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THIS is how I ended stress as a busy homeschooling mom · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

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You know, I wasted years measuring my days
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by how much of my written plan in my planner I had actually accomplished.
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How many boxes I checked, how much school we finished, whether or not the laundry
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was caught up, whatever that means.
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Whether or not I'd started dinner at 10:00 AM
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And do you know what was actually on my planner?
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A whole bunch of wishful thinking projects that I thought I ought to be doing
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or really ought to have already done
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And so whenever I looked around at my real life, it didn't match up.
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It didn't measure up
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to the plan that I had made or to the life I had really envisioned myself living.
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And even on days where I was getting a lot done, where I felt very
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productive, I would look around and there was always more to do.
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There was no such thing as getting ahead
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or even getting on top of anything
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And so it's no wonder that I felt overwhelmed and stressed out when I looked
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at the reality that was in my life and how far short it came from my imagined ideal
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Now, then there was a point where I decided to just forego the
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ideal and do the bare minimum and count it all as good enough.
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That also didn't work very well.
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It was not satisfying
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It wasn't responsible
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And that was not walking with Christ in my day-to-day life
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And yet, eventually I did realize not only that my stress was a product
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of the story I was telling myself in my head, but I also realized I could
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change that story to be more true
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More realistic?
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and therefore more encouraging.
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And when I did that, my stress went away and my productivity actually increased.
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So today I wanna share three ways that you can get rid of your stress response
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by telling yourself a more true story about your life so that you can walk in
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fellowship with God and your family and experience satisfaction at the end of
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a day because of a job well done, even if that job was not what you predicted
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it would be when you made your plan.
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And if this kind of practical Christian homemaking That focuses on faithfulness
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is what you're looking for, then hit that subscribe button.
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That's what I talk about here every week
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Now, grab a basket of laundry to fold, and let's talk about
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getting rid of your stress
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So the reality is that that stress response grows when I compare the day that
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I am actually having with an imaginary day I thought I was supposed to be having
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Often my plan for the day, my ideas of how the day is supposed to go, do
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not involve children interrupting me.
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Does not involve a child who needs extra math help or the interrupted reading
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It definitely does not involve anyone getting injured or sick,
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and yet those things happened in my real life all the time
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responding faithfully and wisely and well in the midst of a life
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that goes not according to plan is actually the whole point.
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That's
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That's maturity.
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That's taking responsibility.
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It's caretaking
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And so instead of seeing myself as a broken machine who's supposed to
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be continually chugging out products
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I can see that my job is to respond well to the life that's actually unfolding
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in front of me, whether or not I predicted that that's what would happen.
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And so instead of looking at everything that was happening to me
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and mentally and emotionally insisting upon what I wanted to have happen
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instead, I could just move forward and take care of the business at hand
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Now that doesn't mean that I'm just respondingâ¦
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Now that doesn't mean that I'm just Flying by the seat of my pants
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reacting to what's ever in front of me.
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Responsiveness is not the same as reactiveness, and the key difference
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between the two and the difference that makes one stressful and the other not is
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your priorities, and really knowing what your priorities are because one of our
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priorities is not finishing our checklist
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And I had three key priorities that I learned to put first and foremost
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in my responses so that I knew when I needed to stay on track or when
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I needed to be diverted to rep-
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to respond appropriately to the people whose needs I was supposed to be helping
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Even if that meant that our homeschool lesson didn't happen, that morning time
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was truncated, that we didn't finish the book or the lesson, that math
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took twice as long as I had predicted.
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That's all okay if these three priorities are in order
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The first priority is stay in fellowship Who cares if the math lesson gets done if
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we've just had an angry argument about it?
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That's not a win
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The visible output, the things that get checked off do not define success.
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What really matters as we are living together as a Christian family is
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repenting when we sin against one another and restoring fellowship
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Now, of course, fellowship with one another begins with fellowship with God.
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So time in the Word, time in prayer, these are what set the foundational base for the
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other relationships happening in the home.
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And then with those other relationships, it matters how we treat one another.
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It matters more how we treat one another than what gets done That
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doesn't mean that we don't worry about getting things done, but it means
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we take care of first things first.
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When we ask for forgiveness, when we sin against one another, which
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includes when mom sins against the kids, because that happens,
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and the kids know that it happens,
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And we should not have two sets of expectations, one for how kids behave
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and one for how adults behave All of us should ask for forgiveness when
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we sin against the other party, and then the other party receives that
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apology, offers forgiveness, and then you can move on You can get things
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done now that you are back on a team in fellowship working together instead
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of being antagonists to one another.
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Keeping fellowship first actually allows you to end up getting farther
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than you would if you prioritized getting the thing done no matter what
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Priority number two
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is being faithful in my duties.
