I tend to get really frustrated with myself sometimes. Why is keeping up with a house, a business, barrel horses, and 2 little kids so hard? Why do I always have a mountain of clean laundry to fold? I mean, it’s NOT like it’s hard to wash, dry, and immediately fold and put away clothes. It’s NOT rocket science. And yet, I regularly find myself having to re-figure out systems, tweak things, and look for new ideas to get things done with my children in tow. It’s frustrating, to say the least, some days.

And then one day, I realized one of the main reasons why I feel so frustrated:

I’m expecting myself to feel like an expert in a season I’ve never been through before, on a day I’ve never lived before, solving problems I’ve never encountered before.

When the reality is, each new season brings its own challenges AND graces. Each season, each phase, heck, sometimes even each DAY, is a first rodeo.

So, I began to shift my thinking: what if I showed myself the same grace I would if it really WAS my first rodeo? What would that look like? What kind of attitude would I have? What kind of expectations would I have for myself? What progress would I celebrate?