Jessica Jackson, creator of the Thriving in Motherhood podcast, shares her journey from struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety to finding her way to thriving in motherhood. She recounts the challenges she faced, including a life-threatening illness after the birth of her third child, and how these experiences led her to discover the power of planning and creating a vision for her life.
Jessica emphasizes the importance of starting with a clear vision, breaking it down into manageable steps, and planning realistically within a week rather than focusing on idealistic daily schedules. Plus, she introduces the concept of the “big three,” where you prioritize three key tasks aligned with your vision for the week. By embracing these principles and customizing planning methods to your own life, you can learn to plan weeks you can truly win.
About a few other things…
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica: Jessica Jackson. Welcome to About Progress.
Jessica: Thank you. It’s an honor to be here with you today.
Monica: Well, how about you start with a little introduction. I think so much of who you are and what you do and what you’re interested in is very connected to your work and who you help serve.
So tell us about you.
Jessica: Sure. So my name Jessica Jackson. I’ve got four kids. Oldest is 10, youngest is three. I homeschool them and then I run Thriving and Motherhood podcast, which is a business, where I help women in. Those survival seasons get to where they feel like they’re thriving. And for me, I started motherhood, like thinking it would be awesome, it’s what I wanted, right?
I started it and I didn’t think anything except that it’s what I wanted. And when I got into it, it was so hard and I, I don’t even think I knew it was hard. That’s not how I was. Thinking about it, but I was non-functioning,
You know, I was taking care of this baby. We had just moved across the country. My husband started grad school.
I was in a cinder block wall. No one around me spoke English. We were in like the international grad student housing. Uh, so I was very isolated. Our car didn’t work and I just struggled every day. And I had so much mom guilt, like I’d call my mom and I’d be like, can I put my baby down? She’s like, please, that’s a good idea.
And I was like, I don’t think I can, you know, so just like, I was certainly in the throes of postpartum depression and anxiety and did not know it for years. And so.
So my youngest was two, just barely. And then my second son was born and I got something called c diff in the hospital.
And so that is a super bug that attacks your colon and didn’t know, I knew I was very sick and I was not able to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, and I was just very ill. And so after my youngest was two weeks old, I. Went to the emergency room and they looked at me and they said, okay, that we know exactly what that is.
You need to go into isolation. This is very serious. And so I moved into the hospital. The only opening was the pediatric unit. So if you believe in God, that was a hundred percent a miracle because I had a crib and a baby swing ready for my two week old to come move in with me. And, um, and then I just fought for my life. Antibiotics didn’t work for a lot longer than they thought they would. It was a very dangerous time for me and my own health, and I wasn’t sure how it was gonna end. And so. I was there for about a week, went home, and it took about four months to even sort of like, I had to learn how to eat, what could I eat again?
Like it just destroyed my body. And so it took a long time to get out of that place. But when I was in that season, the only thing that I could think of is like, I wanna start living again. Like this isn’t changing, like I’m going to be a mom. And so I just wanted to embrace my life and love it, and. I on the outside, maybe, like I said, I wouldn’t have said I was struggling, but like I wasn’t feeling anything in my day-to-Day life and so I went back to what I was comfortable with, which was planning.
I grew up on like Stephen Covey’s two pages a day, planners, and it got me through college and middle school and high school. Like I loved planning, but when I became a mom and none of those planning skills transferred, like if I would plan out a schedule. The baby wouldn’t sleep at the right times or I would write like this long to-do list on the things I, not even long, I would write the things I wanna do that day and I couldn’t get to any of ’em. So I’d transfer ’em day after day. And so like I had completely given up. After those first, like, you know, initial year or so, I’m like, this doesn’t work.
You can’t plan on motherhood. And so I was literally recovering in bed with my newborn next to me and I’m like, so sick and I’m just like scrolling, finding like every single planning spread that you can imagine on the internet and being like, okay, these are all the things in my brain.
