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When You Feel Behind by Jan L. Burt

 You've got a sink full of dishes, a hamper overflowing with dirty laundry, no plan for tonight's dinner, the car is out of gas, and you forgot to take the trash to the curb for pickup.


This is real life.

And real life doesn't slow down for homeschool families. If anything, it compounds. Because when you and your kids are home all day, there are... MORE dishes in the sink, MORE meals to make, and MORE trash being generated every single day.


If you're an overwhelmed mom, can I just say that I see you, I get you, and you are not a "bad" mom because you're an overwhelmed one.

(Seriously - you're not a bad mom because you are experiencing overwhelm. I said it twice because somebody needs to hear it twice!)








Here are three tips for when you feel behind:

  1. Don't raise your voice ... at yourself, internally. And don't grumble at yourself under your breath. It won't help anything, it won't change anything, and it will likely leave you feeling more overwhelmed, which can lead to feeling defeated - and that is simply not the head space you need to be living in when you already feel behind.
  2. Change some of the expectations you have of yourself (and maybe of your children) to goals. Goals aren't personal; expectations are very personal. Goals can be adjusted, shifted, altered, moved down the road, bumped to a different date on the calendar; expectations don't bend or flex or shift well. Simply changing the way you think about the things in your life that are overwhelming can change your entire mood. Expectations damage relationships when they aren't met, while goals are easy to adjust and the relationship doesn't necessarily suffer. 
  3. Set a timer and work on the are where you feel the most behind for an exact amount of time. Don't get distracted, don't bounce around working on other things, just stay focused, without touching your phone (tell yourself the phone is already in use as your timer and it's not able to be used for anything else right now). If the task is not completed - or isn't at least partially completed to the point that it is no longer overwhelming you - consider resetting the timer for a few more minutes and work diligently at clearing away that task in order to clear away the overwhelm. 

As a mom who homeschooled all five of her children for 25 years, all the way through high school, I understand feeling behind and living in a state of overwhelm. And my hope is that I can be supportive, helpful and encouraging to other women who feel overwhelmed. 
Perhaps these 3 tips will do that for you today.

In the near future, I'll be kicking off a new blog called The Tidy Home Project where I will share a whole lot of encouragement and tips and support for overwhelmed moms, along with plenty of tips for a tidy, organized home... but all my tips will be based on living a grace-filled, grace-paced life. Progress over perfection. Peace over striving. Grace over all. 

And remember, you are doing a good job. In case you haven't heard that in a while, I wanted to say it.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today.
~ Jan 


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