Don’t Let the Journey Get You Down.

I am a woman full of plans.  I have so many things that I want, need and would like to do every single day.

I want to be a good wife, a good mom and a good friend.  I want to grow more of my own food, cook from scratch and have a homey, attractive, organized and clean home.  I want to help more at church, be active in my community and learn new things.  I want to do crafts and projects just for the sheer joy of them.  I want to, I want to, I want to.

And yet some days I feel like I’m slogging through jello.  I get to the end of the day and think “Dang! I didn’t get anything accomplished today.” My massive mental to-do list sits there, mocking me.

I bet many of you out there feel this way too-wether it’s in relation to your journey to frugality, you attempts to be more sustainable, to get more prepared or to move ahead in whatever challenges you personally have.  It can be a very discouraging feeling.

Sometimes I just need to take a minute and remind myself (and all of you) that we can’t get there overnight.  Life is a journey, and we’ve all made progress in our own paths.

So what do you do when you have one of those days where you feel like you have accomplished nothing?  It’s always great if you have a friend or partner there who can support you and cheer you up-letting you know that you are doing a great job.

But it’s not always up to someone else to fix it for us, to make us better.

Sometimes we have to take responsibility for ourselves and how we feel.  We don’t have any control over what someone else feels-what we have control over is how WE feel. So change it!  Take a minute and make a list of everything you’ve done that day-no matter how small.  I guarantee-even though you might not have accomplished what you wanted, you’ve done a LOT.

When this feeling overwhelmed me last week that’s what I did.  I realized hey-I had made breakfast, lunches and dinner for 4 people.  Got kiddos and hubs out the door to start their day with all paperwork, bags, and outerwear (harder than it sounds with the kiddos!) Baked bread.  Done laundry.  Researched online. Written a post.  Taken the dog out 6 times.  Made several runs upstairs with various items.  Swept. . . well you get the idea.

Nothing huge.  Nothing earth shattering. Nothing that seemed important.

But you know what? It was all stuff that needed to be done.  Things that if left undone would have made life less pleasant and less effective for me and my family.

Looking at it that way, I had actually had a fairly successful day.

So cheer up and continue the journey!