Thriving In Motherhood Podcast | Productivity, Planning, Family Systems, Time Management, Survival Mode, Mental Health, Vision

Are you a busy mom struggling with burnout? It can be tough to find time to take a real break when your days are full with the good things of running a home and nurturing your family. That's why I'm excited to share with you a simple, yet powerful tool that can help you end your day on a positive note and prioritize your well-being. In this episode, I'll be discussing four questions from the Thriving in Motherhood Journal that will help you end your day from a place of feeling accomplished and energized about your day so that you can be ready to get up and do it again tomorrow. The four questions the journal asks are: How have I seen the hand of the Lord in my life? What were my big wins today? What was a magic moment today? What am I grateful for today? Answering each of these questions leaves me feeling great about my day! I especially love considering how I've seen the hand of the Lord in my life that day. As I've been reading the New Testament about the life of Jesus Christ, I've realized the end result of all his miracles, healings, and teachings is that he gave people hope. When I reflect each day on how God has helped me, I begin to see the endless tender mercies and miracles in my own life. This then leads me to having more peace and calm as I navigate my days in the moment. If you're looking for a way to incorporate the habit of journaling into your days and end your day on a positive note, tune into this episode to learn more about how the Thriving in Motherhood Journal can help you with all of that.

In this week's episode, we sit down with Autumn Kern, a homeschooling mother of three children, to explore the idea of bringing truth, goodness, and beauty into our homes and families. Autumn shares her philosophy behind a classical Charlotte Mason education and how it can help us cultivate these values in ourselves and our children. We also get to hear some of Autumn's defining moments in her motherhood journey and the lessons she's learned along the way. Whether you're a homeschooling mom yourself or simply interested in the power of truth, goodness, and beauty, this interview is sure to inspire and uplift you.

As a homeschooling mom of pre-K, 1st-grade, and 3rd-grade kids, I've tested out a variety of resources and materials over the years. So, if you're a fellow homeschooling parent looking for inspiration, you're in the right place! Here's a list of some of our tried and true homeschooling resources: Rightstart Math All About Reading Story of the World books and activity books Writing with Ease First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Letter Stories Ambleside Online Kindle In this week's episode, I'll be taking you on a virtual tour of our homeschooling setup for this year. During this walkthrough, I'll show you the tried-and-true tools we'll be using to teach a range of subjects, including math, reading, history, and more. By the end of the video, you'll have a clear understanding of our homeschooling curriculum for the year and, hopefully, some helpful insights that you can apply to your own homeschooling journey.

In this week's episode, I'm sharing the story of how I went from waffling between feeling bored and overwhelmed to confidently navigating my days and enjoying motherhood by creating the Thriving in Motherhood Planner. During my first two years of motherhood, I felt completely lost and bored and struggled to make it through each day as I felt guilty for all the things I should be doing but wasn't. I had also reached the place of desperate determination to figure out who I was and what motherhood would look like for my family and me. I decided the next logical step was to get a planner. In college, I lived in my Franklin Covey two-pages-a-day planner to manage my classes, the job that paid my way through, and our newlywed days of marriage. But when I became a mom, I hardly used it. Sometimes I would sit down and declare, "Today is the day I will get organized and start planning again!" But it was so discouraging to quickly see those plans derailed because of a baby's nap going too long or short. Even worse were the days when I had nothing to write down, and I'd wonder what the point of planning was. So then I tried writing to-do lists, but I would feel completely overwhelmed because it never ended, and I would run myself into the ground trying to get things checked off my ever-growing list. But as I lay in bed during my four-month recovery from an illness I contracted at the hospital when delivering my second child, I knew I needed a way to capture all the ideas I had of things I wanted to do for our family or with our kids. I needed a place that would help me discover who I was and what I wanted and actually make progress on those things in the small pockets of time I had through the day. I knew that even with my young family, there WAS time, I just spent those precious moments of independent play or surprise naps wandering around the house or checking my phone, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and then the moment had passed. And then there were all the household management things that did need to be organized. For example, what we were having for dinner each night, so I wasn't panicking with the kids when we were all starving. Random phone numbers for returning calls about paying bills, making doctor's appointments, or talking with insurance companies. I was jotting down notes about whatever was filling my brain so I could stop thinking about it and be present with my kids. I am grateful for the hours I spent listening to podcasts while doing laundry in those early years. A particular favorite was Michael Hyatt's (now retired) show This is Your Life, where he taught business executives goal-setting and productivity principles. With the well of research about how our brains actually manage ideas and get things done and not finding a single planner out there that was truly designed for the real life of motherhood - lots of interruptions, stopping and starting, and inconsistent schedules - I decided to grab a notebook and design one for myself. First, I needed a home for my thoughts. A place for ideas and dreams I didn't want to commit to, but I didn't want to forget. A place to create a vision for my year. A place to write out my goals and projects that would make my vision for the year. Then I needed a system that would allow me to easily revisit those ideas, visions, projects, and goals regularly and decide what was most important to focus on now and what to not think about for a while longer so that I could quiet the never-ending to-do lists and be present with my kids. I needed a system that broke down those big ideas into realistic baby steps I could take each week to make things happen in small pockets of time that didn't need to be rewritten or rescheduled because of the unpredictability of life with children so I wouldn't get discouraged and give up. I needed a system with built-in check-ins to help me evaluate what season of life I was in and what needed to have my attention so that I wouldn't feel so overwhelmed by trying to do it all. I could trust that I could pick up wherever I left off if we ended up in survival circumstances. I needed a system that built in celebrating and a way to see that I was making progress so that I could build energy and momentum to move my life forward. I spent three years creating that perfect system in the quiet moments of my day, figuring out how to organize my budding vision for motherhood and make it a reality. And that system is now the Thriving in Motherhood Planner. For all the details, check out this week's episode of the podcast - or watch the video version on youtube (and subscribe to get the video every week!)

