Sacred Mundane: The Blog

“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” -GK Chesterton

Okay, this quote doesn’t top the charts of most-inspiring, but this idea has helped me immensely through the last 15 years of motherhood, homeschooling, and juggling the never-ending demands of ministry life.

Like you, I’ve been asked many times: “How do you do it all?”

And my answer is always: “I don’t.”

On those glass-is-half-empty days, when I’m discouraged and my perspective is skewed, I feel as though I don’t do anything well.

Dinner’s made, but it’s chicken and rice again. Laundry’s done, because I no longer fold. Kids finished school because I told Heidi to skip the Base 2 math problems (again). The house is tidied but the sliding glass door has so many smeared handprints I can barely see through it.

But eventually I remind myself of Chesterton’s wisdom and the power of intentional mediocrity.

Truth: We can’t be awesome everywhere.

I remember reading Michael Hyatt’s book Platform years ago, where he teaches the importance of exceeding customer’s expectations, of “baking in the Wow” to every aspect of your business. And I remember writing this realization in my journal that day:

“I can’t be awesome everywhere. I can’t ‘bake in the Wow’ in every area of life.”

Truth: Some things have to be neglected. 

Sadly, many people only “bake in the Wow” in the business world, or in the areas of life that are visible to others, but neglect the hidden places, the small people, or the health of their souls. We’re all in danger of mis-prioritizing which areas are worthy of Wow.

We’re wise to give it some consideration so we don’t drop the ball on what really matters.

Our task as parents and home-educators is to thoughtfully and intentionally choose where we will “bake in the Wow” (i.e. focus our attention) and where we will deliberately and confidently choose mediocrity.

If we don’t do this we’ll be enslaved to perfectionism, or convinced we must be failing since not everything is awesome.

One simple exercise that can help: A well-chosen Homeschool Not To Do list. {Read the rest over at Simple Homeschool…thanks!}