How can I arrange it? And, and I couldn’t find anything. So I was like, that’s fine. I’m gonna get a notebook and just start figuring out a way to get. Something that’s in this mess of a brain onto paper in a way that I can feel good about so I can start living my life again. And so that’s what I did. And after like three years, I stopped changing it.
So like for three years I’d make all these iterations. And what was just beautiful was I learned how to get things done again. I learned how to create a dream. Like one of the big things for me was like, even though I had been struggling, I had been listening to podcasts, I had been observing other moms.
I had been reading books. I had been learning a ton about homeschooling, just every different educational philosophies. And so I started to have this vision of what I wanted my motherhood to be. And so. Really what I learned how to do was organize this vision about what I wanted my life to be like for even just that year and just focus on a year at a time, and then created this system with my planner to make that vision a reality.
But like in a generous way, you know, in the way that actually fit regular motherhood, which was so unpredictable and needed to be incredibly flexible. And so that. Is kind of where it started. For me. My mental health didn’t really tank until after I had my third child and my husband had got his master’s and his PhD and we moved to Connecticut and we land there and I’m like so struggling.
And by that point I had been sitting in a seminar it was at church and they were saying like, if you have like any of these 10 things on this list, and I do not remember what they are, they’re like, it would be good to go to a therapist. Like you don’t have to wait if you just have one of these 10.
And I was like sitting there and I felt like it was naked.
It’s like I am all 10 of those.
I should have gotten help a long time ago. And so I went and talked to her. This person I had three weeks before we moved. And she was like, okay, we don’t have much time. Let’s figure this out. Let’s, what can we do?
And she was amazing. She’s the only therapist I’ve ever connected with, but she was just like a miracle. And she’s like, all right. She handed me a worksheet on cognitive distortions and taught me about should statements and was like, this is how you’re thinking. This isn’t working. So here’s some options.
She didn’t even tell me what to do. She’s like, here’s some papers, here’s the principles. Figure it out. And it was life changing for me, but not yet. It took time. And so Connecticut things kind of bottomed out.
And That’s where I really learned and started getting serious about like retraining my brain.
Because even though I could get things done, and even though I had some like semblance of structure to our days and rhythm and on like on the outside looking in, my life looked good. We were homeschooling, we were having adventures, you know, like. It looked good. It just didn’t feel good. Like there was no joy.
And I, and I was talking to a friend one night and I was like, I’m checking everything off that I could ever possibly want to do. Like even the fun things like wolf felting, pompoms with my children and like, I don’t feel any joy. And she’s like, that’s really sad. And I was like. That’s not a helpful I know. And so that’s where I just like dug into all of the positive psychology and, you know, high, high performance habits and just spiritual scriptures and, and just learned how to think differently so that I could feel the joy in the life around me that I couldn’t feel at the time. So anyway, that’s kind of like the really big broad stroke overview, but some of those highlights of.
Nothing happened quickly. Nothing happened Overnight, I’d solve one problem and it felt like it was whack-a-Mole, and another one came
out, you know, and just like it took a long time to build skills to the point where now I feel like, okay, I kind of
Have an idea. if I’m not, if something’s off, I can kind of identify why and what I need to do about it.
But that is how it started.
Monica: You know, I actually. It’s so helpful to hear about the full story because when you first introduce yourself as this mom with a lot of kids and homeschooling and an incredible, thriving, successful business and podcast, my first question is how do you do it all? And we are actually gonna talk about that.
Because there are systems to it. But as you’ve talked about, this has been a long process of learning how to do it all, but not for the sake of doing it all, but for being the person you wanna be as you’re doing these things, as you’re showing up to these responsibilities that matter so much to you. And this is where I wanna level with the people who feel like planning is unapproachable because they think only for certain types of people.
The people who have it all together, the Type A, Stephen Covey types or the people who don’t have the lives that we have busy women, for those who are in childcare of roles. Right. So can you tell us what can change their minds? that maybe they are planning people, that this is a habit, this is a system that can help them.
