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“I try so hard to change, but every time I vow never to get angry again, I just end up giving up, falling back into the same habits, and then I give up, feeling like a complete failure”

This is such a common sentiment of frustrated parents.

We get angry. We feel guilty. We apologise. We hate ourselves or beat ourselves up. We vow to be calm next time. We don’t. Repeat.

But it’s not like you haven’t tried, right? You really have. You have probably researched anger management suggestions – take a deep breath, walk away when angry, take more time out.

You’ve researched child behaviour strategies in an attempt to change your child’s behaviour so you don’t need to get so angry

But the cycle still repeats itself or you change for a little while, but it all comes creeping back in.

How can you stay committed to being calm?

Has there ever been a time where you repeatedly made a mistake, over and over again?  Every time you do it, you say to yourself, ‘why do I keeping doing that? I really should stop that.’  But one day, you do it again, only this time it caused you so much pain, it was imperative that you never made that mistake again. Your commitment to change became a MUST, instead of just a ‘should’.

This happened to a client of mine.  Here is her story.

“It was a typical morning where my 12yo was too slow getting ready for school. As usual, I nagged, she ignored, I got angry, she got defiant and disrespectful, I yelled some more and she got upset.  But I had had enough. I ranted all the way to school.

‘You’re always running late. You make me so late for work. I’m so tired of everything having to be YOUR way. You think the whole world revolves around you.  But it doesn’t. You know while you were at camp last week, I didn’t have one problem getting your siblings ready for school, but you return and here we go, back to being late again.  I’ve had enough of your behaviour. Stop being so selfish!’

It wasn’t one of my finest moments.

I dropped her off at school, and left, trying desperately to get to work on time. However on my way to work, I received a call. My daughter was a mess. She was inconsolably crying and wouldn’t let anyone talk to her and wouldn’t go to class. I had to turn around.

I got to the school and sat down with her. Now I was a mess. We both cried and talked it out. As we discussed what had happened, my daughter revealed to me that she had perceived my rantings to mean that the family was better off without her and that she was not wanted in the family. I was gutted.  I couldn’t believe I’d made her feel this way.

It was at that point I realised, something HAD to change. I had tried to change in the past, but now I realised the pain I was causing my children by my outbursts. I HAD TO find another way.’

This mum, was motivated by pain, which is often what shifts us from a ‘should’ to an unequivocal ‘must’.

You see, time and life can really get the better of us and parenting can be ridiculously challenging, but what I have seen with the thousands of clients that I work with every year, that programs like our 28 Day Tame your Temper Parenting Challenge or other programs that initiate changes, become a huge priority when you are at the point where change is an absolute MUST.  

ALL decisions and actions we take, come from our priorities. Our priorities come from our ‘stories’ (our perceptions) on life. We are always motivated by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This is always our agenda behind anything.

Think about this scenario:  You have a whole list of things you need to get done for the day – cooking, cleaning, lunches, washing, etc., however your best friend calls you in tears and tells you that she’s really struggling in life and about to do the unthinkable.

What do you do?

You drop your list of to-dos, you get the kids sorted and you get over there A.S.A.P! Naturally you made it a huge priority.

Why did you do this? 

Because the pain you felt when hearing her tears and you contemplating life without her, and the pleasure (if you could call it that) you sought from being able to help her to stay in this world, HUGELY overrode your ‘pleasure story’ about your to-do list that was initially your priority before the call.

Consider another scenario:  You know you ‘should’ do your to-do list, but you’ve had a big day, you’re tired and the kids have been challenging. There’s a moment when they’ve all gone to bed and your favourite TV show is on.  You decide to watch TV and ‘stuff the housework’.  Why did you do that?

Because in that moment, you felt the pain of the day, mixed it with the pain of the chores (effort, boredom, whatever) and you moved towards the more pleasurable option.

However, throw in an impending visit from a highly anal, house cleaning freak of a mother or mother in law, and all of a sudden, despite the pain of your day, there’s even more pain attached to having the house a mess for your visitor, so you force yourself to get up and clean up.

3 ways to make anger management your top priority

In regards to your anger, to find the motivation to learn how to be calm and really commit to the effort it takes to break the habit to yell, then I suggest you do the following to give yourself the ‘ammo’ needed to change the ‘should’ to a ‘MUST’!

