When Plans Don’t Go According to Plan

And usually three weeks later our plans rub up against real life. And real life includes kids getting sick; and you getting a migraine; something difficult happening in your life. And then just regular, everyday life. Food examples might be, let’s say you wanted to significantly decrease or completely get rid of sugar. And you decide I’m going to do that. It’s going to be great. And you make it for two weeks, but on the third week, it’s your period. Or your mother-in-law texts you something that’s kind of annoying to you.

Or your husband gets some bad news at work, right. These are just totally normal life things that then make it difficult to stay with whatever resolution that we have. And even though I think a lot of us know that this is something that happens kind of a phenomenon of, sticking with your resolutions are not in January. I think it catches us off guard in September and then we just feel ashamed. How many of you right now are just feeling ashamed that things are not going the way that you had planned, the way that you wanted them to. How many of you feel behind.

How many of you think maybe you made a mistake? In any of the plans that you made. And I just want to say that it is totally normal. That life happens and clashes with our fantasies, our dreams. And then how we handle that makes a huge difference for how we’re going to enjoy the rest of the year. So we make plans and they’re absolutely never completely the same plans that God makes. So I want you first to just know, oh, when we make plans, we are literally just guessing. We’re just guessing. We are scientists making a hypothesis. I think that maybe my family should have rhythms like this and meal planning like this and school that looks like this.

Just guessing. And then it is our job to receive lake Mary to receive whatever it is that God has for us. He says, Hey, despite your plans, my sweet daughter, this is the day that you’re going to have. And when we are clinging to our own plans. When we think that the plans that we made were the air quotes, “right plans” and it’s not going the way that we thought. We get to decide how we treat ourselves. We get to decide how we want to show up for me. I’ll tell you my goal is always to pray. So if I think I’m going to do one thing. And then the day starts going awry. will take a couple minutes and sit with the Lord and go, okay, the state is going to be different. How do you want me to show up?

He has the perfect day laid out for you. But if you are resistant and you hear me say that word all the time on this podcast. If you are in resistance to what’s happening and you’re clinging to your plans and you’re trying to drag it with you. You’re going to feel terrible. So understand that. Things not going according to your plan does not mean that you are bad. That’s what we’re making it mean: I’m a bad mom, I’m bad at planning, I can’t get anything together. And it’s just not true. You are a human who’s making guesses about what’s going to happen. And then for sure, it’s never going to go completely according to your guests and then how do you want to pivot? How do you want to show up? How do you want to receive it?

I hope all of us want to say yes, Lord. I am your servant. I am here. I will do this for you. And we’ve also talked about the concept of just a resume. Where we don’t have a lot of drama about it. We don’t have a big emotional fit about things, not going the way that we want. We just get back to living. We get back to being present to what’s in front of us and loving the people that God puts in our path. But frustration and resistance and overwhelm and guilt steal so much of our energy. So, if you are feeling behind or that your plans are not going the way that you thought that they were just want to say welcome to the club of moms. Most of us are feeling like that in some way.

What I am trying to do, though it’s just go: this is so great; this is the best news; I made a guess and I got some data. And now, how am I going to change things? One of the things that was surprising to me, Is that it changed what we were doing for school this year. And I basically do two blocks of three hours with five kids and afterwards I am so tired. And that is different.

So I had other kids come to my house and I’m schooling them. And all the kids are between nine and eleven. And so when I was schooling my own kids, I would just do it all throughout the day and check in with them. Hey, here’s your thing? Do this thing. But this I’m like a teacher and I’m on and I’m trying to be funny and interesting and it really surprised me that at the end of that three hours, I was so tired cause I thought, I would take a small break and then work or clean or do productive things and I feel pretty white.

And it’s not even a bad thing, but it’s something that I didn’t account for. And now I’m realizing, oh, okay. I have to kind of move things around and move might change my expectations because I’m going to be so tired on those two days. That is what it looks like to just receive what is, instead of fighting it, instead of clean to the schedule that I made, instead of beating myself up and saying, hey girl, you just need to work harder suck it up, get things done. Cause I could have come with that energy. Lot of you are doing that to yourself.

So I want you to, just to recognize that you made a bunch of plans for September as the seasons change as school changes things just do change in September. You made some guesses and then they rubbed up against the reality of life. And now it is time to tweak them. We don’t have to throw them out. You weren’t completely wrong. But we do need to tweak them and that isn’t a problem. So at the end of this week, over this weekend I want you to look back at September and I want you to ask yourself what worked. Schooling the kids. Working really well. I really liked the curriculum that I’ve chosen and the rhythm of it. My seven-year-old is going to school, that is working really well.

And then ask yourself what isn’t working. So for me, I’m just very tired after those three hours, and I’ve got to figure out a better way to recover. The second thing is I have to communicate to my husband more about lunches for my seven year old, who’s going to school. Because he’s kind of the one that gets grocery shopping. And they’re just going a couple of times where he ran out of the things that we’ve been making for him for lunch. And I didn’t communicate that. So I’ve got to work on that.

And I thought that I was going to be waking up at 5:30, but I’m really consistently waking up at 6 or 6:30 and so I needed to decide if I wanted to coach myself into waking up earlier. Or do I want to sleep a little bit more? That might make sense for me in the season. But then I have to kind of push some of the things later. So, this is just how you can talk to yourself about it. Not thinking that you’re broken or bad or something’s wrong with you. But just being open and curious and prayerful. Lord, what do you want me to put my focus on what is important to you? I’ll tell you almost always, he’s going to say you’re okay. I love you. I’m with you. You can handle this.

And some versions don’t worry so much. And do things with love. This is almost always what we hear. Because that’s who he is. He doesn’t want us to worry. He wants us to show up with love. So take a deep breath. You are a good mom. We’re not screwing things up. It is not over. We’re supposed to tweak our plans. Every week is not going to be the same. And even in that we can plan for, okay. We have some great weeks and then we have some harder weeks. I wanna tell all of you right now your kids are gonna get sick over the winter. How are you going to handle that? What’s the plan for those days? How are you going to treat yourself? God wants you to be at peace in your own life. I am resistant, not filled with shame and guilt and pressure.

And I want you to be the kind of friend that shares this with your friends, right? Be the one who says isn’t it funny that September is kind of like January and by the end of it. We feel like we’ve totally screwed it up. What an amazing conversation you could have around that, supporting each other and loving each other. Because your friend thinks you’re doing a good job. Your friend sees the goodness in you and you see the goodness in her.

I want us to be women like that. Women who are encouraging. I think so often we kind of smile and giggle a little bit and are like, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. You know, it’s hard being a mom we’re doing it. We kind of just gloss over it instead of sitting with it and saying, yeah. We’re adjusting and adjusting things is challenging. So this weekend, I want you to ask yourself, what’s working and what needs work? Make some tweaks. And that is just your new guests for how you want to live in the fall, it’s just new guests.

And you can review it every week or every two weeks or every month. Whatever cadence makes sense to you, but this I think is how we get better at being moms and homemakers and enjoying the experience of our life. It’s not making sparkly, perfect plans and then beating ourselves up when it doesn’t go that way. I think it’s making plans and then continuing to take them to the Lord and tweaking them based on what actually happens in our lives.

All right my friends. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.