Ep. 176: Sprint Recap Day 3: Survival Isn't Failure—It's Success

Here's the reframe that brought the biggest relief today inside the Sprint: Survival isn't failure. Survival is success. Survival is strength. 

I know that might sound impossible to believe—especially if you've been telling yourself that you're behind, that you're not doing enough, that everyone else has it more together than you do.

But today, inside Day 3 of the 3-Day Survival Mode Rescue Sprint, women experienced a complete identity shift. They stopped seeing survival mode as something to be ashamed of and started seeing it as something to be proud of.

I'm Jennifer Roskamp, and what happened in that room today was nothing short of transformational. Women who walked in feeling like failures walked out feeling like warriors.

Because they finally understood: Carrying this much and still standing? That's not weakness. That's incredible strength.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Redefining Survival: A New Perspective
• 1:17 Insights from the Three-Day Sprint
• 2:32 Redefining Survival: A New Perspective

Transcript

Well, welcome to the Intentional Midlife Mom podcast this week. I am your host, Jennifer Roskamp, and man, my voice has been put through the wringer this week. So much teaching, so much coaching, but it has been so fun to hang out with women and help them carry differently, help them walk forward easier, help relieve some of the enormous weight that has been on

their shoulders. And so today in the sprint was perhaps, I think it brought the most relief in reality. And it's because we're changing how we see survival. We learned today that survival isn't failure, it's actually success. And it's strength. And I know that that sounds crazy, right? Especially if you've been telling yourself that you're behind or that you're not doing enough or that everyone else has it more together than you do. But.

Today inside day three of the three-day survival mode rescue sprint, women experienced a complete identity shift. They stopped seeing survival mode as something to be ashamed of and something to escape, and they started seeing it as something to be proud of. What happened in our class today, it was nothing short of transformational, especially after the three days we've had together. Women who started this three-day journey feeling like failures walked out feeling like

warriors today because they finally understood I'm carrying this much and I'm still standing. That proves that I'm strong. So here's what we discovered today. The reason that you feel like you're failing isn't because you're not doing enough. It's because you're measuring success by impossible standards. You're comparing your survival season to someone else's thriving season. You're measuring your good enough against someone else's highlight reel.

You're expecting yourself to function at 100 % when you're operating already at maximum capacity. And this really is why today we covered what I call the bare minimum reset. And this is really where we step inside of doing it differently and carrying differently. Instead of chasing perfect, you define three good enough wins that count as success in your current season. So let me give you an example from my own life.

Last year during one of our most chaotic seasons, my bare minimum reset looked like this. The daily win was that everyone ate at least one thing that was nutritious. Urgent things, truly urgent things got handled when they needed to. And I moved my body most days. The weekly win. The weekly win for me was that most of the laundry moved through the system. That doesn't mean it got folded and put away, right? It moved through the system.

A weekly win was also that I had one meaningful conversation and that the bills were paid. Weekly wins, right? Monthly win. The relationships that are meaningful to me, they were mostly intact. Forward progress was made on something that mattered to me and we made one family fun memory together. That's it. That was my definition of success. It wasn't gourmet meals and it wasn't organized closets and

perfect family time. It was just the essentials, but they were done with intention. And do you know what happened during this time? I still felt proud of myself instead of feeling ashamed because instead of constantly falling short of impossible standards, I was consistently meeting realistic ones. Good enough meals, good enough routines, good enough parenting. Not because I was settling for less, but because I was being strategic about what mattered most because I didn't have another choice. And this is how you stop just enduring

and you start actually living, even if your life looks different than you imagined or how it used to look. Today, one of the women in the sprint said something that it just hit me. She said, I realized that survival isn't the opposite of success. Survival is success. And I've been succeeding this whole time. I just couldn't see it. That's the power of redefining success. That's what happens when you start measuring your life by your own standards.

instead of everyone else's expectations, or maybe your previous expectations. Inside the sprint today, we walked through choosing three bare minimum wins for the week. And the relief, it was essentially instant, because suddenly the pressure lifted. Women were saying things like, I can actually do this. This feels possible. I'm already succeeding, and I didn't even know it. One woman realized that making sure her kids felt loved and supported was actually more important than having a clean house.

Another realized that showing up consistently for her family mattered more than showing up perfectly. And another woman said, I've been so focused on what I'm not doing that I couldn't see everything I was doing. When I listed my bare minimum wins, I realized I'm already crushing it. Here's a simple version that you can try right now. Think about your current season and ask yourself, what are three things that if they happen this week, you're going to count the week as a success? Not perfect, not impressive.