This week on the podcast, we are talking about how to design your homeschool room (well, really, any room in the house, but I'm using our homeschool space as the example). Now, this is not going to be how to make it really beautiful - yet - I'm going to talk functional. If you remember, we talked a few weeks ago about the four phases of designing a home that supports you, and I'm in step 3 in our homeschool space. 3 Steps to Design A Functional [Homeschool] Space Decide what you want to do for your homeschool and the best space in your home to do it. Remove everything that doesn't belong - leave only necessary curriculum, books, and materials Make what you do need easy to access and store items where you will use it We do a classical Charlotte Mason education and school in a few places around the house: around the kitchen table, in the kids' bedrooms (for one on one work with mom), and in our school room. I used to keep ALL of our homeschool materials in the school room (we are talking 6 years worth now), but I found that it was waaaay too hard to get to the things we needed each day. It was like having to decide over and over again what we wanted to do and when we wanted to do it. Now in our school room, each child has a shelf on it with all of their materials they use in that room: a box with two pencils, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener so that they are always able to write; a basket with their handcraft materials (currently knitting); and a few binders to organize all of their subjects. We have a shelf with resources for family subjects (nature study, history, Spanish and French, drawing, and poetry) and a globe. A table and nugget couch complete that space where we read, narrate, and write. Upstairs I keep their math and reading in our linen closet (above the towels and medicine), so it is easy to access for their independent work. Listen in as I pull back the curtains about what we're doing and how we got there to hopefully give you some ideas about how to set up any room in your house.

I love making big goals - and you've seen me do some of them here with things like the Soaring Mothers Summit. But this year, I wanted to try something that I read about years ago in Atomic Habits: making 1% Better Changes. Each month of the year, I'm picking one tiny thing to focus on, and so far, the impact has far exceeded my homes. When I'm deciding on what to focus on each month, I start with this question that is found in the quarterly review pages of the Thriving in Motherhood Planner: "What is the ONE thing that will make the biggest difference in all areas of my life?" It allows me to get honest with myself about what my current habits are and where I would like to make things better for myself. What I love about this question is that whatever season of motherhood you're in - even the super hard ones - you can find things to make 1% better instead of staying stuck and feeling like a victim. Here are the changes I've made so far in quarter one of 2023: January: Charge my phone away from my bed at night. February: Daily exercise (with a low bar of what counts) March: Track our spending in a spreadsheet The changes are simple, but by moving my phone away from my bed at night, I not only went to sleep earlier, but I also started off the day by doing all the things that matter to me before picking up my phone. Daily exercise for me is crucial to decreasing pain, and I've made a lot of improvements in that area. Tracking our spending turned into bigger conversations about how much we've saved and want to save for our kid's college, retirement and how we can tackle our mortgage more quickly. For more details of why I'm focusing on little things and the results I'm seeing, listen to this week's episode of the podcast!

For the last few weeks, I had the experience of feeling like I was running in circles without a clear direction - endlessly researching but not sure what to do next. I told myself that I had gotten to the end of the road on my vision. In reality, things weren't that dire - I just forgot what phase I was in and how to keep myself anchored. There are three phases to creating and living out your vision for the year: Caterpillar: exploring and building systems to support bringing more of what you want into your life. Cocoon: simplifying and building systems to support bringing more of what you want into your life. Butterfly: Doing more of what you want in your everyday life. The research phase is supposed to be a fun season of exploring. I had lost my way a bit, NOT because I was spending hours learning without creating, but because I had pushed out the daily practices that anchor me to God and creating my life with Him. Once I put my morning routine where I connect with God at the top of my list, it brought joy back into the caterpillar phase for me. I use my morning routine to create my life with God, so I can be anchored in whatever phase of life I'm in. For me, this looks like starting by writing the thoughts of the last 24 hours in a lined journal (this is the one I use). Next, I pull out my Thriving in Motherhood Journal and answer the questions in there. I also spend time reading my scriptures and writing down verses that stand out to me and praying. When I keep this routine in place, I feel directed in the things I am doing each day and have ideas and inspiration about where to spend my time and energy. I better understand HOW to do the things I feel I need to do. I gain clarity and see things with truth. If you've found yourself feeling a bit lost lately, tune into this week's episode, where I'm sharing more about why I was experiencing the feeling of spinning in circles and more about what to do about it.