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And oftentimes my duties are different than what I planned on paper.
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My paper tends to reflect my idealistic hopes and dreams for
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my life, but my duties and my responsibilities are about fulfilling
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the roles that I have been given
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Which means taking care of milk when it gets spilled without losing my cool.
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It means helping a set of siblings reconcile after
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they've started an argument.
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These are not things that I ever plan, but they are my duty as a mother
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And so my priority needs to be fulfilling my duties that are in front of me
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Which might be totally different than the plan I actually made for the day.
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The duty in front of me wins over the wishful thinking plan.
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That's my second priority.
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And having that priority in place allows me to take a deep breath, to let go of
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that wishful thinking set of expectations about my life and how I think it should
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go, which allows me to step out of overwhelm, to step out of stress, and
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calmly handle the life in front of me
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Wishful thinking planning is at the bottom of most of our overwhelm and most
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of our inability to switch over and just handle the real life in front of us.
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This is why I came up with the daily card method
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The daily card method is where we pick a top three for the day, not
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our full set of ideals and hopes and dreams for the day, but a top three.
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And then that list is also very flexible, and it can go out the window and be
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replaced by a new top three when the day goes haywire, when the kid vomits, when
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the call for a family emergency comes.
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We're not a slave to the expectations that we set at the beginning of the week.
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We are in a daily negotiation with identifying and working
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with the, the duties that we've actually been given each day.
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The daily card method is a way to walk in that reality without stress
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and without wishful thinking.
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I have a free workshop all about how to do this.
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It's called From Overwhelmed to Organized, and you can find it
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at simplyconvivial.com/organized,
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and that link is also in the description.
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But even disciplined self-management is not the final goal or the be-all, end-all.
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We're not trying to become efficient machines doing important things The
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third priority that we have to have in place in order to flexibly adapt and
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do well with the life that's in front of us is that we have to recognize
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that we are to abound in good works
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And so we are to be busy and pouring ourselves out and being productive,
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but just not in a way that prioritizes output, but rather prioritizes people.
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And people are unmanageable and unpredictable.
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They usually don't fit into our preconceived plans.
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But our job, especially as mothers, is to be responsive to
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the needs of the people around us.
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And so when you notice that moment to have the heart-to-heart conversation
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with a child, even if it means postponing bedtime, postponing
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dinner prep, not getting something on your list done, you take that.
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And then you don't beat yourself up for dinner being late or for
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not getting to sweeping the floors.
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You recognize you did the more important thing You helped mother,
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parent, educate, disciple your child.
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You took that opportunity and you made the most of it That matters so much
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more than having the floor mopped.
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It's not that we should never mop the floor, but we do need
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to have first things first.
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And when we put first things first and we don't sweat our checklist, we
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find we really do have enough time to keep things running functionally
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If I skip mopping on Tuesday because something actually more important came
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up, that doesn't mean I'm giving up on mopping or it's never gonna happen.
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It just might happen at a different time or a different
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day, and that's totally fine
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There are no bonus points
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or gold stars for accomplishing your checklist exactly when you
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put the tasks on particular days
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But the bonus as a mom is having teens and young adults that are productive members
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of society who text you encouraging quotes and funny things they saw in the day.
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That comes after a buildup of years, really decades, of putting in the
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time mothering and discipling them as a higher priority than accomplishing
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the plan that we laid out for things
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So the bottom line is that we can't judge our day or ourselves by whether
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or not the checklist that we made for the day actually happened, or what
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percentage of it happened in the day.
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We need to be asking, "Did I maintain fellowship with everyone today?
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Did I prioritize their needs and disciple my children today?"
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Did I prioritize the work that actually matters?
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Or did I put off the people
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in order to get things the way I wanted them to be
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A day can be well done even with unfinished work The question
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is not did I finish everything.
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The question is did I stay in fellowship with God and my husband and my children?
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Did I exercise wisdom and faithfulness?
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Did I attend to the people given to me and pour into them?
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When I failed, did I repent and rejoice and repeat?
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Your checklists just can't tell that whole story of the day
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And ending the stress response about how much of that checklist happens doesn't
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come when we finally figure out how to do it all, and it doesn't even come
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just by making that checklist shorter.
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We get rid of that stress response and the feeling of overwhelm when
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we rightly orient ourselves to our actual responsibilities and
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pay attention to what matters
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and do our duties, complete our housework in keeping with our actual priorities and
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not disordering those responsibilities
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now, if you need a simple way to practice figuring out your priorities
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and what really matters, then be sure to register for that free workshop
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from Overwhelmed to Organized.
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You can find that at simplyconvivial.com/organized.
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And remember, no matter what, to repent, rejoice, repeat