Overcome overwhelm by dropping perfectionism, not responsibilities. Learn how three moms found confidence and peace through small, consistent steps at home.
Have you ever looked around the house, noticing how many things need to be done? There are usually so many things we ought to do that we feel overwhelmed with the options and the demands. Then we end up doing none of them.
If you frequently feel stressed and frazzled, it might not be because there’s too much to do. The solution might not be cutting back, even if you’re always feeling one step behind, dropping balls left and right.
It could be perfectionism you need to drop, not responsibilities or commitments.
If we beat perfectionism and reject overwhelm, we can handle our housework and mothering in a way that honors God.
Today I want to share the stories of three moms who have learned how to manage life capably, confidently, and cheerfully.
Recovering from Postpartum Chaos
When Naomi Marks joined Convivial Circle, her biggest ambition was simply to not have Cheerios on the floor all the time.
With seven kids and an eighth on the way, everything felt like a disaster. You'll totally relate as you listen to her story -
For the first part of their marriage, Naomi’s family moved about once a year while also adding babies on the regular. No wonder it felt hard.
The first and most important shift Naomi made was to change the way she thought and talked about her life and her duties.
“Change the story you’re telling yourself in your head.”
Instead of thinking or saying, “My kids are just trying to make my life harder,” she reminded herself that the job of a mom is caring for children. Children need care, and that’s why she’s there.
She identified another wrong story she’d fall into. She realized she was thinking of her home as a doll house. She wanted to be able to arrange the things and the people and have them stay put.
Of course children AND their things don’t stay put, so not only is there work to do, there’s an accompanying sense of failure and frustration. However, erasing the wrong story – not the work – is the key to finding relief for discouragement.
Overwhelm, Naomi discovered, is a feeling and a choice.
“I can choose to not feel overwhelmed and I can choose a different story. But this life is what God gave me, so I must be able to do it in Him.”
One of the first baby steps Naomi took was building the habit of never going to bed with dishes in the sink. This change alone made her feel more on top of her life and home. From there, she pulled up out of a negative spiral into a positive spiral as she recognized she could make use of five minutes here and there to accomplish significant progress.
Naomi began the transformation of her attitude and the story in her head by writing alignment cards and plastering them all over around her desk and kitchen. An alignment card is a post it or index card with a written verse, motto, or quote meant to be read, reviewed, repeated over and over again to replace lies with truth in our thoughts.
Some of Naomi’s favorite cards are:
“I have enough time to do the will of God”
“Be an observer and experimenter, not an Eeyore”
She also adopted the motto “Just get up and make dinner.” After all, she realized, I can always do that to stop sitting morosely thinking about how hard everything is. Getting up and doing something, even something small and basic, helped her climb out of her discouragement.
By doing 15 minutes of organizing at a time, 20 times a month, Naomi actually got ahead of housekeeping in a way she never had before when she thought of it as a single, all-encompassing project.
Every drawer, every closet, every room has been gone through in just half a year.
Going through everything, cleaning and organizing, in 15 minute chunks here and there was completely painless, she says, even while homeschooling, having babies, and being a pastor’s wife.
Learning to Be Consistent in Small Things
Clarissa has been married for 14 years to her husband Mark. She’s a homeschooling mom to 4 kiddos, and she also enjoys reading, traveling, and gardening. Clarissa is now a recovering perfectionist. Watch her story here -
She’d see huge projects like “clean the garage,” know she couldn’t get it done in a day, and so never do anything at all about it. This approach is perfectionism, and perfectionism brings overwhelm. It also makes life chaotic and stressful.
Clarissa admitted her unrealistic expectations that she could do everything on her list, that she could do more in a day than is possible, and keep her house super-clean all the time. Of course, she never did. On top of unrealistic goals, however, she also realized unrealistic her time management was.
I asked her what made the most difference for her in overcoming her feeling overwhelmed and frazzled.
“I would say baby steps, learning how to break things down into smaller, manageable pieces with the family and homeschooling. Little things like a 15 minute tidy or EHAP do add up. We do now have 15 minute tidies after lunch and after dinner. It’s made the biggest difference in my housekeeping.”
Before doing Simplified Organization Community Coaching, Clarissa would think that on Saturday morning they’d clean everything so they could then not do anything during the week or at least just a bare minimum during the week.
Now, instead, she starts to do just the little baby steps, and it would keep her from getting overwhelmed because she could find 15 minutes to pick things up with the kids when she couldn’t get two hours to clean on Saturday morning.
Even with her garage, she’s now tackling it fifteen minutes at a time as she can, and seeing significant progress.
Need a home makeover yourself?
Start with the first step: Organize Your Attitude -
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