Use Your Kids As Motivation, Not Excuse
Since when excuses were so beautiful?
I hate excuses, all excuses, any kind of excuses.
But what I hate the most, is when people use their kids as excuses.
To be honest, I did that too, but (fortunately) not for a long time.
I’m sharing with you my mindset as a new father, and I hope that it will be a new breath in your family life, or encourage you to become a parent later.
What is an excuse?
Let me give you first my definition of an excuse:
An excuse is something that I create to justify my fails.
For me, there is a big difference between an excuse and a problem.
Problems cause our fails.
Excuses justify our fails.
For problems, we look for solutions.
But for excuses, we just sit and relax.
Moving from excuse to motivation
When I was preparing for my coming kid, I took him as a motivation to do so many things I couldn’t do before, not only for him, but also for myself.
Here are some of the things I did thanks to my kid-motivation:
- Get my Driving licence
I didn’t drive cars before, my life was cool with public transports, but kids, and also their mothers, need to go to lot of places during and after pregnancy.
Say: I will have my driving licence to prevent any urgent situation.
Don’t say: I can’t focus on my driving exam because of my kid preparation.
- Get higher-paying job
This is maybe the most difficult one, as I moved from “Oh I’ll have more bills to pay” to “I just need new incomes to cover the new expenses”, and trust me, this is not only about kids, you can use this idea for anything that may scare you, try to find what you need to do, instead of staying at the excuse step.
Say: This is a good time to think about my money and how to earn more.
Don’t say: Oh my God, another thing to buy…
- Buy a car
When you start taking expenses (the real ones) as challenges, not fatalities, you will find yourself making plans to earn and spend wisely. That what I did when I bought my car, focusing more on safety than the price.
Say: I will buy a car to be ready for any urgent event.
Don’t say: I can’t buy a car because of my kid expenses.
- Run a 10Km
Mom can’t do too much while carrying a baby. I need to pick up 2x what I do in normal time, and only a sport habit can give me this capacity.
Say: I will run to stay in shape and help more my family.
Don’t say: I can’t run because I don’t have time with a kid.
One motivation can do so many changes
I think that you got the point, and with the say and don’t say examples you can see how I’m changing the excuse to a motivation, I’ll just list the rest of my achievements:
- Move to a bigger apartment.
- Schedule my work-life time (I mean, doing it and stick to it).
- Go for walk more often.
- Learn about babies, nursing, vaccines, …etc.
- Save more money (yes, I saved more than before).
- Maintain my car (safety’s first).
- Use less screens and TVs (not good for baby eyes).
- Eat healthier than before.
If you invert all the above successful changes, you will find all the excuses people are creating with their child, to run away from their responsibilities.
So the next time you are looking for an excuse, it is not in your kids’ room.
