Having children and being a businessman is a difficult balancing act. It’s not easy. Being able to properly split time between home and office is something men struggle with a lot, but this blog post is here to help you out.
There are two aspects at play in the struggle to spend quality time with your children and being the father your kids need. The first is finding the time to spend with your kids. The second is struggling to be present and focused when you do spend time with their kids.
The first aspect of finding time is a simple one to fix. Find time, make your kids a priority. No way around that one. But the second issue of being present and being the father your kids need — can be challenging.
That’s because many men struggle to switch their brain from work mode to family mode. So even when we should be engaging with our kids, our mind wanders back to work. So we are not present and not spending quality time with our kids.
Don’t Be That Father Who Missed Out
This dual issue of not having enough time to spend with your children, and not being present enough when you do spend time with them, can have a heavy toll. A toll that degrades relationships and puts many men in a place of regret.
In the end, many men realize that they’ve wasted the years their children spent growing up by not being in the moment. And after all those years they wake up with distant adult kids and emptiness from not having cherished memories of times spent with their kids.
In short, they’ve watched them grow up without enjoying them grow up. A lot of men wish they could hop in a time machine and go back to when their kids were young so that they could enjoy hanging out with them. But, as we know, you can’t get that time back and this is the realization that hits The Incomplete Man right in the gut. I harp on this obvious point because I believe only once we realize the price paid, will we be motivated to change the condition.
So hear me loud and clear, you don’t want to be that guy. So here are three tips to being the father your kids need.
The Business of Being A Dad
There’s a mindset that needs to be shifted here. The Complete Man considers how they prioritize their goals and attention in a business and at home.
This is a foreign concept for many men as they have professional and career goals, but they don’t have family or father goals. But tell me, how can you take aim and put your best foot forward if you don’t have a solid target? Exactly, that’s why you need to set family and father goals. This simple tried and true strategy can transform your family and how you father your kids. Because, here’s the truth. Once you have a clearly defined goal and objectives, that man brain of yours will set itself up to achieve it.
So I challenge you to think of fathering and family, just like you do with business. Have goals, objectives, and a strategy to help you to be the father your kids deserve.
Three Steps to The Business of Being The #1 Dad
- Create Your A Powerful Vision of the Father You’d Like To Be: Goals are not powerful of and to themselves. They must align inside out and be fueled by a compelling vision.
So the first step is to develop an overall vision for the father you want to be. This can include some fantastic blue-sky thinking, so feel free to get creative. See it, feel it, and become intimately connected to your vision. This is critical, because goals without purpose, passion, and a clear vision become tasks.
And we all know what happens when fathering becomes a task. Exactly, your kids get the back burner. - Schedule Things to Do With Your Kids Every Single Day: What makes your career and business life work isn’t the heroic acts. It’s the every single day activities that keep the machine going and flowing.
The same with being a great dad. So make sure to schedule one thing you want to do as a father every single day, that works towards the vision that you’ve created for yourself and your kids.
Pro-fathering tip: make sure to keep ticking off your accomplishments. Give that man brain a sense of progress. Also, very important, make sure to celebrate the small wins that come your way (learn how to celebrate the small wins here) - Create Your Father Identity / Alter Ego: Finally, create an identity for yourself that you can fall back on to provide your kids with the quality time they need with their father. This identity should encapsulate the type of father that you want to be.
A good example from my book is my Disney Dad Identity. I become Disney Dad when I want to create experiences for my kids that they’ll never forget. This identity also helps me remember that my #1 goal is to put a smile on their little faces.
An important point about creating your Father Identity. It’s not enough to just conceptualize him. You have to literally create a powerful and compelling alter ego that you can jump into in an instance (I discuss how to do this in my new book, The Complete Man).
The reason why this is important is that often we are going 100mph full steam ahead focusing on business, career, or something else besides our kids. But they don’t know that or even care. So Dad needs to be able to instantly put on the brakes and shift gears. So like Clark Kent ripping off his shirt and becoming Superman, you can go from your businessman identity to Disney Dad or whatever identity you’ve created.
Having an identity that you can fall back on allows you to quickly and easily pivot away from the business version of you into the family man who has a father mission and loves to spend quality time with his kids.
The ROI of Depositing Into Your Kids Love Bank
Once you can create the vision, tick off one accomplishment per day, and build that Dad identity for yourself, you’ll be able to see some tremendous results.
For a start, you will begin to create stronger bonds with your children, which will lead to positive deposits in your kids’ love bank. And like all currency deposits, you’ll be able to make withdrawals. For example, Daddy needs to go on a business trip. It’s ok, we have enough deposits to cover the withdrawal. Daddy had an emergency and missed an event. It’s ok, you’ve banked enough love that your kids will understand.
Plus, you won’t feel as guilty when you spend time away from them because you know that you’ve made quality deposits and that your kids know they are loved. This is the added bonus on top of having a great relationship with your kids. You’ll give your business life a boost because without worry, guilt, and fear you’ll bring higher-level focus and performance in your professional life.
How To Become The Complete Man
The Complete Man who experiences Complete Victory wins professionally, in his relationships, and at home. This isn’t just a possibility, but it’s doable when you know the science of how the male brain works and how to leverage the strategies and tactics to maximize performance and potential.
If you want to tap into the science to becoming The Complete Man for you, your kids, and your family — then check out my new book, The Complete Man.