1. Talk to your kids about how they feel about your anger.  If they aren’t old enough to talk, that’s okay. You can just observe their responses to your yelling.   
   What effect are you having on them? Hear it from their mouths.
   Not so you can feel guilty about it. Don’t go down that road as that’s just a cop out saying, “I SHOULD do this, but I didn’t so I’ll just beat myself up instead’.  
   You’re doing this exercise to give yourself a wake-up call that promotes a MUST –  To FEEL the pain of your angry reactions.   Hear what they are saying/feeling about it.  Ask them how they feel about themselves or how they interpret things when you get angry. Understand the impact your anger is having on them so you start to associate immense pain to getting angry.  This is really important. You want to feel that anger is causing you pain.
   
   
2.  Write an EXHAUSTIVE list of the cost this anger is having on yourself personally, and the quality of your relationships.  Take into consideration what this anger has already cost you in your life, look at how much it will cost you if you continue for the next year, the next 5 years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years, when you’re an old lady/man, what will life be like if you continue with anger being your default?
   
   
3. And finally, it’s REALLY important that you go the other way too (otherwise you’ll just be only focussing on the awful.  There is another side to all this).  What will life be like when you change, when you’re calmer?  What will it FEEL like to be calm? How will that benefit your life? In what ways?  What will life be like in a year from now, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, when you’re an old lady/man looking back on your life?  How will things be different? What is life already like when you are calm, cool and connected with your kids? What do those times feel like?

You see, when you attach enough pain to your current behaviour, to the point where you cannot possibly live with this behaviour any longer, and equally, attach immense pleasure to the goal of changing, you will find your motivation and you will make change a priority.

Until then, you will find excuses and you will place it by the wayside in lieu of other things you are making a priority (because they are more pleasurable or because you are avoiding more intense pain through your reactions).  Your brain will keep finding evidence of how you ‘don’t have time’ or ‘something else is more important’.

Even now, as you read this article, there will be many of you saying, “But I can’t. I’ve tried all that. ‘This’ situation stops me. My depression stops me. It’s hereditary. I don’t know any other way.”

This may be confronting, but listen to those stories you tell yourself about why you can’t change and don’t allow them to stop you.  There are millions of people in the world who have overcome the most unbelievable challenges because they decided that they WILL NOT give up. There was no other option but to completely immerse themselves in learning, growing, practicing and committing to getting to their goal. There is absolutely no reason why you cannot do the same with your anger.

I, too, have had to walk this road from anger to calm. I still have to commit to everything I teach in the 28 Day Tame your Temper Parenting Challenge in my own life.  But I remember that day when I screamed at my kids and saw the look of fear on their faces and had my meltdown. I’ve had to walk this very talk that I’m now teaching you.

You might have to work for it. You may have to do some digging. You may have to resolve some issues. But the outcome will be so worth it.

You have it in you. You just need to decide whether change is going to remain a ‘should’ or a MUST.

Message from a parent to the PSC…

As I reflect on my childhood and growing up I wonder if we are creating parents who are too soft?

What I mean by this is when I was younger and I did something wrong I would get a whack across the bottom with a wooden spoon – granted, this was a last resort and there were warnings before this, however I know that I learnt my lesson and wouldn’t be repeating that behaviour anytime soon.

My parents were not violent in any way – yes they raised their voice when needed etc, but I was disciplined and I learnt respect for my parents – they were the boss, not me.

When I fast forward 25 years and I look at all the rules there are around how we discipline our children today and the generation of youth coming through – are we being too soft?

I say this because it seems we have a generation that has little respect for authority (be it teachers, parents, police etc) and I often wonder is this because there are so many rules that stop us from disciplining our children a bit more firmly?

Please don’t take this the wrong way as I certainly don’t want to hurt my child and be a parent that resorts to this as I understand children repeat our behaviour etc – but it never did me any harm when I needed to be brought into line.

I’m hoping you can give me your thoughts on this as it’s something I do think about often when I watch the news and see these teenagers (who seem to be getting younger and younger) that are committing terrible offences and I ask myself where are their parents and why are they getting away with this?

Jackie Hall’s response:

It’s a question that many parents ask (although are often afraid to voice it out loud. However, I’m so glad that one participant did. This was my response….

The first thing that I want to say, is that there is value that comes from everything. Whenever we experience something painful, we learn. Whenever we experience something enjoyable, we learn. Highs and lows are a part of life, and they always lead to other highs and lows.

With every approach we take with parenting, it will always lead to another consequence and another experience that will be learnt from and lead to more learnings.

My stand point on physical discipline is, yes it can manage behaviour, but there are other ways to go about it that are much more empowering to a child if handled correctly.

