I read a meme on Instagram today, ‘if you fail to prepare you prepare to fail’. You may have seen that one, but it was interesting to me.
Preparation.
I thought, ‘Well, why didn’t someone tell me that years ago?’ I need to prepare for things coming in life. Instead, my motherhood started off with years of frustration and regret. That’s why I am writing this series.
The Preparation SERIES
I’m Not Prepared! – Get Prepared.
Preparation Comes in Bits (this is where you are)
Preparation Comes by Consistency
Preparation on Purpose + Resource List
Let’s not blame it on ‘I didn’t know’. Ignorance only goes so far, especially in the realm of motherhood. We can’t live our whole lives saying that.
Is that the reason why you gained weight because you were eating too much or didn’t know those foods weren’t healthy? Is that the reason why you never finished college or went to college for the wrong career, because you didn’t know that you wouldn’t like it or that you had accumulated the wrong type of credits? Is that the reason why you treated your parents or spouse the way you did, because you didn’t know they didn’t know, etc. etc.?
You know what, there has to be a time when we fess up and admit that we are partly to blame.
Life is a story of preparedness. And unfortunately, the story starts before we take our first breath. We are just thrown into the mix. If they weren’t prepared and ride on the ‘I didn’t know’, ‘It’ll work it’s way out’, they guess what? We’re up a creek without a paddle. Isn’t that how it seems when you aren’t prepared. You don’t have the tools, resources, or knowledge for crying out loud!
How do you do this when you are trying to find out how to do it? That’s what you’ve been dealt. Now it’s up to us, instead of passing that same mindset on to our kids, we moms in particular need to start somewhere. We gotta find out while doing it. We have to do our own due-diligence about motherhood, cooking, cleaning, dealing with schedules, handling our children and teaching them the lessons of preparedness.
Let’s start this journey together. For me, it’s been a five year (yes, 5!) process of learning how to do these things, basic (very basic) things. I’m making a few posts to share a few things I’ve learned because I hate to think that there is someone out there that like me wanted to do more, to get on the boat, not be dragged by it. And if you like these posts I’m very open to doing more.
Here are the posts so far (so you can recap):
Today I’d like to talk about the mindset behind being prepared. If you don’t get this part down the rest is literally washed out to sea. As life goes on we tend to revisit things that once we thought we were ready for and perhaps wanted to do, but we let it get swept out into the ocean of ideas and desires.
Only when we are heartfelt ready, and make space in our lives and minds to grasp the once-long-ago notion that we thought we were ready for. It is only now, that life has gone on and rotated and flipped – now we are ready.
Are you ready for changing your mindset about your present situation and about what your future can be? You don’t have to live the life of ‘I was never told’, ‘This is just the way my life is.’, ‘I’ll never catch up’.
Here’s the first mindset change. Grasp it.
Preparation comes in bits.
This is probably the hardest thing for me to deal with in the whole realm of changing from unprepared to prepared. Life doesn’t just fall together like pouring milk into your bowl of life and you have breakfast. It’s not like you need to add one thing.
If you are this person, you are mixed up, running after everything. From health and hygiene to clothes and cooking. Perhaps even your career or relationships are steps behind because you don’t know. You try to get one thing going then everything else falls. Or you get a few things on track and something happens and you are back where you started. Maybe you don’t have the right type of clothes for your family, you are missing furniture, kitchen tools, you have no idea when, where or why to do things. Life is crazy. But we have to take them in bits.
Bits of what? Tasks.
With each thing that needs to be done, there are parts that add up and for whatever reason, I never realized this!
Folding clothes daily, just 15 minutes and it will eventually land you ahead of the pile. Dealing with the mail everyday for 3 minutes keeps piles of paperwork away. I’ve been dealing with dishes in my kitchen. I didn’t see that when I didn’t clean up right after dinner (which would take me no more than 15 minutes) keeps my kitchen from being a mess. I mean piles and piles that take an hour and a half to clear. Just do the bits daily.
I guess the name of the game is CONSISTENCY. Ah Ha!
Pushing ourselves just to do that one step will start a better cycle. All the bits creating a well-oiled machine. Together, the bits equal confidence, clarity, and hope that the next obstacle can be solved. Not all at once but in bits.
Comment
Comments are closed.