvenience and prayerful wisdom being exercised in the moment
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for a long-term payoff that we're looking for, delayed gratification.
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But if we make our choices based on what's gonna get me the quickest payoff,
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what's gonna get me to peace and comfort the fastest then we're not gonna get
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long-term results that are worth having.
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So we have to keep the mission in mind.
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Women are just as mission-oriented as men, but we operate in a
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different way, and we operateâ¦
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on a different plane Our job is the people job.
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We're caretakers, connectors, culture makers, tradition makers, and that takes
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a different mode of being, which is why God created another kind of human being.
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There's not just one kind, there are two kinds of human beings, men and women.
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And both are necessary for the world to function, for societies
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to flourish, and for God's glory to be manifest in the world
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So when we think about consistency, we don't wanna think about sameness.
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As we, as homemakers, think about consistency, we wanna
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think about faithfulness.
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And this is where stability comes in, steadfastness.
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And so I think of this as like standing in one place and being rooted.
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You're rooted in God's word.
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You're rooted in a mission.
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You're standing firm so that you're not swayed by the
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situation, which is the wind.
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The wind that's going around you is not shaking your core.
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It's not toppling you over.
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It's not really moving you, actually.
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But of course, you're kind of swaying.
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It â¦ You are moving in one sense, in that top visible portion,
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it looks like you're moving.
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But your trunk is in one place.
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You're rooted in one place.
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You're not actually moving.
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No matter how much you're swaying, you're actually sticking with the core.
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The core is not moving, just the outward elements are moving.
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That counts as consistency, and we tend to point at all the moving branches and
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say, "I just want them all to be still."
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It's like, well, then nothing would be able to be happening in the world.
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There'd have to be no wind, no atmosphere, no anything, no life
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for the branches to be still.
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Every once in a while you might have a still moment, but overall, tree
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branches are gonna sway in the wind, and they're actually designed to do that.
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It's not a problem at all.
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We get weird hangups where we're like, "No, the ideal tree is perfectly still."
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Like, no.
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The ideal tree, it's doing what it's made to do there.
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It's in one place firmly planted, and the branches sway in the wind.
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That's actually what they're supposed to do And so as we sway in the wind
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of our day-to-day life, we're adapting and adjusting and giving each person
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what they need and rolling with the punches and applying our rooted,
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grounded mission in the world based on how the wind is blowing that day.
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But we're faithful.
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We're staying in one spot.
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We have one mission.
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We have one God that we are keeping our eyes on.
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And so everything else we can adapt to and work with, when we're all
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just working with it faithfully
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All kinds of things can derail the normal plan.
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And so when the normal routines get interrupted like that, get
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interrupted with real life, we cannot or should not tell ourselves
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this means I'm not consistent
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' cause it's not true.
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If your child wakes up with wet sheets on the bed, and so you give them a
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bath and you start the laundry, and that's not something that happens every
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single day, it's just happening in response to today, you are consistently
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serving your family and caring for your children according to their needs.
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You just have to pick things back up again, and you might
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adjust things when you do that.
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That is life, and that is stability.
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When, after a time off for whatever reason, you come back, you come back to
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putting your plan in place and working it with wisdom and engagement in your life.
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You're not trying to implement your plans or your systems or your schedule
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like a- a straight jacket that you're trying to suit yourself and everyone
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else into But you're using it and applying it with wisdom and attention
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Yes, Stacy says, "I often think that if it doesn't happen at the same time
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every day, then I'm not being consistent.
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But I can get up early to drop my boys off for a hike and come back home and make
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my bed and do my morning routine, or even sit and enjoy coffee before that too."
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Yeah.
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Like, you know what your morning routine is, and you know it happens in the
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morning, but today I had to be out of the house before that, which is not normal.
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That doesn't mean that I don't have to do the morning routine or that it â¦ Y-
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you're actually being consistent if you do it at a different time.
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That's more consistent because you're following through anyway.
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You're coming back to it anyway, not only doing it when circumstances are ideal.
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And same with the Bible reading as well.
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It's so easy to think like, "Well, this is my time.
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This is when and where, and it's all set up, and unless this happens,
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it's just not gonna happen at all
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That desire for it to be the same is actually what's preventing consistency.
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You say, "Well, this is consistency and I can't have it."
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It's like, yeah, you can't have sameness.
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That's not gonna happen.
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And you don't need it either.
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Consistency is coming back to do the most important things, following
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through when you're able, as soon as you're able, like, when it makes sense.
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It's doing it anyway in less than ideal circumstances.
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It doesn't really matter what the ideal time is.
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If you did it at a less than ideal time, you are being more consistent Because
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you're following through, you're sticking with it, you're putting first things first
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And that is going to give you more follow-through over time than trying to
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orchestrate ideal timing day over day.
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You don't need ideal timing.
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That's not a requirement for consistency.
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The requirement for consistency is coming back to follow through on
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what you need to follow through on
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A super helpful thing to continue to practice our
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consistency on is the daily card.
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We just finished a month of our daily card challenge, and if you keep
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practicing that with consistency, which is still the same as last month
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Not same as in every single day, right?
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But last month you completed the challenge if you made a card 20 days out of 31 days.
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That's consistent.
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Doing it 20 days out of 31 requires consistency.
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Same thing for August.
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Keep consistently making your daily card.
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Whether or not it happens at the ideal time, whether or not you have to remake
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it halfway through the day, consistently
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time after time, day over day, come back to the daily card.
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If you don't make one one day or two days or three days, come back to the
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daily card, and that's consistency
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so there at the end of this abridged version of the workshop, I talked about
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being consistent with the daily card.
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I have a free training called From Overwhelmed to Organized, the
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one practice that makes all the difference, and a little heads up,
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that one practice is the daily card.
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If you want to get more consistency in your life, if you wanna feel
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more organized without being overwhelmed and without trying to
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control your life and everyone in it, then this workshop is for you.
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It's totally free.
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Go to simplyconvivial.com/organized,
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simplyconvivial.com/organized
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to get this workshop for free
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And then repent, rejoice, repeat