As they are and who they are without it having to be the final rung in many, many, many, many, many, many rungs of changes to lead up to, okay, now I can be a planner person.
Jessica: Yeah. So I think it goes back to why like, I would not just say like, I think you should be a planner
person. I think you plan. I think it would help you. I never start there because if you don’t have something you’re trying to do, then there’s no point to plan. So when I talk to moms, they’re typically in one of four places, but the first is just bored, right?
Like you just don’t even know what you’re watching the clock, the days are taking forever. You’re like. So going mind-numbingly crazy, right? The other is busy. Your day
is so full, you have a ton of things going on. You are going to the, doing the curve poles or the sports activities or the children’s library events.
So your days are full, but it’s not really fulfilling to you, it’s just busy, frustrated because there are things that you wanna do. There are things that you feel like you want to explore or do, or start, and you just don’t feel like there’s room for you to do them. Or those that are living in alignment, which is where we all wanna get, where your time and energy are going towards the things that matter the most to you.
And so if you’re in any of those phases, the number one thing that I start with is this idea of creating a vision. And so for me, this vision. And, and I think you talk about, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got your do stumbling list and I think that is a part for sure of this vision process, right? Where it’s you’re owning something.
And so at first it might be, I have this vision that my laundry is managed so that it’s not so incredibly stressful. Like when I say vision, people are like, ah. And I’m like, okay, what are you stressed about? Let’s start there. Like that can be your vision solving one major stress point in your life, but also what are those things that you’re curious about?
And that’s like where I love your do something this. Um, what is it that matters to you? And, and the reason why this is so important is because I feel like there’s just so much conversation in the motherhood realm about like the home management roles. Like who should be doing it? That shouldn’t be gender specific.
It shouldn’t be like just there’s so much noise about and should statements about, should or should not when it comes to home management. Or you should be ex, you know, delegating it or I don’t know, just, so instead, I just want you to decide like, what is it that you actually want and own it. If you just wanna be good at doing your laundry, great.
You’re not a victim, you chose it if you want, you know, or whatever it is. Laundry’s an example we can all relate to. ’cause we all have to do it. but So, so the point is you just start there and. For me, like I didn’t know what I wanted, like my vision now, every year after doing it for like seven years, it’s so dialed in.
I have specific goals with numbers and things that I want to happen. That is not how this started at all. It was just like, I think my first year I picked a word nurture and I thought, these are some habits that might be nurturing. I didn’t really know. These are some ways I wanna nurture my family. We are just trying ’em out.
These are like a project I wanna do, but it’s, it’s in essence it’s what are the projects you wanna do? Who do you wanna be? What experiences do you wanna have with your family? And it’s, and that’s like a great starting point, just asking yourself those three questions.
Once you have that, once you have something that you’re interested in accomplishing, whether it is something like managing your home and or working on a creative project for yourself, then we can talk about, well now why do we wanna plan? Well, it’s because now I’ve got something that I actually care about that I wanna fit into my life, and not just all of these things that I’m managing.
Monica: That flips things on its head. I think especially for those who get so easily swept up in the prescriptions and the shoulds because they know what metrics they need to hit in order to count as a good person or, or they think that in order to be a planner kind of person, that means they also have to go to bed early and wake up early and have, you know, all these other stacks of habits with it and instead it’s thinking, I love how you said it.
What do I want how can I own it, if that’s, I want to rest more. I want to have a hobby. I want to actually get out of the house, and that’s where we can start.
What are some principles that can help them plan weeks that they can win.
Jessica: The principle here that matters the most is that you plan within a week, not your days.
Because when you’re planning a day, you are not gonna be able to figure out what, like there’s too many things that happen and when you plan a week, you’ve got flexibility. You can learn to gauge. You’re not gonna get this right the first time. You’re going to be able to learn, okay, I can really get about this much done in a week. And so you’re gonna get feedback and be like, okay, I have to. Choose less this week, even though it’s hard. I’m gonna just own that. I’m gonna do less this week. And then it gives you like ways to just fill in the gaps and get things done.
