As a content writer, it’s easy to get lost in “processes.” They creep up on you as you try to get through basic things like scheduling your family responsibilities and meeting client deadlines. Before you know it, a week has passed and you frown at your spreadsheets and earnings and analytics and schedules and wonder where all that time went; you wonder what you have to show for all that hard work.
Throw a sassy-pants 8-year-old and headstrong toddler into the mix, and life is utter chaos. In a world in which efficiency and uniqueness are keys to your success as a creator, the bar is set pretty high — it’s hard to achieve either of those things when you are a parent, too. Sitting down to write for an hour or two seems impossible when you have a tiny human zooming around you, pretending that your entire person is the Paw Patrol control tower.
I’ve always believed that in order to write and parent effectively, I’d have to separate the two, which ultimately means that I won’t make a dime until my kids are too big to want me around all day.
Until I realized that my toddler and his zany antics might just be my greatest resource ever.
Tiny life gurus
I’m not talking about some kind of crazy child-labour loophole, and I’ve never been a supporter of exploiting kids for profit. That’s not what I mean by my toddler acting as a figurative resource.
I’m talking about observation. I’m talking about how he lives his life in comparison to how I live mine. I’m talking about the genius ways he entertains himself and learns new things. Toddlers are professionals when it comes to living life well; they’re tiny life gurus.
Since paying attention to my wise little owl, my work has improved. My mindset has shifted. My inner dialogue has morphed into a well of positive thoughts and encouragement. I’ve been working on myself for years, and this experiment is really helping — let me show you how.
A change in your beliefs (and patterns)
It sounds so silly. How can a 3-year-old’s antics change your life?
It’s simple when you really break it down. First, we look at our frameworks — how we live our lives both professionally and personally. Start by asking the “big” questions: what’s working well?
What is failing?
When you don’t know where your life is going, these questions seem like a good place to start, and it was for me. That was when I started to observe; I took note of what worked for him and what didn’t. How my toddler handles disappointment, for example — we can’t all have a tantrum the second something doesn’t go our way. My toddler has to adjust his behaviour to have a better day, and you know what?
He does. He learns.
We have to learn on the fly, and that involves a shift in the way we think and approach our struggles. The base state for most adults is to feel shame, self-consciousness, embarrassment, and other negative emotions when we come upon challenges that prove too much for us. Toddlers don’t typically experience hindrances like shame or self-doubt, but they do tend towards anger and disappointment.
And they push past it.
Getting through those tough spots without doubting your own abilities or your capacity to learn more? That’s a lesson that is chock full of value, and it came from simply watching my toddler throw himself into his failures with the same confidence he did when he was successful.
Think about that — what if you approached your failures in the same way and tackled them with confidence? With that pesky self-doubt out of the way, I bet there’s nothing you can’t achieve.
Persistence is key
Toddlers never stop trying.
Sure; they’ll throw a tantrum, knock over the frustrating toy, and stomp away for a while. But they always come back.
Here’s a great example of their incredible persistence: my toddler is a pretty serious berry-lover. If he had his way, he’d eat a bowl full of berries for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any snacks in between. I get it — berries are delicious, and trust me, I’m thrilled that he likes something healthy.
But I’m the one still changing the diapers around here. I think that speaks for itself (if you know, you know.)
Beyond that, though, he needs to have a more balanced diet. He knows this — we talk about it often, in toddler-sized conversations that he understands. He’s also given a list of options, but can you guess what he incessantly requests instead of said options?
Berries. And then some more berries.
The kid knows what he likes, I guess. And if I’m being really honest here, his constant harassment for more berries has probably won him his berries more often than I’d care to admit. It’s embarrassing — he wears me down. He’s excessively persistent, and it often works out.
I’m in awe of this.
Imagine if you applied this persistence to your work: walking into your boss’s office every morning (and again after lunch) with a pile of spreadsheets outlining all your stellar work for the company, and telling them bluntly that you want that raise you’ve been asking for every day for six months?
I’d really like to know if that has the same effect.
In whatever we do, there are so many times that we quit when the going gets tough. I’m bad for this, and I bet you are too. How’s that gym membership going for you? How about that savings plan? Night school?
Yeah. That’s what I thought.
Risks are almost always worth taking
I once witnessed my son, when he was about a year old and had just started walking, climb some playground equipment.
No big deal, right? It was one of those monkey bar contraptions that was one big squiggle; squiggle up over my head, then back down to the ground, then back up and down again. A gigantic caterpillar.
Except that the top of the squiggles were about 8 feet off the ground, and well above my reach.
