Helping small business owners, husbands, and dads.
Two words.
Happy.
Let that sit with you.
Sit with happiness. Sit in happiness.
Then that other word.
It’s actually a compound word:
Thanks
Giving
You give thanks.
If you’re giving it, it implies you’re giving it to someone. Or Someone.
Today, I’m…
Giving Thanks
for…
Happy.
What a great day it has been! The most wonderful day of the year.
The desk is the mind.
Right now, my desk has
Nothing surprising, right?
Sounds borderline organized and structured.
But what if I told you there were 18 random post-its, 3 broken items, a piece of trash, and a coffee mug from this morning. There’s an extra cord not plugged into anything. Surely there’s something dead that needs charging, but it isn’t here at the moment.
Now, all the sudden, it sounds messy.
It is.
My mind is in a nearly identical state. I have some organization and structure. I have the main work project I’m working every day. I have The Daily Omer writing every day. I have a course I’m working through. I have daily habits and routines to keep me in shape and performing at a high level.
But I also have all these random thoughts/post-its I haven’t put in their place yet. Frankly, I don’t know where to put them, how to tag them, how they’ll contribute to anything in the future.
I have a few broken items/mindsets I’m trying desperately to shed. I have a couple aches and pains that just nag at me.
I have trash/mental and emotional baggage I’m still sorting through and need to throw away.
I have dirty dishes/chores that I’m behind on.
I have a couple borderline dead ideas floating out there. Surely I could connect them to the charger and get something going.
At any given time, I can take a look at my desk and tell you where your mind is.
What about you? How’s your desk? How’s your mind?
A master at work…
Christmas is a complicated time of year for many folks, myself included. For years, I struggled with Christmas. I was a literal Grinch. All kinds of reasons: family complications, food issues, unfulfilled wants, crazy people, religious reasons, money troubles, work reasons, loneliness, loss, and grieving.
Some I felt more than others. Some in this list, I’ve never experienced, but I know many who have.
Here are 46 reasons you might not like Christmas…
If you’ve had to experience any of the loneliness, loss, and grieving around the holidays, my heart goes out to you. Money troubles or work reasons, those are tough too. All the reasons above are tough in different ways. Some seem lighter than others.
But they’re all legitimate reasons for not liking Christmas. And they all carry different levels of pain, frustration, annoyance, or heartache.
As you start to face your struggles with Christmas, you have a few choices. You can double-down on your anger and frustration. You can become more bitter, more cynical, more calloused.
Or, you can start to work through your challenges. You can journal about it. You can talk to a trusted friend or counselor. You can choose to embrace new behaviors, make new habits, start new traditions. You can honor those you lost, while moving forward with those you still have.
You can surround yourself with Christmas crazies and see if just a little bit of their cheer doesn’t start to wear off on you.
You can become a big-time giver. To the poor, to the needy, to the disenfranchised, to the down and out. You can volunteer at a shelter or soup kitchen. See if that doesn’t change your perspective!
Christmas can be tough for a myriad of reasons. I’m not downplaying the pain and the heartache.
I’m simply encouraging you to look at your problems with Christmas head-on. See if, like me, your Grinchy heart can’t grow a little.
No one will read it.
It’s too late.
If you were going to take this seriously, you should’ve done this 10 years ago.
You should’ve written fiction instead.
You’re an imposter.
No one actually likes your writing.
Why don’t you give up already?
You’ve started a lot of books, but you can’t finish one anymore.
You don’t know how to market well enough.
You don’t sell well enough.
You will never sell as many copies as [insert big names].
Why even try?
Why do you waste so much time on this?
It is a waste, isn’t it?
Your words don’t make a difference.
Your words don’t help.
You’re delusional.
No one cares.
You still don’t make a living from writing. Do something that will actually make money. Do something that will actually pay bills. Do something that will take less time.
AI can write better than you.
AI can write faster than you.
No one reads your style of writing anyway.
Why aim so high?
Just give up.
Just quit.
Everything you’ve done sucks. The books. The blog. The posts on social. They all suck. They’re terrible. You know why? Because you suck. You’re terrible.
