The Story
Every day, dads get better at being dads.
They take a shorter lunch and come home earlier.
Dads are finding time to spend a few extra minutes with their children before dinner.
They are asking questions that lead to meaningful conversations.
Dads are giving advice to struggling teenagers as they mature.
They are available when their spouse needs them and their children.
Dads are showing compassion and discussing how their emotional state is, rather than rely on the "suck it up" mentality.
We say we need to be tough but we need to love and be loved.
So I say to you, if you change nothing, your past is going to be your future.
Change today to change tomorrow.
The Problem
How you were raised is going to be how you raise your children and participate in your family. This doesn't have to be true.
Whatever your situation, you have to separate the good and bad from the past and recognize what would be best for you and your family in the future.
Let’s discuss how we can bring the good things to the future and leave the bad things in the past.
The Solution
Below is a list of ideas and explanation to help you overcome some of the challenges that you may be facing. These ideas will benefit you if you do a portion of them.
Develop habits that will drive you to the path that you want to be on. For a long time I was unsure how to find success and happiness. I couldn't have defined it.
Today success is when my daughter tells me she loves me first. Happiness is helping my wife clean the house so we can spend some time together just talking.
Find your motivator, find your passion, find what you connect with. To do that, you may have to do a lot of internal reflecting. This exercise is pointless until the first idea is not used. Go through this experience so you can remember it.
Start a Journal
One way to do that is to self reflect on your situation and what you have experienced. Start a journal. Write the date and keep a topic consistent.
Determine who was your role model when you were a youth and growing. Determine what lessons you learned that can help you today.
Here are some sample questions to get your thoughts going in this direction.
How do you feel about your upbringing? How do you feel about your mom? How do you feel about your dad? How do you feel about the experiences that you had? What are some of the best times? What are some of the worst times? When you think about your childhood, who is the father figure you looked up to?
When I think of a journal, I go back to a piece of paper. Journals have evolved today. One Note, a Microsoft product, could be used. There are multiple journal resource apps that will send you a daily reminder to write impressions. You could start a google doc and just have it open and update it regularly.
What is Journaling?
A journal isn’t just writing a narration of the events on the day. A journal is a place to write your impressions and insights that come to your mind.
One well known religious leader shared a story of writing the impression he recognized as “God reaching out to touch [his family],” every day1 (O Remember, Remember (churchofjesuschrist.org)). Another thought leader from the 1960’s related writing impressions to using “the gold mine between your ears.”2 The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale (Daily Listening) - YouTube
We have impressions and ideas that come to us when we focus internally. When we write those thoughts, we have a record of the “What” to our guide.
What’s the What?
Let me explain what the “What” is. The “What” is the base layer, a foundation. We are looking for the “What” in our lives so that we have a guide, parameters, that we are aligning our lives to. The ground may shake underneath us but the foundation is still going to be on the ground.
If you do not have principles or standards, you do not have a direction. This is like being a boat on the water without a rudder and no engine.
On a family trip to California, we went on a boat trip to see a whale. We trolled out the bay area and into the open ocean. The captain found an area where there was a whale known to be surfacing. He cut the engine and we waited as the captain announced that the whale could take as much as 20 minutes to surface.
As we waited the boat rocked and swayed and blew about in the wind. The mountains were behind us when we arrived at the known location of the whale. When the whale finally surfaced, the boat had turned so the side of the boat was towards the mountain. The waves and wind moved the boat as all of us stared at the water.
We had not realized that the boat was being moved by forces outside of our control.
What could we control?
We can control three things in our lives as it relates to a boat.
The integrity of the hull (our walls).
The position of the rudder (the direction we are going).
The strength of the engine (the focus we put into the direction).
What Can We Control?
First Control
The integrity of the hull (our walls).
Second Control
The position of the rudder (the direction we are going).
Third Control
The strength of the engine (the focus we put into the direction).
Hanging on the Walls
Pornography
There is a lot of research to suggest that pornography hurts kids and adults. It trains unhealthy, and often, unrealistic, sex habits and expectations as well. Take down the inappropriate images.
In place of it put up a landscape, your favorite place to vacation, a world map, a cityscape from the town you grew up in, a city you want to live in or the town you live in, or, probably better yet, a picture of your family.
If you are struggling with pornography seek help. Here is the link to the United States Department of Health National Hotline. https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline
There are so many other resources you can use to relieve yourself of this addiction. Don’t be embarrassed, there are so many people that have struggled with this and over come it. For some it was too late to save their relationships.
As noted on one website, “70% of men and 20% of women report looking at porn at least once a month.” https://husbandhelphaven.com/porn-statistics/ . There are a lot of people who take an interest in pornography. This does not have to be you.
The reality is that secrecy about it hurts your relationship with loved ones. The use of it hurts your relationship with loved ones. If you are married, there is a better than 50% chance you will end up divorced because of it. Take stock of what is important and move forward in the right direction.
The Television
Another item on your wall is the TV. This can be used to view wholesome family friendly movies. It can also be used to play a video game with your kids.
The downside is that it is always there and often on. Hours of your life can be wasted watching programs that are not beneficial for you. Turn it off. Better yet, get rid of it.
I won a TV at a company party one year. I had been looking to buy one so this really came at an awesome time for me. About a year in and countless complaints between my wife and I that our kids watched too much programming that wasn’t beneficial, we finally had to get rid of it. Literally, we had to get rid of it.
My son was playing tennis in the house and hit it, the screen still worked, kind of. He did it again a few days later with a baseball and it didn’t work anymore.
This was the excuse we needed to take it off the wall for good. We put it on the ground and took it apart to see what was on the inside. It was a little disappointing to see how far technology has come, there isn’t much to see on the inside of a TV anymore.
Instead of a TV, we got a cheap projector and some small computer speakers. We set up the projector, usually, one night a week and watch a movie as a family.
Not having a TV has been perfect for our family. There hasn’t been fighting or complaining about whose turn it is or what to watch next. If you are feeling ambitious and committed to changing the wallscape in your house, take it off the wall and give it away or sell it.
What’s on My Walls
To be honest, I have a lot of shelves in bedrooms so not much goes on the walls in those rooms.
In the main rooms of the house, there is a world map, a clock, a whiteboard, a calendar and, because of the season, an advent calendar.
I also have a TV mount that I use as a towel rack in my room. Not very interesting but I don’t spend a lot of time staring at the wall so I am never looking for anything to fill the space.
Evaluate
Evaluate your walls, internally. Get to a place in your mind that allows you to think clearly and find value in new things. Activities should bring all of the following:
Set Your Course and Engage the Engine
Do not work backwards. You are on a forward path now. Find the direction that your rudder needs to move to get you to a place where you are effective with your skills. Engage in new opportunities that stretch you. This may take some slow going at first. The more you engage in wholesome activities that have an end result in building up your family, you will start to move in that direction faster.
This is a process and takes constant power moving forward. It may be slow tolling to get you started but once you start, do not turn off the engine. Keep motivated enough to keep the engine burning. You may have to slow back down to trolling speed. However, never stop.
As you change, your family will change. Your relationships will become stronger. You will have opportunities to help them and they will, in turn, help you. As you build them up, the whole family is stronger. Change today to change tomorrow. “How you were raised is going to be how you raise your children and participate in your family,” said earlier, is not true of you any more. You are moving forward and you do not have to let your past determine your future.