THE STRUGGLE TO KEEP A POSITIVE MINDSET AS A DAD
THE RIGHT STATE OF MIND
I am not a spiritual guru or a Zen master. Truth be told, I will never be confused as the poster child of the perfect dad and I struggle to keep a positive mindset daily. I lack patience and lose my temper with them from time to time for just being kids. Nor am I the all-knowing authority on how to develop and maintain positivity.
I am far from perfect. If you seek the ultimate guide to parenting tranquillity from the Zen master of all dads, you can keep looking.
You have come to the wrong place.
I am just like any other dad. Some might say I am an Ordinary Dad.
Like any parent, I wish I had more time to play with my kids and have fun with them rather than doing the everyday, mundane things we, as parents, always have to do to keep the home going.
It may sound dumb, but, I wish I were more like Bandit from Bluey.
Maybe it's a silly cartoon example, but he is just a cool dad.
Fun. Playful. Patient. Engaged. Creative.
He always takes the time to make great memories with his girls, mainly by just being present. He plays with them and teaches them new games and valuable life lessons. He is funny and relatable. Just a stand-up dad.
Like him, there are examples of great dads all around, every day, both in entertainment and real life, that I wish I were more like. Seeing those examples, compared to some of my behaviour as a dad, shone the light on the change that was necessary for our family to be happy.
Being a dad is incredibly rewarding, but it is work.
There is nothing that I love more than my children and my family and any dad will tell you that. However, the work that goes into raising your children to be good people is exhausting. Physically and mentally. There are days where that wears on me and I am not able to show them a positive example. That may be because I must be borderline bipolar, or maybe because of a hot Spanish temper. Likely both. I do not think I am any less of a person because these things are a challenge to me.
To push through, I have developed a sort of mantra. A simple set of words that I repeat to myself when I am stressed or when things get tough. But the challenge is truly believing these words four which is what has helped me to have a better outlook and relationship with the ones I love of late.
GRATITUDE
HAPPINESS
PATIENCE
POSITIVITY
THE GRATITUDE FOR EVERY MOMENT
I could not be more grateful for my life. Since turning 41, I have wanted to have a different daily mindset. Practicing gratitude as a skill is something I have been working on more and more actively recently. It is easy to lose sight of our gratitude even with everyday examples all around us to remind us of the evils in this world.
Tales of people in the hospital clinging to life headline every news broadcast at noon, six and 11 PM. The way the elderly population is treated in nursing homes, or domestically verges on crisis levels. Or stories of your family members with young children suffering illnesses you would wish on no one. There are reasons to be miserable all around us, if we let it. I have decided to change my perspective on this sadness.
Flip things around and look at it as an opportunity for gratitude.
I don't have to walk my kids to school in the morning. I get to.
I don't have to make them their breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I get to.
I don't have to do their laundry and clean the house. I get to.
I don't have to clean up after my three-year-old's potty-training accident. I get to.
Your mind is a powerful thing.
Perception is reality.
My key has been to remind myself of the good, and the positive in any situation. I am grateful for my health, my house, my family, and my life every day. When I see things through that lens, life is beautiful.
Don't have a car? You don't have to worry about gas and insurance money.
Need to get up to make breakfast and lunches for the kids? You keep your family healthy.
Don't want to do the laundry? You have wardrobe options, keep them clean.
Miss the bus to work? There will be another one right behind it.
The way you frame things has a remarkable way of affecting how you view them. Lead with gratitude.
THE HAPPINESS YOU CRAVE IS THE HAPPINESS YOU CREATE
There was a time when I thought that your outcomes dictate your emotions when, in fact, your emotions dictate your outcomes. Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yes, that can be viewed as being delusional, or not in touch with reality, but is it any different from telling yourself you can do something? Having the confidence to tell yourself that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to? Having the courage to smile in difficult situations, when things get hard, or when you just don't feel like it, is a superpower.
Life is hard. It will smack you in the face, over and over, if you let it.
Smile.
It makes it better. A more positive disposition makes the difference in many things and that cumulative effect can have tremendous benefits when you are consistently looking at things on the bright side. Things look much different when faced with a smile. Hard times are not as hard when you are more resilient and patient. You have to have faith that things work out.
THE PATIENCE OF A SAINT
My greatest struggle as I became a dad, was my Achilles heel before parenthood, a lack of patience. I have always wanted everything NOW. Promotions, rewards, presents, anything. I have never been a fan of delaying gratification. A lesson I had to become a father to learn.
Though I have been able to scrape some patience together to wait for something good, the truth is, when you show patience waiting for something good does show much. It is exhibiting patience in all moments. When it is hard. When you are tired. When you don't want to. But patience is one that parents often have to practice in simple scenarios that make life easier.
Picture yourself in the car with your family at the beginning of a 6-hour road trip up north. When only a few minutes in, your youngest has a stage 5 nuclear meltdown because you forgot her 3rd favourite stuffy. Every fibre in your body may be telling you to respond with the same level of incoherent ear-splitting screaming you are being subject to, but, you have to be the adult.
It is those moments that help you understand what it is to show patience. Every day we are put into uncomfortable, unpleasant or odd situations that we do not want to find ourselves in. Something as mundane as waiting in line at the grocery store, or renewing your license can be agonizing without the right mindset.
THE PUSH FOR POSITIVITY
In all the bad and doom and gloom we see in the world through the news, it is hard to focus on the good around us. When all we see are the evils of the world in war, death and famine we are hardwired with negativity at an early age. Sometimes we aren't aware we have a negative thought or perception, but just naturally saying no, or you can't start things off on the wrong foot.
Seeing the positive can be hard. It is almost like a reprogramming. Like creating your outcomes and speaking things into existence. If you believe and think positive things, positive things will happen. If you believe you can, you can.
It is both a delusion sense of self-belief, and self-confidence and keeping a cheery outlook.
As a dad, I learn from my kids every day and no more than when it comes to positivity.
Watching the confidence my 4-year-old has that she can ride her bike all by herself down our GIANT hill. Or, seeing the unyielding faith my 3-year-old has in her ability to stick the landing after jumping off the top of the couch. Or, watching the determination in my 8-year-old's eyes as he tries to master drawing the flag of Sri Lanka.
It is that positivity, that confidence, that light that we should all look at life with and the way I try to approach things every day.
But I am not perfect. I stumble. There are days when I can't keep my shit together. There are days that I forget to remind myself to remember the four words. That is when I try extra hard to remind myself of the four words because it is when I need them most.
And that I am just The Ordinary Dad.
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