Note from Crystal: Mandi asked me if she could blog through my new book, Say Goodbye to Survival Mode. She’ll be sharing one post per chapter per month. I know many of you are reading through the book right now and I thought you’d enjoy hearing her thoughts — and joining in the discussion to share your thoughts, as well.
Guest post by Mandi Ehman from Life Your Way
This year I am working through Crystal’s new book, Say Goodbye to Survival Mode, one chapter at a time. After practicing not “doing it all” and saying yes to the best, this month’s focus was supposed to be on chapter 3, setting goals.
The only problem? Three weeks ago my husband had a power kiting accident, and we were thrown right back into actual survival mode by necessity.
Work, homeschool, chores — these things all still needed to happen, but I was suddenly responsible for all of it by myself, on top of taking care of the man I love while he dealt with several complications and the worst pain of his life. I also ended up with mastitis for the first time in my life, which made survival mode even more crucial.
So instead of talking about goals (truthfully, my goal at this point is to just get through each day without dropping any major balls!), I thought we’d pause a minute and talk about a few strategies to survive when the unexpected strikes:
1. Clear your schedule.
The hardest part of the past three weeks has been the number of pre-scheduled activities on our calendar. The big girls had been preparing for months for the children’s musical at church, and the week after Sean’s accident included four straight days of practice and performances. Not to mention the pinewood derby we had signed up for during that same weekend.
While I know my girls would have bounced back if we’d needed to cancel one or both of those activities, they’d been working hard, and I didn’t want them to have to miss out. However, in order to make it through, we did have to cancel various play dates and parties.
2. Lower your standards.
Not only were we canceling outside activities, though; we also lowered our standards at home. Paper plates? Yes, please. Despite the fact that we’d been planning for a screen-free week, the TV ended up being on a little more often. And we’ve been eating a lot of simple fare, with a few more processed ingredients than usual. And while canceling school wasn’t an option because we’re just getting back in the groove after our baby boy’s arrival and we have standardized tests coming up, we did reduce the workload for everybody to focus on the basics.
3. Say yes to help.
Asking for help doesn’t come easily to me, not because I’m prideful and want to do it all myself, but because — as an introvert — sometimes trying to come up with ways for other people to help can be more stressful to me than just getting it done. But when a friend offered to set up a meal train, I gratefully said yes, and the pile of freezer meals we received from our local homeschool community made surviving those first couple of weeks possible.
I also had friends offering to watch the girls for doctor’s appointments and to make our crazy schedule that first week bearable, and my sister-in-law saved the day with her awesome pinewood derby skills (I’m not sure we would have made it to the derby without her help!). And when a friend offered to come meet with Sean to see if he could help him deal with the excruciating pain he was experiencing that first week, I was tempted to say no because it felt like such an inconvenience to their family, but we humbly said yes and it has made a huge difference in his recovery.
It’s not always easy to ask for or accept help, but it is worth it!
4. Encourage your kids to help as needed.
I am so very proud of how each of my girls has grown through this experience. They’ve taken on additional chores, they run to help daddy when he rings his bell (as funny as it sounds, I find a bell much easier to deal with than him yelling across the house when he needs assistance!). My oldest has taken over a huge amount of our breakfast and lunch preparations and can now make many recipes without any help at all. Our 8-year-old has spent hours holding or playing with the baby while I jump in the shower or take care of something someone else needs. And even our youngest daughter has grown up over the past few weeks.
As a side note, they’ve also needed time to decompress and cuddle up for a story or a hug, and I’m trying hard to balance both of those things. That first week was tough on all of us, and protecting their childhood is important to me, but I also think the responsibility and working together as a team has been a great lesson for them and one that I’m glad they’ve had time to practice.
5. Routine, routine, routine.
If routines are important in every day life, they’re even more important when your family is actually in survival mode. I almost wrote that that’s especially true for children, but honestly, it makes a big difference for my own sanity as well!
Routines help everyone know what to expect and they also take the thinking out of certain tasks, which makes our days less stressful. For example, the only reason I was able to get all five kids out of the house by 7 a.m. on two consecutive mornings that first weekend was because we have our “Sunday morning” church routine down pat (early mornings are just not something we do the rest of the week!) and everybody was able to get ready with minimal help from me.
5. Joy is a choice.
Most importantly, I’ve learned that joy is a choice. I haven’t always chosen joy perfectly through this journey, but I wake up every day ready to try again. And when I fail, I remind myself that it starts with my attitude and look for ways to turn things around.
Joy isn’t about pretending things are easy or okay when they’re not; it’s about choosing to see your circumstances in light of eternity and looking for ways to glorify God in the midst of them. That’s what I mean by a choice. It’s not an easy one, but it’s a choice nonetheless, and one I hope to keep practicing for all of my days.
And hopefully next month will include more goal setting — and achieving!
Mandi Ehman is an entrepreneur, online publisher and author who is passionate about encouraging other women to live intentionally. She’s the blogger behind Life Your Way, the author of Easy Homemade and the founder of BundleoftheWeek.com. Mandi and her husband have four spunky little girls plus one baby boy, and together they live, work and homeschool on a little slice of heaven in wild, wonderful West Virginia.
Read 6 chapters of 
I’m going to make it my goal to only eat dessert once a week and to cut back on the sugar I use in my coffee on a daily basis, too.