God doesn’t care whether you write.
You think God actually cares about you?
I’ll be back again tomorrow.
Doubt says those things. Fear says those things. The Resistance says those things.
Every.
Single.
Day.
Foster home carousel. That’s how her life started.
Birth mom was an alcoholic. Birth dad was a drug addict.
They couldn’t take care of themselves. How could they possibly take care of a baby?
In a matter of weeks, the baby wasn’t “their baby” anymore. She was someone else’s baby. Then she was someone else’s new baby every six months.
Five years in, and her extended family couldn’t handle it anymore. Couldn’t handle seeing her on the carousel, so they filed for custody. Within a few months, they swooped her up and took her home.
The relationship started strong. Her older sister was excited to have a new, younger sister. Someone to care for.
Her older brothers welcomed her, but they were disinterested.
At least for the first year…
We all fail as parents at some point. Maybe it’s once a year, maybe it’s once a month, maybe it’s once a week, maybe it’s once a day, maybe it’s a few times a day. I’m writing this post to help empower and enable you. I don’t want you to fail more at parenting; I want you to fail less.
Here’s the kicker: I think your failing moments as a parent have a lot less to do with your lack of self-control in the moment and a lot more to do with your kids’ lack of self-control in their season of life.
Let me set the scene:
Your teenager has been told 3 times to go do their chores. But they’re doom scrolling on their phone or enamored with the video game, not paying you any attention.
Here…
This moment…
Hit pause! This is what I want to talk about.
You’re working 5-6 days a week, maybe even pulling extra hours just to pay for their activities, their devices, their livelihood. You’re making dinner. You’re doing the laundry. You’re doing the dishes. And all you’re asking them to do is one simple chore. You are not in the wrong here.
Asking your kid to feed the dogs?
Put up the chickens and get the eggs?
Grab their dirty laundry from their room and bring it to the washer?
Maybe they unload the dishwasher and you reload? Maybe they also reload?
(Insert easy peasy chore here.)
First off, good on you for bringing in an income and supporting your family.
Second, good on you for actually having your kids do some chores.
Third, let’s consider the variables.
You are working your tail off and your kid is being lazy. You have set boundaries and your kid is pushing the boundaries. You aren’t resting and sitting on the couch, doing nothing. But your kid is.
And they have the gall to ignore you or back-talk you. These are the variables.
Now, let’s look at the broader landscape.
When us millennials were growing up, we had a few variables that were different than kids these days.
Do you see some differences?
We had to grow in responsibility from an early age. We had to learn how to talk to adults. We weren’t constantly connected to the internet or social media. We had built in limits and built in deterrents. We didn’t have half as many technological distractions.
Here’s the problem, plain and simple: Your kid has no self-control because they have no boundaries or limits.
If we would have had all those things, from age 2 or 3 (when most parents start giving their kids a device as a pacifier), we would have had the same problems.
Our kids have a lack of self-control because they’re kids! This should not be a surprise to us!
But what should surprise you is how they have zero limitations and restrictions. There are no deterrents, no delays. Unlimited distractions, unlimited access.
So here’s what you need to do.
We, as parents, need to create the restrictions, the limitations, the deterrents, the delays.
We, as parents, need to take control of the devices.
Set limits. Take devices away for periods of time. Have screen-free days.
Again, I think your failing moments as a parent have a lot less to do with your lack of self-control in the moment and a lot more to do with your kids’ lack of self-control in their season of life.
If you’re working, paying the bills, making the meals, doing a decent amount of the chores, you’re doing things right. You can be frustrated if your kid isn’t listening and making a small contribution to the good of the home.
You can be frustrated that your child has no self-control. Chances are, they don’t have self-control because they haven’t had to learn restraints and restrictions. You haven’t set boundaries and limits for your kids.
There’s your boost of empowerment.
You have the right (and dare I say, moral obligation) to set the limit and set a healthy boundary for your kids.
They won’t grow, develop, or mature, unless you set up an environment for them to do so.
Omer Redden