5:14
Writer’s note: It’s a bad habit if you’re going to start putting words down in the morning and be distracted by all of your Facebook updates, emails and news streams. Go ahead an discipline yourself and don’t turn on or open any window that is going to distract you.
As Jim Rohn said before, “Where ever you are, be there.” Don’t be distracted. It’s part of good time management, but it’s also good to make sure all you mental facilities are banging on all cylinders as you can multi-task, but you cannot multi focus.
Which brings me to other challenges in building a home business or any business. Keeping in line with your family goals.
Do you ever have the feeling that you could be doing better in keeping up a relationship with your children? How would you feel if you could do something extraordinarily simple and yet powerful in your effort to keep your business-family life imbalance?
Let’s get quiet…
My Two Children
Listening to your children’s hearts
Putting a new business together is time consuming. Between learning new skills, interacting with a new communities of people, getting out into the field, often drawing on both courage and humility and doing your best never staying more than a moment in a state of stupidity (which do occur). On top of that, keeping up a daily blog, maintaining a full-time job, and helping your spouse do the same can all point to your need to get your gonads together to meet your children’s needs.
If you’re like me, 51 and have two young kids, you know that your set of challenges are not the same as those without children or who have children grown up and independently living their daily lives.
Young children are special and they need your special attention. If you and I have chosen a lifestyle of an entrepreneur, what can you do?
Step 1: Listen
Like every other important aspect of your life, you need to spend time to focus on your children. And the most powerful thing you can do is shut up and listen to them.
It speaks “love” without saying it. Not that you shouldn’t say “I love you,” but love without action is nothing. Don’t forget, listening IS an action.
It helps to have some flexibility since young kids can be more spontaneous with their desire to express themselves, but when you can spend time to just sit their and listen to whatever they want to talk about, they’ll think it’s the best conversation they’ve ever had with you.
Face it, as a parent, you probably say too much, I know I do, so give your children two important gifts: time and listening.
Step 2: Maintain rituals
The little daily things that you do to remind your children they matter, will matter.
Some examples are praying with them before that go to bed or high-fiving them before they go to school. Hugging them, even if they seem preoccupied with their games or other distraction. This maintenance of daily habits will act as safety line that connects the days of your lives together.
Step 3: Acknowledge their accomplishments
Just like you need to be recognizing the achievements that you attain, you need to positively acknowledge to your children everything that they accomplish.
Remember the basic 17 to 1 rule of eradicating negative thinking: For every negative, you need 17 positive affirmations to neutralize the 1. Wow, I bet that puts us into a giant hole, right? But don’t sit there and count! The point is, it seems we’re hardwired for negativity.
I’m not saying spoil your children, I mean you will need to do the work of making sure you give the feedback that they can only get from you as a parent. You don’t want your children to grow up thinking that the most important people in their lives don’t recognize what they’ve accomplished.
Step 4: Check your integrity
The last thing you want to do is go on a long road trip (like building a business) and then find out when you get to your destination that you didn’t bring your passport or visa.
I got this idea from listening to Family Life Radio when they were interviewing the author of a book called “Dare to Love.” In that conversation they said at times, you will want to sit down with your children and ask them:
“Have I made any promises to you that I have not fulfilled yet?”
And be ready to field what they may say without being defensive. As parents, even if you believe that you exert every energy to say what you mean and not, for example, promise things that you have no intention to fulfill to get them to do things (which I strongly exhort you not to do), the chances that your children have misunderstood you or that you leaked something that either you forgot or didn’t even intend is a statistical high probability. Remember, what your child releases could be something that, unless you give them an outlet for, can be an anchor on their growth into their adult lives.
This makes sense and is something I plan to do. It’s never too late.
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If you are a parent who identifies with what I’ve written, let’s join together in our efforts to not leave our children behind as we go venturing off into uncharted territories.
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If you think about it, it’s not crazy what I’m proposing because something I’ve written you also believe is right and therefore, publicly acknowledging it, making that kind simple commitment will certainly help you get you out of your head and into taking action.
6:24 1st draft
6:45 proofread
6:59 FInal proof tagged and publish
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I’ll see you… on the next page
Challen Yee