When, as children we did the ‘wrong thing’ in the past and got a whack for it, we did learn not to do that again, but what else did we learn in the process. After working with thousands of clients over the years, I see over and over again that at the core of parental/adult stress is childhood beliefs that came from how their parents administered discipline and how they treated their children. Of course this is not exclusively the cause, but very often it is very much the cause.

I see that parents who were physically disciplined grew up adopting a perception of self, such as…

• I’m not good enough. I didn’t try hard enough, wanting to please others, needing to please others to feel good enough
• The pressure to get life right or do more, be more, have more, achieve more to get life right in order to feel any sort of self-approval (the belief, only when others approve of me can I feel I can approve of myself)
• Wanting to be the peacekeeper because they hate the conflict that comes with challenges that stemmed from childhood conflict.
• Acting in the same angry ways because that’s what you do when you don’t get your own way. That’s what was modelled.

And this is not even an exhaustive list of beliefs that can be adopted from physical punishment as a child.

Now if you had a family environment as a child, where there was plenty of light and shade in the relationship – for example, your parents were open to communication, played with you, loved you, gave you loads of affection, flexibility, you had a say, etc, then the repercussions of getting smacked most likely paled in comparison to the reference points of love that you received from your parents, so you may not have gained beliefs from the smacking that still impact you today.

However, rarely was physical punishment delivered in this way, especially not at the time of administering it. Smacking is almost always chosen because of anger and issues of control from the parent. It’s more than likely not coming from a place of teaching you a lesson, but more to punish you for what you did wrong or trying to control you into submission.

Discipline, does not even mean punishment though. It actually comes from the latin word disciplinaire, which means – to teach.

There are other ways to teach children to WANT TO co-operate. There are other ways to teach children respect. There are other ways to teach children consequences for their actions that still teach them the error of their ways, but also teach them how to correct their own behaviour, but the issue is, these ways take time, repetition, consistency and patience.

If we fast forward to today’s society, from the time of physical punishment to now, the effects of smacking have been widely documented so we’ve been given a very strong message that smacking is a taboo approach to use, but the problem is,  up  until recently, there was no replacement offered for it either. This gap is what organisations like

The Parental Stress Centre of Australia and PPP and similar organisations are trying to teach parents now – to help them know what to do instead of smacking.

The reason why we are seeing kids so unruly these days, is a complex one, and it’s not necessarily about the elimination of smacking but a combination of the fast paced nature of modern society, a pressure filled get-your-life-right-now society, the effects of an adult’s childhood self-worth issues and how they deal with their world and thus, their children, and the lack of information on how else we can teach our kids if we aren’t administering physical discipline.

On top of that we are seeing more strong willed children coming into the world with a confidence that won’t accept being bossed around and who, even if you resorted to smacking, are likely to buck the system anyway and move you even further from the relationship you want (unless of course you have loads of ‘light’ – fun, love, affection, joy, respect, communication, letting them have a say etc., to offset the very few times you use it when you’re not getting angry….again, a rarity).

So what you get is a generation of people trying to control children (parental, societal, educational), unable to do it and feeling at a loss as to what to do, leaving kids also confused, unloved, misguided and angry as hell because they aren’t getting what they want either.

It’s very common to see in human nature, that if there is no easy answer and things get too hard, it’s easier to stick our head in the sand. The problem escalates and we keep going round and round in circles. Hence why it appears that physical discipline was an answer that worked.

As part of evolution, we have learnt a lot about the long lasting emotional effects of physical discipline and so many parents aspired to eradicate it and do something different. But with all change, there must be period of transition, and that’s where I believe we are today.

People like myself, and those who are ready to take those steps towards change, join programs, like ours, because you’re looking for those alternative solutions, and that’s a great thing.

At the PSC, we are seeing kids become beautiful, co-operative, happy, confident kids because their parents are learning how to separate their own stuff, from their child’s behaviour – ie stop personalising it, resolve their own past hurts, and then approach their child’s behaviour from a place of teaching and modelling.

Parents are learning to accept the reality of where their kids are in their physical and emotional development and are approaching their behaviour in the spirit of co-operation, communication, kindness, connection, loving consequences and showing kids what respect, love and kindness is. Kids mirror this, because that’s how the brain learns, and so the cycles are slowly breaking.

But in this transition period, these ways are just starting to be learnt, adopted and mastered.