So that’s the first really important principle. The second really important principle is you’re planning realistically and not idealistically. We want to get rid of this idea that I can write down more than I can actually accomplish and feel good about myself. We don’t, we don’t ever do that. So write down only what you can accomplish and feel good about yourself and don’t keep adding to your list.
And then break things up in context that make sense to you. So like when I’m sick, when I’ve been pregnant, I’m like flat on my back. So I created context for what I can do while I’m laying in bed feeling really nauseous, like I just created a custom context. So create things that make sense for you.
Maybe you have a context for when your kids are awake and when your kids are asleep, if they’re in the early napping phase. Or maybe you have one for when your kids are at school. So you customize that. But the point is, I want you to start thinking, how can I batch my tasks? In a way that makes sense for me in my life, so that when it comes to the moment for me to sit down and work, I know exactly what I wanna jump into doing.
There isn’t the wasting of time trying to figure it out, like because of what’s happening and the circumstances that you’re in, you know exactly what to do next. And then don’t write down anything unless it is absolutely happening at that time on a scheduled format. Otherwise, leave it in your weekly format of when you’re gonna get things done because.
I know this goes against everything those productivity people are telling you about, time blocking and, but like if you are in a season where you either have chronic illness or where you have the exhaustion or where you do have other people living in your life and it’s a highly interruptible life, whether you’re working from home or you have the young kids or whatever, like, there’s so many circumstances, especially since the pandemic where not being able to stick to a time schedule is relevant in, in all of our lives.
Don’t, don’t put it there. Put it in another format. Because what’s gonna happen is that same backlog, right? You’re just gonna look at the end of the day, I didn’t do that and push it to the next day and it’s just gonna get too full. So those are principles that you can then take and apply and customize to your circumstances.
Monica: Now, how does that lead to planning in terms of like the tangibles, like what does that actually look like and. This might be a good time to introduce the idea of planning a week that you can win, but it may not, so you can, you can direct the course here on what you think would be most helpful.
Jessica: Yeah. So the reason why I like this idea of planning a week that you can win is because so often we sit down and we’re like, okay, I’m gonna do this. I’m going to plan. I have done this so many times. So you’re like, okay, I’m gonna write, here’s my schedule. We’re gonna like, this is the thing I’m gonna do.
Here’s my list. I’m gonna be productive, I’m gonna check it off. And like, first of all, you wrote down. Five weeks worth of stuff in this wonderful week that you’re so excited about, you are going to be transferring things from week to week to week. You aren’t going to get everything checked off. And as you’re going about your week, not only that, you’re gonna keep adding to your week plan ’cause you’re like, I thought of these other ideas.
This is gonna be amazing. You just planned. Something so idealistic, not realistic, you are, you’re going to lose, like you are not going to get that done at all. So when I say plan, I wanna write things down on paper that I am pretty sure that I’m actually gonna be able to accomplish and no more. I want everything checked off on my list by the end of the week and not like in a killing myself way, but in a super realistic way.
And so I want a weak weekend. Like we don’t, we don’t have natural stopping point. Like I was like, it’s just a treadmill. It never ends. Well, you’re the one that stepped on the treadmill and turned it on and you haven’t stepped off yet. Like, so we have to learn how to create some stop points for ourselves and that’s also so important because it’s a natural point to look back and see what you did. And one of the most important things that we don’t do as moms is turn around and celebrate and see all the progress that we made. And so it’s, it’s more about taking tiny baby steps, seeing that you made that baby steps, feeling the energy and the joy and the momentum from taking that baby step towards the thing you said you wanted to do and then, do it again because you feel good about it and you’re excited.
