I'm not perfect by any means, but I'm a work in progress and I realized how I was on the tract for burnout: by always putting others before myself, by burning the candle at both ends, by letting my schedule rule me instead of taking control and responsibility of the life I was creating. Life doesn't happen to us, it's what you make of it. If your not personally happy, your children will notice. Putting my health first after many years of self neglect, allowed me to be the best version of myself for not only me but for my family. My family no longer gets what's left of me because I take good care of myself. It's no longer about prioritizing what's on my schedule but making what matters most a priority on my schedule. I first had to come to terms with "the guilt": It’s not selfish to invest in yourself or your health, so that you can be present today and tomorrow. Then I had to deal with being overwhelmed and the anxiety of taking on yet another thing to add to my to do list. Then their was my believe "I am too busy". Then I realized, a parents’ most important job is to demonstrate to their children how to live a fulfilling and happy life. I would do anything for my children, so I knew something had to change.
How happy you are dramatically affects how happy and successful your kids are. So what's my secret. There is no secret we all have the power within us to make this happen but I'll provide some tips and tricks I used to improve our life dramatically.
Get Happy Yourself: Block out time for yourself. Focus on activities and actions that energize you not deplete you. If it doesn't serve you or our family's goals LET IT GO.
Make family time a priority - at a minimum weekly do a fun activity together.
Gain Optimism: start and end each day identifying what you are grateful for. This is a great activity to get the kids into. Realize things are going to happen in life, you can't control that, but you can control your thoughts and actions. So keep it positive it's amazing how powerful the mind is.
Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Management: Realize feelings you can not control they naturally happen, so be tolerant of how others and yourself are feeling. But don't let those feeling rule you. Your behaviors and thoughts are a choice.
Stimulus removal: De-clutter, Get distractions and temptations out of the way.
Make yourself accountable: Get clear on your goals and the actions you are committing to taking daily to improve. Speak this into existence to another to establish increased social support — and social pressure. (this sounds bad) but for some reason I'm always more accountable and will make the effort to show up for someone else over myself.
Keep it simple - Break down your goal into an action plan of small doable steps. Who doesn't love to win... you have to make it simple enough you can actually win because you are less likely to keep doing something if you aren't getting gratification from your actions.
One Goal At A Time: Too many goals overwhelms willpower, especially for kids. Solidify one habit before adding another. One step at a time.
Keep At It: Don’t expect perfection or immediate results. It takes time. There will be relapses. That’s normal. Keep reinforcing. Don’t forget to take care of YOU. You deserve to live the life you desire.
Practice Good Health: Hydrate well, fuel your body with the nutrition needed to feel good, take up healthy motion increasing oxygen to help your body run more optimally.
We’re often more open to new methods when it comes to work and careers, but ignoring tips when it comes to family can be common a mistake. One of the biggest mistakes I made was going through my journey privately. It's through our struggles and mistakes that we learn and sharing these moments could likely help others gain freedom and become happier more present parents. So I've going to continue to post in more depth about all the items above in hopes it helps inspire others that they can make a change and improve their life and that the seemingly impossible is possible.
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