Recommit After Getting Caught

As dad of daughters, I find myself regularly entering into learning situations that perfectly apply to my life as well as my kids.

Recently, my wife and I tasked our kids with cleaning the play room. Which meant they wouldn’t do much cleaning because it was literally a room full of their toys. It’s like telling me to diet in a house made of Snickers bars and Twix. Won’t happen. So, it was no surprise when I passed by and my oldest was playing instead of cleaning. Her immediate response was shock at being caught and then rushing to clean so it looked like she had been cleaning the entire time and wasn’t just playing (even though I literally just saw her). That is a pretty typical response kids have when they get caught. I did the normal stuff and reminded her to stay focused and moved about my business. When I sat down and thought about it for a minute though, I had a bit of a revelation. I got back up and told my kid that I didn’t want her to try and hid things. I wanted her to just acknowledge that she got caught, she wasn’t in trouble. Then instead of trying to cover it up, I wanted her to recommit to cleaning.

This came perfectly in time for me to apply this to my own life.

Before we keep going though, lets take a quick survey….how many of us are keeping our New Year Resolutions?

The anticipated answer is that is probably isn’t many of us. The reason is usually that once we fall off the bandwagon, we think there is no point of getting back on. Which is NUTS! Sure you fell off and had to hitch a ride on the next bandwagon passing through, but you are still going to end up much further along than if you just quit.

I was seeing this in my own life. One of my commitments to myself is to exercise 3x/week. I’m not trying to get shredded. I just want to be functionally healthy and remove some stress from my body. These aren’t soul crushing work outs that I was avoiding, but I found myself choosing to sleep in instead of exercise. I was feeling pretty guilty about this too.

Then I sat back and thought about how I wanted my kid to operate. If this is what I’m teaching, then that is what I believe is the best way to operate. If I believe that is the best way to operate, then I need to operate that way. Right then, I recommitted to exercising.

None of us are perfect. We are all going to fall short. The thing is, no one is asking you to be perfect right now. I know because I have struggled with a sense of inferiority all my life. This game is not about perfection. It is about growth. If you give up the first time you fall, you’ll never grow. Growth comes from perseverance, from getting back up. We have to get back up to learn the lesson from that fall. Learning that lesson is how we get better and that is what growth is.

Don’t give up. Recommit.