What is required is an educational approach, not a corporal punishment one. Isn’t that what we’re trying to stop in the world when we’re trying to create peace and stop war?

Our kids are just like us. They want the same thing as us – love, connection, approval, appreciation, to feel good enough. When we treat them that way, we show them how to be that way.

When we teach them the realities of life through our consequences, teach them how to get what they want amicably, teach them to negotiate, and the benefits of showing others love and respect, they start to feel the discord of their own actions when they don’t behave this way. It won’t resonate with them. It won’t feel right. They won’t need you to teach it. They will FEEL it.

We don’t need to smack our kids to learn respect. We just need to show them what respect looks like. Let them FEEL the discord of their actions by asking them questions like:

Does that [behaviour] actually make you feel better?

Is there another way we can help you feel better that will actually get you what you want [because what you are doing isn’t actually going to lead you to what you want – ie tantrum, backchat etc]?

When you act this way, it makes you feel ‘x’, but if you do ‘y’ you will probably feel much better.

Or, how can you move towards a better feeling place and get more of what you want? Does this behaviour move you closer to what you want, or further away?

These sorts of questions help a child learn to be their own internal guidance system. It teaches them to make their own decisions. You still work with them on the rules, rewards and consequences (notice I said work WITH them) and they still experience the results of their decisions, but they start to learn they have choices and what feels good and what doesn’t.

As humans, kindness is innately born within us. We come from pure sensory energy where we know no labels or judgements. We are born with very few neural connections in the brain – enough to eat, sleep, heart rate and very basic human functions. The rest is learnt through environment.

If we show our kids how to feel the discord of our actions, show them how to be kind, respectful, remorseful, honest with ourselves, etc. If we teach them how to handle life’s ups and downs and see the value in our mistakes and challenges, and we teach them to feel good about themselves, then all this dysfunction we are seeing in our young kids will stop.

But we have to BE the change we wish to see in our kids and as a society we have a long way to go in letting go of our own stressful thinking lessons to find the ultimate balance in how to teach our children to feel good too.

It’s a big question and a big answer too, thus there are no simple solutions.  However modelling how you want your child to behave and treating your home as though it’s a training ground for life by showing them cause and effects of their choices and decisions (ie natural consequences), are two of the most powerful tools you can use instead of using smacking for discipline.

Other relevant articles:

• Child behaviour solutions don’t work, so I get angry
• Anger isn’t WRONG!
• How to commit to Anger Management in Parenting

One day, my children were mucking around. My husband was working away at the time and I was trying to get them into bed.

They were laughing and giggling and jumping about. At first I was playing along, but then I wanted them to settle down. I had a lot of work to do when they went to sleep and my focus was on doing that. I’d had enough of the play. It was time to sleep and I was attached to the picture of them calming down.

However, they weren’t playing the game and kept mucking around (as children do). My blood started boiling as the conversation in my head started to roll around in “they’re not listening to me”…I just want them to stop….”They need to go to bed NOW”….blah, blah, blah.

It escalated until I came to breaking point and shouted at them in my clenched-teeth way when I lose control. They instantly quietened down and went to bed, but I felt awful! That’s not the way to end the day. However I’d done it and I couldn’t take it back.

Knowing what I know in regards to the teachings of The Parental Stress Centre, I knew I needed to find the core belief that drove my anger to begin with. What was really going on to make me react this way? Was there any pattern to my thinking that causes me to react like this in other times?

I got to journaling, like I get my course participants to do when we’re trying to establish the beliefs behind our emotions, and after a while of looking at my ‘story’ behind my anger, it hit me. My core belief was:

“My children are an interruption to my life!”

WTF, are you serious? I couldn’t believe this is what I had thought. How terrible that was to think that way. But there it was right there on the page, and I knew that’s what I believed, because I felt it to the point of tears stinging the back of my eyes.

Oh dear, that was one belief I definitely needed to upgrade. I didn’t want my kids to feel like they were interrupting my life.

So here’s the upgrade:

Nothing can interrupt your life. Every experience IS your life. It’s just one event giving way to the next. There is no event that is more important than another. Everything is valuable. My children were in the moment, something I need to do more of. Parenting is a part of my life experience, too and I need to embrace every moment with my kids because, just like every other moment in life, it will rise and pass away. They will grow up, leave the nest and I will move onto other activities. My children are not an interruption to my life. They ARE my life, and a big part of it. Enjoy the moments while they’re here.