I think you can see where this is going. My son began his ascent with booming confidence, as you do when you’re small and unaware of all the ways you could die ugly. Up he went past my waist, then my shoulders, and before I knew it I was yelling for my husband to come and get my baby down, because he had climbed all the way to the top. I was losing my damn mind, and he was calmly continuing along with his mission.
There isn’t a risk in the world that my son won’t take. If you told him he could fly, he’d leap off the top of a 10-story building. To him, risks are always worth taking.
And that’s not a bad way to approach life; although maybe don’t try to leap off of buildings. The whole “YOLO” attitude might be cliche and, frankly, annoying, but there’s still something to it. Take writing online, for instance: it’s hard work. It’s almost impossible to break into the upper echelon of writers, and even if you do, it can take years. You open yourself up to negative comments and oh so much rejection.
It’s worth every negative, though. Working on something you love and are passionate about outweighs any risk. My kiddo taught me that when he knew he could reach the tallest ladder rung and didn’t consider falling to be an option.
And to be fair, he didn’t fall; he didn’t even slip. You might not either.
Love with your whole heart
There is no love like toddler love.
Kids love big. They love with their entire being. They never contemplate the possibility that the love they give won’t be returned, because usually, it is (and should be.)
Adults are full of walls and relationship-related PTSD and weirdness. We’re guarded and the hearts we protect with our carefully constructed walls are a lot less full than those of our younger counterparts.
I don’t want to think about the day my son’s heart will be crushed for the first time. I can’t contemplate that tragedy, because right now, he’s a bundle of love.
But it will happen. It happens to everyone.
I think his way of loving now is perfect, though. I think we could all learn from that; we could love like that. We should. It’s selfless and real and so genuine. He loves me exactly as I am, wrecked postpartum stomach and all. He loves me even though I get snappy sometimes when I’m having a bad day. He loves me no matter what mood I’m in or if I’ve just taken away his favourite toy because he was being a butthead — he loves me regardless.
And I love him and his sister right back with the same ferocity. I can’t say I love everyone that way, but kids are really easy to love.
Whereas most of us are hard to love — be honest. We are; we have baggage and attitude. In my son’s opinion, however, that doesn’t mean we’re any less worthy of that big, bold love.
So we should really follow his lead, don’t you think?
Ask for help
Adults suck at asking for help.
I’m the worst. Honestly, my husband will ask me if I need a break from the kids, because I’m being short with them and clearly getting frustrated, and you know how I usually respond?
I get angry and accuse him of telling me I “can’t do it.” Brilliant, Lauren. Bravo.
We all need to ask for help sometimes — yes, even you. No one is perfect. Little gurus like my son know that and when things get too tough, he asks for help. Simple. He’ll ask anyone he trusts and won’t stop until he gets what he needs.
I think that’s remarkable. Understanding your own limitations enough to just know that you might need some help to get you to the finish line — all while still believing you can do anything? That is an incredible mindset. It doesn’t take away from your brimming confidence or your persistence in your pursuits.
What it does instead is show an amazing awareness of your own vulnerability as a human being. We need each other, and little kids just get that.
Lessons in living large
Toddlers are unique in their ability to live large. They haven’t yet been faced with too much disappointment or considerable emotional damage in their small lives to warrant not living large.
As I said, I’ve been working on myself for years, and for a long time, I lived in a numb state of “okayness.” I wasn’t depressed, sure — but I wasn’t happy. There was no joy. Toddlers are overflowing with joy, and you know what?
It’s contagious.
Both of my kids teach me valuable lessons almost every day, and I’m in awe of them. My son, who, as a toddler, is still in that “everything is fun” stage while my daughter, eight, is starting to lose some of that. She already has responsibilities, friendships to maintain, and big, scary feelings to wrangle.
And she, too, takes it all in stride. Mostly.
Kids are incredible. They have a resilience to them that adults simply don’t have. Despite all of our walls and carefully constructed alarm systems, adults are extremely fragile creatures. We’ve learned over decades to protect ourselves from the challenges of life.
Kids just live their lives. I think I’d rather live mine, too.
Whether you watch your kids conquer their fears on the playground, or you witness their incredibly large hearts at play, try to learn something from them. They can teach us an awful lot, if we can only learn to listen.
—
This post was previously published on ILLUMINATION.
***
You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:
 White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism |
 Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box |
 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
 What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Log in if you wish to renew an existing subscription.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock
The post How the Weirdly Wise Teachings of a 3-Year-Old Changed My Life appeared first on The Good Men Project.