Starting With Intention: Getting Ready in Every Way That Matters

I want to tell you about two very different Augusts.

One year, I spent an enormous amount of time getting ready. I made copies for every day. I planned the “perfect” lesson for every single subject. I felt so prepared walking into that year.

By October, I was exhausted. I kept wondering what was wrong with me. I had done everything I thought I was supposed to do — and somehow homeschooling still felt hard. The problem wasn’t that I hadn’t planned enough. I’d planned for someone else’s family instead of mine.

A few years later, I did something different. I got support. I actually did the work of discovering our why — not just assuming I already knew it. And what I built from that was a homeschool I didn’t even know was possible for us. It was beautiful. It was ours.

That’s the difference between those two Augusts. And it’s exactly what I want to walk through with you here.

It’s Not About Buying Things

Here’s what I see every August. We think getting ready means buying things. New curriculum. New planner. New pencil pouch. But buying things is only one small part of it. You can have gorgeous curriculum sitting on perfectly organized shelves and still feel completely unprepared.

I’ve come to believe there are four different kinds of ready.

Spiritual — you’re anchored. You’ve prayed. You’ve gone back to your why.

Mental — you know what you’re doing. You’ve thought through your subjects, how each one will be taught, your curriculum, your schedule.

Physical — you have what you need. Supplies gathered. Space organized. Meals planned.

Emotional — and this one’s different than you’d think. It’s not about having your lesson plans done. It’s about knowing how you’re going to respond when things don’t go according to plan. It’s letting go of the need for perfect. It’s expecting hard days and deciding ahead of time how you’ll meet them.

Most of us only prepare one of these four ways — usually mental — and then wonder why September still feels like chaos.

Don’t just prepare your homeschool. Prepare the homeschooler.

Your Getting-Ready Checklist

Here’s how I’d walk through it, step by step:

  1. Recenter your why. (Spiritual) Before the curriculum, before the supply list — go back to why you’re doing this. Pray about your year. This isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation everything else sits on.
  2. Choose your subjects. (Mental) What are you actually going to teach this year?
  3. Decide your delivery method for each subject. (Mental) Is this open-and-go? Am I handing it to someone else — Dad, Grandma, a co-op, an online class? Or planning it myself? You don’t have to teach every subject yourself. That’s not a compromise. That’s wisdom.
  4. If you’re planning it yourself — decide how. (Mental) A repeatable procedure you’ll use every time, or brand-new lessons each time you sit down? Knowing this now saves you from burning out in October.
  5. Choose your curriculum. (Mental) Now — and only now — you’re ready to pick curriculum. The choice gets so much easier when it’s the last decision instead of the first.
  6. Practice your routine — with your kids. (Mental/Physical) Walk through a mock first morning together. Where does breakfast happen? Where do the math books live? A routine only holds if everyone in the house actually knows it, not just the mom carrying it in her head.
  7. Gather your supplies. (Physical) Everything each curriculum needs — get it in hand before day one.
  8. Organize your school space. (Physical) Wherever school happens in your home — get it set up and functional.
  9. Plan your meals. (Physical) Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks — and who’s making them. This one gets skipped constantly, and it’s often the thing that derails a school day fastest.
  10. Protect your own rhythm. (Emotional) Build in time to rejuvenate and to plan next week. A mama with no margin has no emotional readiness — no matter how organized her binders are.
  11. Let go of the need for perfect. (Emotional) Expect hard days. Decide now — before you’re in the middle of one — how you want to respond when they come.

A Few Minutes With Your Notebook

Before you go, take a few minutes with two lists: What I’m already ready for, and What I’m still working on.

Look at your first list before your second. You’ve already done more than you’re giving yourself credit for. Your second list isn’t a list of failures — it’s just your next steps. Pick one thing from it to tackle this week.

If you want to go deeper, sit with these:

  • Spiritual: What is my why for this year? Have I actually prayed over it, or just assumed it?
  • Mental: Which subject decision am I still avoiding?
  • Physical: What’s one thing in my space or supplies that will cause me stress on day one if I don’t handle it now?
  • Emotional: What does a hard day usually look like for me? What do I want to do differently the next time one shows up?

 

Don’t worry about getting everything perfect before day one. Your goal isn’t perfection — it’s starting intentionally.

Share:

More Posts

Your Routine Didn’t Fail. It Was Never Built for Your Family.

I spent hours — year after year, week after week — trying to create the perfect schedule.


I felt like if I could just get it right on paper, it would somehow manifest in real life.


It never did.


Someone would come to the door. We would sleep in. We would take off on tangents. There would be a tantrum — maybe from me. And these interruptions, big or small, would knock the whole day sideways, and I wouldn’t know what to do next or how to pull it back together.


At the end of the day I always felt like I had failed. Like I couldn’t hold it all together because I couldn’t stick to a schedule.


How hard can it be? the voice in my head would say.


The answer, it turns out, was very hard. Not because I was doing it wrong — but because I was building the wrong thing. I was building a schedule for a fantasy version of my family instead of the real one standing in front of me.


If you’ve ever stood in that kitchen at two o’clock wondering how the day got away from you — this one’s for you.

You Did the Work

I want to start with something Lin Yutang said: “Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.” I love this quote because it doesn’t talk about perfect motherhood. It doesn’t list everything a good mother does. It simply says — this choice, this path, this calling — is the greatest thing you could have chosen.


You could have been anything. You had options. You have a mind, gifts, talents, a personality that the world could have used in a hundred different directions. And you chose this. You chose to be the one in the room every day with your children.


That was not an accident. That was a choice. And it is worth naming out loud.


Every September, we start with such hope. A new plan. A new curriculum. And then October happens. And February happens. By the end of the year, many of us only see what didn’t get finished.


But that is not the whole story. Not even close.


I want to tell you about the mom who almost quit — and the morning she opened the books again anyway.

What Changes When a Child Feels Safe to Learn

There’s something that changes in a child when they feel truly safe to learn. Not safe from hard things — but safe to wonder, safe to get it wrong, safe to go at their own pace without being measured against anyone else. When that kind of safety is present, something shifts. The performing stops. The discovering begins.

Why You Should Celebrate the End of Your Homeschool Year (Even If You Didn’t Finish Everything)

Remember: You are not behind. You did not fail. And this year — with all its imperfections, all its unfinished books and detoured plans and ordinary Tuesdays — this year was real. And real is enough.


Your children grew this year. You grew this year. And the ending of one year is not just a finish line. It is a launching pad. You are closing one chapter so that you and your kids can step into the next one with their heads held high, knowing what they’re capable of.


Celebrate that. Make a moment.


Because the thing about endings done well is this: they make the beginning of whatever comes next feel possible.