You Cannot Stay in Diapers Forever: What Potty Training Taught Me About My Own Goals
Sometimes you have to learn when you are holding yourself back
Potty training our toddler has damn near broken me. Fits and starts, tears, and back steps. Then small wins, glimpses of success, and then regression. It’s a hard experience and every parent can relate. I started to think about how much easier it would be if someone else did this for me. It was then that I realized that I would deprive myself, and my toddler, of a critical life skill and a win.
That’s when I realized I was doing the same to myself. You see, potty training requires a lot of research, choosing a method that works for you, watching videos, reading books, and altogether being prepared. When I was reading one book, the author explained that your toddler is too smart, and has too much self-worth to sit in a soiled diaper. This is something you do for their self-esteem and self-worth.
And that’s when it hit me. I had, metaphorically speaking, been letting myself sit in my own soiled diaper.
I have a lot of goals across multiple domains: fitness, major projects I want initiate at work, and products I want to develop, build, and launch. And I just wasn’t doing it. I didn’t hold myself accountable for my self esteem and my self worth. And that hit me like a ton of bricks.
I could hire a trainer, get a program, work with a nutritionist, but they aren’t doing the work for me. Only I can put in the work: log the food, hit my macro nutrient goals, do the workouts, and get better. Same for work, I could get a bunch of coaches and advisors to help me, but if I wasn’t motivated and organized, and ready to do the work myself, what was the point? These were things I had to do for my own self-worth and self-esteem and for my own vision of myself. I could stay in the shadows, writing and posting, but I would never get beyond that step unless I really took the reigns and did the work.
Don’t let yourself sit in your own soiled diaper. Get out of your own way, realize where you need to take the reigns, and do the work. Maybe you can’t tackle multiple pieces at once. Prioritize. Choose the work that most needs to get done first, and take that on. Begin with one project and see it through. Stack your work from there.
You could keep changing diapers forever and telling yourself that it is okay, but at some point it’s going to become socially unacceptable. Similarly, you have to recognize when you are stalling out on yourself, take the leap, identify that first small step, and go. You have to be willing to be wrong, to fall flat, to have to fail and try again. You might fail, but getting out of that comfort zone will likely push you to be, and to get, better.