And so when. When you’re in this like starting place though, there’s four phases and you don’t jump into doing all four at the same time. There’s, there’s like skills and I’ve spent years kind of upping my planning game, and building this system. So the very first phase is just management. You’re just trying to manage the very basics. So what this looks like is you’re writing your appointments on your calendar and for me, because my calendar is so like when you’re in those early phase, you said like when you’re not busy, right? Like when you don’t have tons of things going on. I have one column that’s like, I don’t know, probably like an inch and a half. Long per day about my appointments that need to happen. And then if there’s specific things that need to happen that day, but not at a specific time, but like literally have to happen that day, then I’ve got an equals size box on the other half of the page. So there’s almost no room. There’s very little room to write things down. And there’s no time stamped on there because when I would like have this timestamp page, my stress and anxiety goes up 150%. ’cause I can’t assign things to time with all these kids at home. So that’s the first thing. You write down your scheduled appointments that have to happen at the time.
And then what I like to do also is say, okay, now that I know what my week is gonna look like, a little bit scheduled appointments wise, what meals fit with those days, is it, uh, is it cereal? It a crockpot? Is it, you know, an Insta Pott meal that you have to make ahead?
Do I have an hour to put something together? Does it need to be quesadillas in five minutes because you’re running from one thing to the next? But like, if you can just manage your appointments and your meals
Like right there, since everyone has to eat all the time and it really stinks to be late and stressed, that’s like a really good level one.
Next phase that I like to work on is where you start to bring in your, what I call your big three for the week. So if you go back, you’re starting to see, okay, this is my vision,
Right. Why did that matter so much? If we’re really talking about appointments and meals? Well, so this is the next part.
You look at your vision for the year. I pick, what am I gonna focus on for the next three months? Because the reality is I’m really creating a vision for three months. I don’t know what’s gonna happen beyond that at all. I don’t know what my kids are gonna be doing. I don’t know what problems we’re gonna be having. I don’t know so much. And so. I take those 90 days, I pick a few things that I’m gonna focus on for those 90 days. Something for me, something for my family, something for my business, something like experience wise, I gotta do something I just wanna do for fun, whatever it was in my vision. And I bring it into those 90 days.
And then I pick a few of those to focus on for the month. So now I’ve got like on my month page, I’m writing down those three to five things that I’m gonna focus on that month. So now when I’m getting to my big three for the week, I’m picking at least one of those things from my monthly page down to one thing that I’m gonna accomplish this week towards my vision. Now, the reason why it’s not all three is because some, some weeks there’s a birthday party that’s gonna be one of my big three every week I’m homeschooling. One of homeschool is one of my big three because that big three needs to take account for your time and energy. And so your time and energy like really doesn’t have much more than three things in a week, even though we think it does, even though we want it to, it really doesn’t. Not when you add in all of the things you’re already doing that you don’t even think about. You know the invisible work that we talk about a lot of times, right? Like. It’s, it takes time and energy to do those things. And so that big three is making sure that the most important things to you happen. So it might be your kids’ birthday, it might be finding that lost library book that is recruiting finds.
But it’s customized to you and what you’re doing. And so. As you do that and then you tack on every month during a review and you’re saying, these are the places that we went. These are the things I discovered and learned.
This is what I accomplished. These are important milestones or significant things for our family. These are the books I read. this is the progress that I made towards my vision. You start to create that feedback loop that encouraged you to move forward.
Monica: Okay, so let me make sure, ’cause I’m one of those people, like if I have like at all kind of sketch out in my mind, I’ve got this. Where we’re starting is with the vision, it’s casting a vision of what do and owning it. And then, uh, what we do from there is we break that down into 90 day, like how we’re towards that vision.
And then from there, the monthly version of that. And that’s where we get our big three.
Jessica: yep.
Monica: Okay. And then when we’re going into the actual process of planning week that you can win, you start by planning out the management pieces, like what appointments do I have and what meals match that. then you break down into more doable baby steps, how to make traction to towards your big three.
Do I have this right?
Jessica: Yeah. you got it.
Yeah.
Monica: What else?
Jessica: So I’d say the next crucial piece, and there’s like 13 steps. So I have like an entire free workshop. People can walk through and it’s got like pictures and images and I like show it But I’d say. Yeah it is visual, but, but there’s principles that you can apply no matter what.
