Be the Dad 13. Be the ‘Growing Dad’ Personal growth.
If you want to be an amazing Dad and man and have a great life, invest into your personal growth.
The gold that you put into to your heart and mind will develop and build you on the inside and powerfully will flow out and touch and change every area of your life
‘The good man out of the treasure of his heart rings forth good things’
My friend who battled to change his life.
I have a great friend, Danny. Danny’s life was going OK, he was going though his daily work motions, hanging out with his friends, playing sports and had a fairly stable relationship, but he wasn’t happy. And then he heard the greatest news, he and his partner were expecting a daughter! Something changed in Danny, he got a vision of how he wanted his future life to be and his future self that he wanted was different, better, happier. So Danny changed his music to songs with more encouragement, he started listening to Audio Books that educated and encouraged, he started being more selective about friends, he started seeing a life coach to deal with past hurts and also to build on his strengths and weaknesses. You would not recognise my friend today compared to his former self of seven years ago. He is happy, confident and inspirational! An incredible Dad of 4 children. And it all changed because he focused on personal growth
So how do you grow? Firstly you need motivation, a desire for change, for Danny it was the upcoming arrival of his daughter. Then you need a picture of the goal that you want to grow to and plan how to get there. Then you need to start and take steps each day towards reaching your goal. Lastly, you need to not give up.
The following are keys that will give you great personal growth; Goals and how to reach them and 8 Keys to growing a better future you.
Goals and how to reach them - 3 key steps.
A goal is the picture of how you want to be and where you want to get to. Spend time thinking about what is important to you, choose the best two to three and use the following process to get there:
1/ WHAT IS THE VISION/GOAL - Get a picture of how you want your life to be.
2/ HOW & HOW LONG - Figure out how you will get there and set a reasonable timeframe.
3/ DAILY STEPS - Put into place daily input and actions that have you moving towards those goals.
For Example:
1/ WHAT IS THE VISION/GOAL- To be someone who is an encourager with positive words
2/ HOW - Thinking of 3 great things about each of the people in your life. Looking in the mirror and saying 10 encouraging things to yourself. Listen to encouraging podcasts daily on the way to work. Seperating yourself from negative friends.
& HOW LONG - I aim to be more encouraging than discouraging in 6 months, I will know I have improved because people will start feeling better around me and saying ‘thanks for saying that’.
3/ DAILY STEPS - remind yourself of the goal, write this down and the steps you need to take, put it on your bathroom mirror . Do the steps from point 2/ daily. Write down the wins that you have had as you grow.
8 Keys to growing into a better future you:
Moving on from past hurts and disappointments so they don’t steal your future.
Forgive: Forgive and move on from past hurts. This is hard, it doesn’t mean that what happened to you was right, but forgiving frees you from that person and the past event. You will need to do this over and over, everytime that you think of that person or event. To get free you may need help from counsellors and psychiatrists, there is no shame in this, its smart, they are the Doctors for our hearts and minds. Also forgive yourself.
Let go of the past: Wins and lessons, let go of past failure, learn from it and move on, it may never stop hurting but as you move on from it in time the pain will decrease. Don’t let past failure steal future wins. I love the Robert Kiyosaki quote - Winners fail until they succeed.
Finding good people to spend time around - friends and Mentors.
Find good friends, seperate yourself from bad friends. Find inspirational people, people that are winning in areas of their life that you can look up to and aspire to be like. We often settle for friends that we feel comfortable with. Inspirational friends will cause you to be inspired and confronted, it may be uncomfortable. Find friends that tell you what you need to hear not what you want to hear.
Find a mentor - a good friend or older person who is stable, wise and is winning in life. Just ask them ‘hey can I get your input on my life from time to time’. This needs to be someone that you can be open and honest with. Plan time to talk to them to glean wisdom with questions llike ‘what would you do in this situation’, ‘I’m struggling here’. Establish at the start with them what you hope to achieve and then how often you meet and what you hope to get out of the catch-ups.
The wheel of balance
This has been amazing for me. Check out the chart. You put the key areas of your life against the ‘spokes of the wheel’ and rate how much time energy you are putting into each. You then get a clear picture of the areas that need more time or are taking too much. If there are big spokes and little spokes then the wheel of your life won’t run smoothly.
You are what you eat - the difference between Inspiration and Entertainment.
What are you feeding your mind? This is what you will think about and our thoughts steer our actions. Make the hard choice between entertainment and inspiration. On your way to work, you can listen to the radio and be entertained by funny hosts and stories or arrive at work with a story from Tony Robbins that could change your life forever.
Most TV, Movies and Music won’t inspire you to the place that you want to grow to. Don’t just ask, ‘are these good for me?’ but ask ‘are these inspiring me and taking me to where I need to be?’.
Put good stuff into your mind.
Crutches and addictions that steal your joy and prevent you from growing.
These are things that we turn to when we are hurting or when we want to shut off from the World. Some of these can be fine in moderation, but when we start relying on them to feel better they are temporary patches that make you feel good for a moment but just cover up the problem. We can become addicted to them and this prevents us growing through the situation.
How to identify unhealthy addictions; think of the answer to these questions:
What do you turn to when life is hard?
Is the benefit that you receive good for you in the long term?
Do these help you get to your goal?
Could you stop if you want?
Do these numb out the pain or help you confront and move on?
Keys to overcoming negative addictions:
Find something to replace it with, positive confession, exercise, reading or listening to positive inspirational material
setting yourself a 30 day goal of going without it to break the habit
seperating yourself from access to this thing.
Letting your partner know and letting her journey with you in overcoming this
Hitting up the key emotions that lead you to want to turn to this thing. What is the internal feeling that triggers this - get to the root of this issue and look for solutions.
Know that you have the ability to overcome it.
Reach out for help, a friend or mentor and depending on the addiction, professional help
Identify your strengths and weaknesses and work on them
What could I be great at, what naturally comes to me, work on and develop those things. What are my weaknesses? How can I grow through these things? Write down your top three of each and put next to each a couple of points that you could do to improve on these.
Be ok with being on a growing journey and not being perfect.
They say that an overnight success in the music business is 20 years in the making. A big reason that we give up is that we don’t feel like we are making progress. Know that doing the right things will produce the right results. Don’t try and be perfect, there is no such thing, just be better than yesterday, than last week. Be honest with your family; ‘Hey kids Dad is working on this, it's something that I am working to get better at’. Development takes time.
Learn how to be the best you.
‘You are weird’ I get this quite a lot. It used to make me feel bad, strange, but I know that what people are really saying is that ‘you are different’. I now feel like this is a sign that I’m on the right path because I am being me. I’m not aiming to be different, I aiming to be me.
There is no-one else like you, you are special and unique. Be your best you.
So Dad’s, start by dreaming about how great life can be, then plan and start walking towards your future. Go for it Dad’ be the ‘Growing Dad’