Just success. Maybe it's everyone eating together twice. Maybe it's getting one load of laundry completely done. Maybe it's having one real conversation with your spouse or a friend. Whatever it is for you, claim it, own it, be proud of it. Because good enough isn't failure. Good enough is strategic. And good enough, it's sustainable. Now, that was just the beginning of really what we covered in day three. Inside the sprint itself, we went much deeper.

And we talked about why we resist redefining success. And really, it's because somewhere along the way we learned that wanting less means we're lazy or uncommitted. But wanting sustainability, it doesn't mean you're lazy. It's actually wise. We explored how to communicate your bare minimum standards to your family and maybe others without feeling like you're letting them down. We talked about how to explain that simplified

It doesn't mean you don't care. It just means you're being strategic about your energy. It means you're being realistic. And we also address the guilt that comes up when you stop trying to do everything perfectly, because that guilt is normal. It will be there, but it doesn't have to stop you from choosing what's sustainable. We talked about how to celebrate small wins without minimizing them. We talked about how to feel genuinely proud of good enough instead of apologizing for it. And we created what I call

a survival mode strong identity statement. Instead of I'm barely keeping it together, women were saying things like, I'm carrying an enormous load with grace. I'm adapting to my season with wisdom. I'm succeeding at survival and that's incredible. But here's what was most powerful. It was watching women give themselves permission to be human, to stop chasing perfect and to start choosing sustainable.

to measure their lives by their own values and standards instead of everyone else's expectations. And again, the relief in the room could be felt because for the first time in years, these women felt like they were enough. Here's what we accomplished together over these three days. In day one, we saw the crash out cycle and clearly realized that we're not broken, we're just overloaded. In day two of the sprint,

If you were with us, you learned to interrupt the spin in real time and create breathing room, even in the chaos. And today in the sprint, if you were with us, you redefine success in a way that actually fits your life and lets you feel proud instead of behind. These aren't just feel good concepts. These are foundational shifts that change how you see yourself and how you navigate your life. But here's the thing. Three days is only the beginning.

What we covered in the sprint is the foundation, the awareness, the first taste of what it feels like to carry differently. But if you want to build real lasting change, if you want to stabilize your life and create systems that actually support you, you need more than a foundation. You need the full structure. And here's the exciting part. Today is also the day that doors open for my four week program, Survival Mode Strong.

This is where we take everything that you've learned in the sprint and we build it into a sustainable way of life. This is where we go beyond relief and we actually create stability because awareness is powerful, but application is everything. In survival mode strong, we don't just talk about boundaries, we build boundaries that actually stick. We don't just practice pausing, we create systems that protect your capacity automatically.

We don't just redefine success, we build a life that consistently delivers those wins. Over four weeks, you'll master the four pillars of becoming survival mode strong. In week one, you'll learn the audit and awareness. This is when we do a complete inventory of your load and we create complete clarity about what actually needs you versus what you've just been carrying out of habit or because you thought you had to.

In week two, we talk about creating boundaries that stick. We build shame-free boundaries that protect your capacity without guilt, including scripts and systems that make saying no feel natural instead of terrible. In week three, you'll learn how to carry differently, and we create your personalized bare minimum reset, and we build it into your daily rhythm so that good enough becomes your new, sustainable way of life. And then in week four, we build resilience.

We identify your crash triggers and we create stabilizers that hold so that you stop cycling through breakdown and rebuild and you start living with steady strength. This isn't just coaching, this is transformation. This is where you finally stop surviving and start living right where you are. The women who go through survival mode strong, they're not just gonna feel better for a few weeks. They're gonna have fundamentally changed how they carry their lives.

They're going to be building strength that lasts.

It is amazing what your life can become when you learn to stop fighting against it and accept it the way that it is and figure out how can I do this, but how can I do this better? So if you're tired of cycling through the breakdown and rebuild cycle, and if you're ready to finally build stability that holds, this is for you. If you want to become the woman who doesn't just survive her season but gets strong in it, this is your program.

Doors are open now, but they close soon. You can head to survivalmodestrong.com to join us. There's also a link down in the show notes. And when you do, you'll be able to join us inside Survival Mode Strong. We begin soon, and we are going to change the way that you feel and experience your very own life. I can't wait to see you inside.