Like you can take all of this and apply it to whatever you’re doing so you don’t feel like you have to use my stuff specifically. But another principle that matters so much when it comes to like getting it all done is how you write out your to-do list so that like long to-do list that we often write down. Where you’re like scanning it up and down, you’re like, oh, great. The kids are playing like, I’m gonna go get something done. And like by the time you’re like, ah, I don’t really feel like doing that. I probably should do that one. Oh, it’d probably be good for me to do this one. Like the moments passed. You did not make progress on anything.
And so instead, what I like to do, and I learned this from April Perry, and I think she learned it from Julie Morgan Stern, is to have context space to do so you have something for your home computer phone. Errands and to discuss are the five contexts. And so, so this is like some thing that was developed probably in the nineties that we’re all still
using. But the, the, the principle here then is when I’m writing out the things I’m gonna accomplish this week, things that didn’t maybe fall under the big three, but like I do have to call about my child’s doctor’s appointments and figure out the time and what’s happening there. And I do need to discuss with my husband when we’re going to get the babysitter for. A date, and I need to help a child put something together for church, and I need to have coordinate with someone that’s coming over for dinner and I want to record something about exercising. The point is, is it’s like these are all catchall things, but I’m not just gonna write it in a long list because then I can’t decide when I’m gonna do what. So instead, those things that I can do in my house with my kids around me, I’m putting under home. So if they are playing quietly, that’s great.
The things that when they’re like outta the house playing in the yard, I’m gonna write phone calls that I need to make under phone. So when they’re outside playing, I can batch all my phone calls when we are going crazy and we need to leave the house because we’re losing our minds. I run and do my errands list,
it can become addicting at how much you can get done when you batch your list this way. And that’s why we have to remember, is this a week? I can win because it can be too easy to be like, I can think of all of the things I ever wanted to do out of the house this week and put it under your errands.
And it’s like, but what do you actually have capacity for? What is your big three for the week? Because when you’re saying yes to something, you’re saying no to something else. And so having this big three as your guiding light helps you remember. What actually mattered to me was learning how to bake sourdough this week.
And if I say yes to this new thing that I just thought of, or someone came to me, that means I’m not going to have time to do my sourdough today.
Sometimes, the answer is, yeah.
it’s really important that I go hang out with my friend for fulfillment for both of us, or because they really need help. And so it’s okay for me not to do that.
And sometimes it might be, Nope, this really matters to me that I bake sourdough and I learn how to do this thing. So it creates this way for us to slow down and pause and actually evaluate where we’re spending our time. Are we spending other things that matter to us? And when other things come up, how are we comparing it against the trade off?
And so now you have something actually tangible that you’re looking at to say, this matters to me more. And it might, and that’s okay. Like this is a hundred percent flexible. But the goal is that. You are checking off most things every week and when you get to the end of the week, I’m looking at it and saying, is this even relevant?
I’m not automatically transferring it to the next week. You know, there’s like other places to put that task if it doesn’t work in the next week. So we don’t wanna have like this backlog of carrying over either fresh slate every week so that you can win.
Monica: so I have two follow up questions with that. Is one, do you have like a brain dump at the beginning of a month or as a week that you then pull from and put into these different contexts? Or just even as you’re writing down things, you just know to differentiate, oh, this is possible and this is not, so I’m just not gonna even write something down unless I don’t think it’s possible.
Jessica: So the way that I have it set up is I have a page for my vision for the year. I have a page for my goals for the quarter. I have a page for my goals for the month. And I say goals lightly my to-dos, my things I wanna do to take care of myself every month by projects.
And on there there’s a big running to-do list. So if there’s something that needs to happen during the month, it goes on that monthly page. If there is something that needs to happen during the quarter, it can go on the quarterly page. And then I also have something called a sandbox. It has all 12 months of the year.