Change what you think about and what you think about changes…

Jackie

In my last article – Why Your Kids Disrespect You, we looked at some of the reasons why disrespect occurs between a parent and a child. Now let’s look at how you can turn it all around.

Your children will not respect you until you demand that they respect you.

By that, I don’t mean ranting and raving about how they don’t respect you and how they don’t care about what you do for them. I mean when you teach them a standard of treatment that you expect from them and issue serious consequences for them if this expectation is not met.

Human beings operate with the agenda of pursue pleasure and avoid pain.  If you set the standard and issue consequences for behaving less than the standard, and those consequences are painful (meaning they don’t like them or it means they have to lose something they want or experience something they don’t like), then they will learn not to behave that way.

This doesn’t just work for respect, this works for anything you are trying to teach your children (FYI, it doesn’t always have to be punishment either, you can motivate using the pursuit of pleasure – i.e., rewards for co-operation or good behaviour).

Just remember what you’re doing it for. What is it that you’re actually trying to teach? What is the life lesson or life skill you are trying to teach? Make sure it’s for those reasons, as opposed to just obeying so you get what you want…as tempting as that is, lol.

One final point….

Is it really disrespect? Is it really about you at all?

Keep in mind that often, our child’s behaviour has nothing to do with you at all. We can be so quick to make our child’s behaviour personal and jump onto the “My children don’t respect me train” but often it’s not because they don’t respect you at all, it’s because they’re learning how to deal with their frustrations, they are learning a new skill or using you as a venting board because they don’t know what else to do.

It’s important to take your self-worth away from your child’s behaviour and start to look at what’s going on in the child’s mind behind the behaviour.

When you do this, you might just see that they need your help to deal with a situation differently. You can still address the fact that they are treating you rudely or inappropriately, but make sure you give them some tools to help them deal with the actual problem differently too.

If you don’t know how to help them, then maybe you can sit down together and work it out.

Dealing with the problem by finding solutions….

If you would like more information on how to communicate more effectively with your child, change the way your family interacts with each other, or how to lower the stress levels in the home, our Stress Free Parenting program can teach you all that and more.

Warm Regards,

Jackie

I wish I had a dollar for every time a parent said to me “Why doesn’t my child respect me?”, so I thought I would dedicate the next couple of days to understanding some of the reasons why they don’t and how you can change them.

Here are three reasons why your child might disrespect you:

1. They don’t know how to respect! I know that sounds really funny, but often our children don’t know what respect is or how to show it, particularly if you have not had anyone specifically show them.Often, we are so busy complaining about what they’re NOT doing, that we aren’t showing them what we do want them to do. We just keep saying things like, “You don’t respect me,”  “You’re speaking rudely to me,” “Don’t speak to me like that.” But nowhere in there are you telling them what you want them to do. We expect it to be obvious, but the reality is, it may not be.
2. Do you deserve their respect? Whoa, I know that’s a confronting question, however, a valid one. Just because you do things for your children, does not mean they will automatically respect you. Respect has to be learnt and earned – often being earned because of the way you are treating them. Respect is a two-way street so sometimes that means taking a good look at your own behaviour.How is your treatment towards them? Are you treating them with respect? Are you recognising and validating their thoughts, opinions, suggestions and wants and needs as a result or are you just demanding they treat you nicely and obey your rules regardless of how you are treating them?

   The thing is, you can go down that road, but you won’t be getting respect. You’ll be getting compliance and a child who obeys you.

3. You teach people how to treat you! There are several ways we can unconsciously allow our children to disrespect us and then wonder why we do. Here is a few of them.

• You ignore them when they speak rudely to you, or there are no consequences. You merely say “We don’t speak to each other like that” and then go on your way, issuing no motivational reasons why they shouldn’t speak to them that way.
• You think that you have to do everything for them and you have your self-worth on them needing you, so you worry that if you take that away from them they won’t love you as much, thus you don’t want to issue consequences. This also goes hand in hand with “I don’t want to see them unhappy”. The reality is that pain is how we learn. I don’t mean you should go around inflicting physical pain on your kids, but I mean the pain of not getting what we want can often teach us how to get what we want.
• You don’t feel worthy of respect and therefore are used to people treating you poorly, thus your kids follow suit and you don’t think of doing something to change that. It has become the norm that people treat you like that. (They may even be following suit with how someone else in the family treats you and is copying them).

If you can’t relate to any of the above reasons why you are being disrespected, I urge you to think about how it got set up for your child to treat you this way. What was your contribution to it? What is your reaction to it? What might be going on for them to make them want to treat you this way? Is there another issue going on for them that might be resulting in you being the punching bag.