I recently listened to a group of mothers share their feelings of overwhelm, and I absolutely identified with their thoughts. The things that they found overwhelming fell into three levels of overwhelm: Getting Things Done Our Homes and Keeping People Alive Our Thoughts When we feel overwhelmed, it can be hard to slow down and identify what is really causing our stress. Over the years, as I've peeled back the layer, I've realized that there were lots of different skill sets that I needed to develop. All three of these can come with a pretty steep learning curve (at least it was for me) when you have a child. I've learned over the years that when I find myself struggling to slow down and look at how I'm doing with my foundation, the three pillars of thriving. First, Vision. Do I have clarity about where I actually want to go next and what my next baby steps are? If not, I need to slow down and prayerfully consider what is next with God and then start moving in a clear direction. Second, Structure. What can I do to simplify the things that are overwhelming me right now? What is one tiny system or habit we can put in place to make things a little bit better? Third, Soul. What are my thoughts? Are they true or a cognitive distortion? Have I prayed for a paradigm shift to see things differently? So often, when I am overwhelmed, it is easy to fall into feeling like a victim. What I love about focusing on the three pillars of thriving is that it puts me back in my circle of influence and gets me to the root of the problem. In this week's episode, I'm sharing what we can do to address each of these areas of overwhelm and tips on how to strengthen your pillars.

Have you had the experience of committing to a hard goal but found yourself miserable along the way? Arielle shared with me that she had made it through her first semester of grad school as a mom with four young kids, but it was a miserable experience. Instead of seeing it as a failure, I shared the 5-Step Path From Curious To Committed. 5 Step Path From Curious To Committed: Curious - Identify what you would like to try or start (like grad school or a podcast). Consistent - Set a timeframe to try (podcast for one year or do a semester of grad school). Clarity - Come back to the drawing board and see how this thing fits in your life. Look at the data (podcasting is great, and I have tons of ideas to keep going; grad school was incredibly hard on my family - how big is my why?). Confidence - Now, you can either move forward or let go. Committed - Your goals can now be more specific as you are committed to the long-term process and what really matters in that field (a certain number of downloads, focus on metrics that matter in grad school). As I discussed this path with Arielle, we determined she was on step three. It is time for her to evaluate the date and decide if she wants to continue with grad school. But just because something feels really hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. As Andrew and I have reminded ourselves many times during difficult seasons for our family, hard doesn't mean wrong. However, it has served as a signal for us to pause and take stock of what really matters to us AND how we are thinking about our circumstances. So far, quitting in the middle of misery hasn't been the right answer, but getting clear on what is in our circle of influence to make things better quickly becomes a top priority. Listen to this week's episode for more thoughts on this process and to find out what step you might be on with your goals.

Today I'm sharing how I involve the kids in cleaning our home - how we do it, why we do it, and what we use. We are going beyond picking up or tidying and addressing things like scrubbing toilets and mopping floors. (My kids are ages 9, 7, 5, and 2.5 for reference, but this is something I've done with them since they were babies) Here are the four phases of getting kids to clean at home that we use: Watch me do it. Do it with me. Do it with me watching you. Do it yourself. Working through the phases starts when my kids are crawling around on the floor and pulling themselves up on the dyer to "help" put wet clothes in. Doing it themselves emerges years later. This process is a long game, but also about more than just making sure the house gets clean. We use the time to talk with each other, sing songs, and instill values of working together, putting our "big rocks" first (from 7 Habits of Highly effective people), and contributing to our family. It's important that my kids know that cleaning at home is just part of life - no matter what your family situation or job is. But don't think that things are going perfectly in my home. My kids are still kids and get lost on their way from their beds to the kitchen to do their jobs and end up fighting with their siblings before they have food in their stomachs. Most mornings, I find myself saying, "If you are in the right place at the right time doing the right thing, you will avoid a lot of problems." This is a principle that applies to so many life scenarios, but one that I use throughout the day to remind the kids that instead of engaging in whatever the problem is, the problem literally goes away when they are in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. It's also one I use to encourage myself when I feel like escaping or hiding instead of sticking to our family rhythms and routines - and then reward myself with more time outside. Tune into this week's episode to hear more about what's working in our home and some tips you can use today. And, on a practical level, I have switched to using Force of Nature for the last 1.5 years for all cleaning - from washing toilets to mopping floors to wiping baseboards and door knobs - because it's safe for my kids to use. You can get 40% off a starter bundle with the code LOVEFON here.