I am a planner. I’ve always been this way. I get so excited when I fill in a new planner or calendar. I know what I’m doing 6 months from now. I can’t help it. Over the years I have gotten a little better about not involving others in my plans. Some people don’t like to have plans. Some people don’t want to know what they are doing next week. It’s strange to me but my ways are strange to them.

Planning my life is a way to feel in control for me. I suffer from an anxiety disorder and knowing what will happen gives me peace. It helps me to feel in control of things and it helps me to cope better with certain situations if I know what’s happening in advance. My husband is spontaneous so I have become more flexible in my plans that involve family time.

Planning kind of goes along with setting goals for yourself. My goals reflect in what I plan for us as a family or homeschool or in life. If my goal is to go on 10 field trips in a school year, my calendar will reflect that. If my goal is to read a certain amount of books each month, I will plan for that.

But our goals aren’t always realistic. Our plans can and will change a lot of the time. I always have such high standards for planning. I shoot for the stars. I plan to finish all the curriculum and go on all the field trips and plan all the meals. Life doesn’t always work out the way we think it will.

Setting realistic goals can help us not feel so disappointed when things don’t go the way we planned. Instead of scheduling 10 field trips a year, I joined a co-op that plans them for me. Well, we all plan together. We attend when we can, and stay home when it is inconvenient or someone is sick. We leave the field trip days open just in case someone is sick or there is an appointment. We go on most of the field trips though. They are fun!

I also plan our meals. But, I only plan one week in advance. I used to do one month in advance but found that things came up and we didn’t eat some of the food I had bought for the month. Planning for one week at a time still gives us some wiggle room to move a meal to the following week if we don’t eat at home that evening.

I also don’t set goals of finishing a curriculum in a year. I go by what my children’s needs are. Instead of saying we have to finish this book by this time, I say let’s do the next thing. It keeps us on track with the curriculum but doesn’t stress us out about finishing it by a certain date. Talk about anxiety! Sometimes someone is sick or there is a birthday or we decide to take a day off. Instead of doing double the work the next day, we just go to the next thing.

This is reality for me. It has given me so much peace to know that things will get done. It may not be what I would have wanted, but they get done. I am not disappointed in the outcome because I set realistic goals ahead of time.