And it’s like, if I don’t wanna forget it and I don’t wanna put it on the calendar, but I am not sure where it goes. And it might be like a fun tradition to try with my kids, or it might be like a habit I, I’m considering starting, or it might be a place that I wanna go. I’ll put this on my sandbox, these quarterly spreads.
So I just. Can come back and look at it. So that’s another spot Brain dumps might go. When it comes to management, most of those management things are popping up week to week, right? It’s the stuff that people are texting you, it’s the stuff that’s flooding your email inbox.
And so those are for the most part, just going right onto my weekly spread. And if it can happen later, it’s going onto the to-dos for the month. And if it’s something I’m considering, it’ll go onto like a sandbox page.
Monica: Okay. This is so helpful. And with the big three. And just another clarifying question for that, is this a, like a category like homeschooling or. Work or are they more very specific, like task oriented, like make your podcast for the work. That’s my big three for the week. I have to
Jessica: Yeah, it’s, yeah, it is not broad. That is not what we’re doing here. It’s so, it’s specific. So, so for, okay. Almost homeschooling is homeschooling and that has an entirely different system that I’m using. So for that, I just put homeschooling up so I don’t fill that space with something else. Homeschooling is the only thing that gets a four hour chunk of my time every day that gets that. Everything else is very specific.
Monica: Okay. So how does this look tangibly?
For those who are going back into those stages, like you talked about, bored, busy, frustrated, and in alignment. If people feel like they are in any one of those first three or even all three. Okay. I could totally resonate. I’ve, I’ve known where I felt both bored, busy, and frustrated all within the same day.
, if they’re in that place, what is the biggest thing that will. Make planning a week, they can win more possible. Just one thing that they can work on.
Jessica: You gotta start with your vision.
Monica: Okay.
Jessica: You have to have a vision. If you don’t have that, nothing else matters. Productivity does not matter. Time management does not matter. It. You just have to have something that gets you excited to get outta bed in the day. Like that’s where we start. Your vision is something that you can get excited about.
Monica: I love that that’s not productivity focused,
you know,
Jessica: not.
Monica: because when you are in those stages, when you’re in a survival mode, it’s more about how can I just be myself? gonna just help me feel like I’m even showing up?
Period. It’s less what you get done.
Jessica: and in those survival seasons specifically, your vision isn’t about doing, it’s about being,
who do I wanna be? So like, I’ve been, like, I had a hernia surgery, uh, after I had three kids. We were in Connecticut. A whole bunch of like series of horrible events happens. So I had surgery and. The only thing, and in the past I was like, it was like fantastic actually, because we were moving across the country again and I couldn’t participate. So I was kind of on a vacation while everyone was doing things around me, but also I had practiced. Those principles I talked about at the beginning about like learning for my mind, I was like, this is great.
I can practice. Because I knew I was gonna go through another pregnancy. I knew it was gonna be hard. And so I was like, this is great. I can practice for a few weeks and see if it worked for a really hard pregnancy coming up. And what was wonderful is I said, you know, I realized like I, instead of feeling guilty and bad, I’m just gonna thank people for all the times they help me and I’m gonna smile at my kids.
I can’t really. Do much more than that.
And so instead of feeling laying around all the guilt or even just feeling bad about all the things that I couldn’t do or that I wanted to do because you had a better belief, like I have things that I wanted to do. My life didn’t just like stop because I could, couldn’t do things. I really just focused on who I wanted to be and I wanted to be kind. I wanted to smile. I wanted to lighten the mood. So that was my vision. And so like that can be your vision too.
It doesn’t have to be. Doing loads of things or having big projects, or even building systems. It can just be who do I wanna be right now?
Monica: Well, this is where I’m gonna end with a couple personal questions and a little bit more rapid fire, but right now, what is your vision of who you want to be in this season?
Jessica: Oh, I wanna go back to the basics. I feel like I’m so good at doing so many different things, and I just wanna go back to the basics of my relationship with God, my relationship with my husband and my marriage, my relationship with my kids, and the basics of keeping our household running smoothly, basics and getting business systems up and running well, just.
Basics. That’s my vision.
