We May Encounter Many Defeats But We Must Not Be Defeated.” – Maya Angelou
Welcome back to another school year!! My kids aren’t quite there yet, but if you spent anytime on Facebook recently you saw tons of back to school and first day of school pictures. How was your family prepared for the start of the school year? Is your family prepared for other life changes that may come?
Personal Experience
When my wife and I were looking into buying our home, we got a very important piece of advice. That advice was to look for a house that you can afford on one person’s income. Just in case, God forbid, that one person lose their job, you can still make the mortgage payments. We listened to that advice and a couple of years into living in our home, I was the one who lost my job. Because we listened and were prepared, my family didn’t lose our home.
How can we prepare for life changes? We don’t want to have “life happen” and then we’re scrambling trying to get resources together so that everything doesn’t fall apart.
How to Plan Ahead
- Practical Planning. This sounds boring, but it is probably the most important. We struggle with life changes because we’re not fully prepared for them. Dave Ramsey pushes having an emergency fund for this very reason. It will help you be prepared for the emergencies. Then they no longer seem like emergencies to you.
Since the school year has started, this is a great time to plan out the year. If planning a year seems to daunting go by semester. What would make it a success? Is it a certain GPA? Getting volunteer opportunities. For younger children or it could be reading a certain number of books or focusing on an area to improve that was a struggle last year. Whatever the goal is, you want to prepare for this change and define what a successful school year would be.
2. Overcome Obstacles. We know that the obstacles will come. How will you overcome them? Every new year we set new resolutions of habits, and life changes we want to make. Most people don’t see those changes last because when an obstacle comes up, the resolution gets dropped. Not because they didn’t want to change, but because they didn’t think about how they would overcome obstacles.
3. Find an accountability group. Preparing for the unexpected life changes is one thing, it’s another to intentionally bring about a change. It’s great to have a goal of doing something. You won’t get it done by yourself though. You’re going to need an accountability partner or group. People that will push you when you don’t feel like getting up early or who will give you some encouragement when you’re feeling low. The people around you are just as important as the goal itself.
It’s the start of a new school year, are you prepared for the change? Are you prepared for life changes?
