One Thing to Stop and One Thing to Start When You Feel You’re Failing as a Homemaker
By Katie Bennett, Contributing Writer.
Some women make running a home look effortless and easy!
The only problem is, it’s not easy, and it does, in fact, take a lot of work, strategy and well-placed effort.
As I ventured into my new-found role as a homemaker, I expected to be amazing at it –a true natural.
Unfortunately, instead of Martha Stewart, I found within myself tendencies of overwhelm and idleness. Despite having all day to devote to one immobile baby and my home, my efforts were frustrated. I was genuinely puzzled about why this wasn’t coming easily to me as it seemed to for others.
I didn’t like that the needs of my home weren’t being met systematically, but I also wasn’t sure how to get it to that point. My husband never made me feel bad in the least, but I knew his mom had done a much better job in the exact same situation than I was doing. If I’m honest, I felt like a bit of a failure as a homemaker. I put a lot of work into the home, and we did okay, but overall my effort was not particularly effective.
Along the way, I’ve learned many, many lessons about running a home. I’ve undergone a painful (at times) transformation of expectations and practice.
So, if you’re like me and you want to get control of your home when you feel you’re failing as a homemaker:
Stop: Waiting for Someone Else to Do It
This one was hard for me. For the longest time, I expected quite a bit of help from my husband around the home. I wanted us to cutely do the dishes together after dinner, or take turns putting the baby to bed. And as much as that may have been “fair” in my mind, it also wasn’t going to happen with perfect equality, because he’s just not quite as invested in these things. After years of resistance, I finally accepted that certain responsibilities were going to fall more to me as the primary homemaker.
Accepting my work and resolving to work hard, has brought freedom to my life and home. Letting go of my need to compare my work each day to that of my husband to ensure its equality, has allowed me to find peace in my homemaking.
At the on-start of thinking this way, I would say to myself, “I’m doing this for me. I want a peaceful home.” As wonderful as it is to serve others, I was suffering from a martyr-type mentality, because I felt others were expecting to me to serve them. I wasn’t recognizing and focusing on my own honest gain from my labors.
I’m no longer waiting for “someone else” to do household tasks, and what’s more, I’m embracing hard work and learning to find satisfaction in it.
Start: Using Daily Habits to Organize the Work
Daily habits are amazingly powerful.
Over the past five years, I’ve set three or four simple, daily habits to ensure that a basic foundation of “chaos control” are laid each day. These habits, when completed, provide me with a sense of success. They bring order and peace to my home every single day.
When I first begin a habit, I do so with strict discipline. I focus on developing one habit at a time. After sticking with it diligently for weeks and months, I am eventually able to go on autopilot! This is very gratifying! These daily habits are an ESSENTIAL key to a smooth-running home.
Establishing critical daily habits is a must if you want to turn your homemaking around. I would love to help you with this!
I passionate about helping women gain control of their homes for God’s glory. I believe He wants this for us, and I believe we can all get to a better place with a little bit of guidance.
That is why I spent most of the last year creating the Help for the Hopeless Homemaker Online Course.
Help for the Hopeless Homemaker Online Course
I am uniquely qualified to help other women who feel like a “have not” as a homemaker, because I’ve been there. I’ve also experienced firsthand what it means to forge lasting change in how I run my home (and more deeply, how I view myself and the expectations I hold for how that will look).
This course is really a summation of the most effective things I’ve learned in my quest to become a successful homemaker.
It includes:
- 11 Video sessions
- A complete, printable course workbook
- A variety of worksheets and exercises to help you apply each lesson to your own life
- Printable motivating scripture cards
- Access the the course on any device, forever!
In only about 15 minutes per day, this course will guide you to:
- Adopt and apply three key principles that will change your life when you deeply receive them.
- Implement three key daily habits (the ones I have found to be most simple and helpful), in a very specific order
- Complete three essential types of home projects to train you and kick-start you towards a well-run home.
What’s more, if you register into this 11-part, self-paced course by Monday, March 14th, you will gain access to a private Facebook group for accountability and support.
I want you to experience breakthrough and success in your homemaking as I have!
Whether you’re a full time homemaker or you have an outside job, this course will meet you where you are. Most sessions can be completed in only 20 minutes time, but will change the way you see your home and yourself as a homemaker.
How do you gain a feeling of success in your homemaking?