The bottom line is that if disrespect is a problem in your home, that is your reality right now. It’s time to figure out why, so we can then work out what to do about it.

More on this in the Part B – Eliminating Disrespect

Who on earth made that rule?!! Umm, I hate to say this…but you did.

We often hear in the parenting community that there is so much pressure on parents to get it right and do everything perfectly.

But who’s actually judging whether you’re doing it right or not?

The thing about judgment is that someone may have an opinion about what is right or not, but your reaction to their opinion comes from your beliefs, not from theirs.

No one can MAKE you feel any particular way. What they do though, is trigger something that already exists within you! They trigger the beliefs that you already hold about yourself and your life.

If you are feeling pressured, it’s because YOU believe you have to meet a certain standard in order to look good or be perceived a certain way.

YOU are the one setting the bar, so you can be the one to change it.

The only reason why other parents don’t succumb to the pressure of parenting is because they have a mindset that believes that they aren’t perfect. They know they are doing the best they can. They are continually looking for solutions to their problems. They don’t think it means anything about them if they can’t get it to be perfect or if they have an off day and they don’t believe other people’s opinions define who they are as a parent.

So when they hear about the ‘pressure of parents today’, it doesn’t trigger a response.

Adopt this mindset too, and your world will be a much more relaxed space.

Change your beliefs and you’ll change your reactions…

Jackie

Spinning back in time and I am observing me in the heat of arsenic hour when my kids were 2 and 3 years old.

They were whinging, clinging, the house was a mess, dishes everywhere, dinner trying to be cooked, I’m tired. I don’t want to be dealing with any of this. It’s been a long day and I’m hanging for my husband to come home to help take the load off.

Cue the telephone call from hubby.

“I’m going to be late.”  Those 5 dreaded words that no worn out stay-at-home parent wants to hear when they are so desperately needing a break.

“Oh, whatever then!” was my unappreciative, rude and short reply before I hung up in disgust, acting like he meant to be late from work. Like he didn’t give a damn about what I was going through. Doesn’t he know that I need help over here?!!!

Fast forward an hour or so and hubby walked through the door to a pissed off wife, a grunt as I handed over a child to be washed and as I continued to do the relentless amount of chores needing to be done.

What must it have been like to live with me back then? A nightmare! And my husband is not afraid to tell me so.

So today, I want you to think about what you are like to live with? If you work from home, or perhaps go to work during the day and at the end of the day you are tired, what is it like for the other people in your family to have to deal with you?

I want you to think about this because quite often, we look to others to blame them for how they are treating us and what they are doing to make us unhappy. But how often do we turn those pointed fingers back around to ourselves and see the part that we play in our relationships?

What if, today when you got home, or your partner gets home, you greet them with a smile, a ‘how was your day’, a “I really missed you today”  and a warmth that serves to mix things up a bit.

Make an effort and you might just find that those ‘feral’ times of the day, don’t have to be so feral.

Taking Responsibility,

Jackie

Quite often I read the posts of people introducing themselves on my Live programs, and I think “Wow, you’ve got so much going on.  Where should we start first.”

So this post is to help those of you who are feeling this way about your life and parenthood.

What do you want?

A seemingly simple question, yet one that is not often answered with specifics, or if it is, it is answered as more than a wish then a serious goal or expectation.

But this by far is the most important question to ask yourself when you feel like you’re drowning, because we often get sucked into the vortex of seeing everything we don’t have.

I can tell you that there are no solutions down that road.

What is it that you want in your parenting experience?
What is it that you want in your relationships?
What sort of relationship do you want with your kids, your family, etc.?
What does the ideal work/life balance look like?
What sort of person do you want to be?

Sit down with yourself and look at every area of your life and think about what the ideal would look like. What sort of life do you want to create for yourself? What would make you happy?

When you’ve done that, ask yourself whether you have been specific about these wants. When you look at those wants, would you be able to tell that you had achieved them?  Or can you be even more specific?

Knowing what you want is the first step to changing your life, because it gives you a direction to go in.  From this point, you can then begin to focus on how to get this information, where you can find the information that will help you to get there and who can teach it to you.

Struggles in life don’t mean a failed life. They just mean you lost your direction, or you haven’t yet learnt the skills required to get you there. Don’t waste time thinking about that though, just focus on what you want and how to learn so you can get there!

Free yourself and redesign your life.

Jackie