As homemakers and resource managers of our homes, our ultimate job is to help our families do two things: to Survive and then Thrive. How do we do this?
Know your Task
A task isn’t just a labor you have to perform. It can also be a great undertaking or work you choose to do.
Homemaking is a profession, like any other, with its own set of knowledge, skills, and abilities that must be learned if the job is to be done well. “Homemaker” is NOT the same as “Mommy.” These are two different roles. “Mommy” is a female parent whose task is to nurture, teach and train children. “Homemaker” can be anyone: male, female, with or without children, old or young. The Homemaker’s task (or great undertaking) is to create and maintain a physical, social and financial environment that supports and promotes the well-being of all the individuals within the home.
Know your Target
A target is a thing toward which you aim and focus all your efforts to achieve. It is the objective or goal that you cast out before you and toward which you then go. Clear targets increase your chance to succeed at building a better life.
So what is your target? Look around you. Look at your current physical, social and financial situations. How are you and your family doing? Are you surviving? If so, how well? The physical, social and financial environment in which we live in can have a powerful effect on how we think, on how we feel, and on our ability to be successful in our daily endeavors. Based on where you and your family are at right now, do you need to focus on “Survive” or “Thrive”?
Know your Tools
Every resource at your command is a potential tool you can use to help you and your family survive and thrive. Again, look around you. With your target in mind, what do you already have that could be used to help you get what you need? Be creative. Think outside the box. Find out what others have done that produced good results and see if that will work for you. Make a small plan and work it step-by-step.
Realize that of all the resources you have, the most important resource of all is YOU. Your desires. Your strength of will. Your knowledge, skills, abilities, talents. Your willingness to look up instead of down, to choose hope instead of despair. All these things are part of you. So take care of and value the resource that is You.
Be Tenacious
“Tenacious” means “to hold.”
Just as with any profession or job, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. That’s okay. That’s normal and you can sag for a few moments here and there. Do NOT, however, under any circumstances, waste time talking yourself into hopelessness and despair by telling yourself you can’t do the job, or that it’s just too much, or that there’s never any way things will get better.
- You can do the job (you just need to learn how)
- Any mountain can be climbed one-step-at-a-time…if you have the ability and capacity for the journey. That’s why it’s best to start small; to set and actually achieve small goals consistently and persistently. Each small success will become a stepping stone for the next, larger success.
- Remember that, in all honesty, you have no proof things can’t get better. What’s happened in the past does not absolutely predict or determine the future. If they really want to, people can “change their stars” and so can you…consistently, persistently and one small, gradual change at a time.
A determined, tenacious homemaker can take the smallest resources and steadily use them to eventually produce large results. Know your task, know your target, know your tools, and then get started…one small step at a time.
It’s how people have been climbing mountains for centuries.
And if they can do it, you can do it too.
Hold, hold, hold.
One steady step at a time. Climb.
Survive & Thrive.
Homemaking. Matters.