It’s boring and I’m like so happy with boring right now. In the past I wouldn’t have been, but like I just feel like I’m settling in to realize like, this is good. Boring is good.
Monica: Mm, okay. This is a weird question because as we’re listening, it’s like, oh my gosh, you have been through so much. Like this has been such an experience of skill building, you know, and a persistence of being willing to keep trying different ways of doing things, but also honoring your season and, and being flexible.
As you’re learning the skill of, of, of planning and ways that work for you and help you show up better. Would you be willing to just share how you, you have not arrived? Because as people are listening, they’re like, oh man, she’s just like this perfect planner. Is there something you’re not good at with this stuff that you’re like, oh, I’m still working on this.
Jessica: All the time. All the time and like everything, there’s always something you can improve. What I really. Focus on and get so excited about is the gap of where I’m at and where I wanna go, and I always have. And I feel like because of that, I truly am someone that enjoys the journey. I enjoy the challenge, I enjoy the opportunity for growth, thriving.
Why is it thriving in motherhood? Thriving is all about growing and typically growing in rainstorms and extreme heat that it takes for plants to grow, right?
Like it’s not a comfortable process. And so. I am not good at so many things, but I’m really good at enjoying the gap and trying to get where I’m going.
Monica: Oh, love that. I think my final question for you is what has changed the most for you as you have cultivated the skill of planning, especially with that framework of planning? But the mindset of things that are reasonable and things that you can actually win at, what’s changed?
Jessica: I don’t think there’s an. Aspect of my life that has been untouched by applying these principles. So I mean, just month to month in my homeschooling, we’ve made so many little tweaks and tiny improvements by being able to reflect, see what’s working, see what’s not working and solve those problems. And in my business, six and a half years of just trying things and. Learning something new and delegating what I’ve got figured out and then picking up something new, um, in my marriage, like our ability to communicate and to go through hard things together and make us stronger through it has been incredible because we’ve learned how to have really successful weekend planning sessions, so I understand what my husband’s priorities are and I know what my priorities are, and we can be interdependent on them.
In my relationship with my kids, it’s so easy. ’cause here’s the other thing about big threes. Let me go back to this. When you have a big three, you can see week to week where you’re spending your time. And the reality is, is it’s not neat and tidy. There’s some weeks where I’m like all in on business stuff or I’m all in in a house project,
or I’m all in with doing things with my kids and it starts to feel awful. And I’m like, why is it feeling so awful? And I can go back and see like,
Oh, I haven’t done anything for me in a while, or I haven’t been spending time with my kids like I wanted to or, and so it allows me to rebalance life as I’m going.
And so I’d say that’s the biggest thing is that I have the, the information in front of me to be able to know why I am not feeling good, why things are off, and then what I can do about it to make changes. And all of this pretty much happens while I’m taking a shower in the morning and no one is talking to me and I’m praying and I’m getting ideas come into my mind, and then I write ’em down and I go forward.
Monica: Beautiful. Jessica, this has been such a helpful, deep, but also practical conversation. Uh, probably my favorite kind of conversation to have. I’d like to direct people to your podcast as well as your Instagram. We’ll have those all linked in the show notes you’d mentioned having a free class where they can walk through your step process of, of, of planning.
What is that and where can they find it?
Jessica: Yeah, so it’s Plan a week. You can win at thriving in motherhood podcast.com/more time. . All of my other resources are also on the website and my Instagram is thriving motherhood dot podcast as well.
Monica: Lovely. Thank you so much for all of the amazing work that you’re doing and for being on the show today.
Jessica: Thank you.
Monica: Well, I’m just like curious with all these other questions I have for you, but um, maybe another time, another day, I, my babysitter’s about to.
Jessica Jackson, welcome back to Well Back. Okay. Lemme try No, this is the
I know. It should be back though. You should have been on here a lot longer or a lot
I, I was trying to read my handwriting here, so I’m like, what, what, what was the other question I have? Hold on. Just how have you, oh, okay.
