Fatherhood is a marathon not a sprint. Unlike any role we get to play as men, being a dad is lifelong responsibility. It’s a journey that will require more of you than anything else. Ask anyone who has ever run a marathon and they will tell you running a marathon is no small feat. It takes commitment and intentional preparation to pull it off.
Runners who successfully run and finish a marathon dedicate time to preparing for the race, and part of that preparation centers around their mindset. Running and finishing your race as a dad is no different. It requires a mindset that can carry you through the finish line.
Here are three things to keep in mind that can help you run your fatherhood race well.
1. Live Good Values
Whether you are a first-time dad or seasoned pro, good values set the tone and pace of your fatherhood journey. They are critical components that guide our decisions and behavior from the moment our kids are born and through every life phase, transition and event we get to experience with them as dads.
Good values are important because nothing impacts your life every day more than your values. They create stability, keep us fulfilled and strong, provide structure and meaning, and help us to live more stable lives. The values we embrace and practice serve as anchors that help us stay true to ourselves. We are today where our values have brought us, and we will be tomorrow where our values take us.
Imagine how much further you can go as a dad if you make it a priority to live good values all the time? Imagine how much further in life your kids can go when they watch you model good values daily? You see our ability to make a lasting impact and difference through the values we live may require a lot from us, but anything worthwhile is uphill and the return on investment it produces surpasses the effort, energy and time we invest in living good values.
Living good values empowers us not only to run our race, but also to run it successfully through the finish line. It becomes a lasting legacy that can pass on to generations and make a difference in the world.
2. Stay focused on your race (Don’t compare)
It’s so much easier today to compare how our life is going with how other people’s lives are looking. Comparing is a joy stealer. It’s a self-imposed and stifling outlook that robs us of our ability to live out our best lives as dads. In addition to stealing our joy, it compromises our focus, and can lead to complacency.
Let’s imagine on your fatherhood journey you are a 6 on a 1-10 scale. If you are comparing yourself to someone who is a 5, you will hardly make any effort to get better, and if you are comparing yourself to someone who is a 7, chances are you will ease off when you reach an 8, but what if you could be a 9 or 10?
Staying focused and running your race in your lane keeps you in control. It makes you an asset and most valuable to the people you love, because no matter how hard we try, we cannot successfully run our fatherhood race in another person’s lane. We each have unique gifts, insights, temperament, resources, etc. to impact the kids and people within our sphere of influence. Our goal should be aiming for constant improvement and growth in our journey, not making comparisons to someone else’s journey.
3. Keep running (Don’t quit)
Charlie “Rocket” Jabaley had a lifelong dream of becoming an athlete. As an overweight successful music mogul, he never saw this as possibility until a brain tumor forced him to make some life changes. Determined to change his life and make a difference, one of the goals he set was to run the Boston Marathon.
One day, his coach asked him to run ten miles as part of his training to prepare for the Boston Marathon. Two miles into the ten mile run, Charlie was exhausted and felt he couldn’t go on. He wanted to quit, go back home and watch TV. But in that moment, he reminded himself of the goal – qualifying for the Boston Marathon – and chose to push through the doubts bombarding his mind, and the pain and discomfort he was feeling all over his body. Charlie went on to complete the ten mile run, running the last five miles at his fastest because he knew this – to achieve his dream, he had to keep running.
Quitting is a state of mind we reinforce every time we throw in the towel. We were created to make a difference, and on the mission to make a difference there will be obstacles that trip, delay, disrupt and disillusion us. Just like Charlie Rocket, in our race to live out the dream of being good dads, we will experience the temptation to stop running towards the best version of ourselves as dads. In those pivotal moments, we must pick ourselves up and get back to the business of living on purpose to make a difference.
If you feel like all is lost because you lost your running pace or dropped out of the race all together, you are not alone. You can still get back on your lane and finish your race. You don’t have to fade out because of a setback. The purpose of your fatherhood race is not to look strong, but to run your race and finish well. The race is not to the swift or strong, but to those who endure to the end. Your setback point can be a new starting line. It’s not over until you finish well, so get back up and finish what you started.
