The Fatherhood Formula - Commitment

Welcome to this video series The Fatherhood Formula – 7 Principles of Dad Success. As the name implies, there are 7 videos in this series, each building upon the other. Each video focuses on one of the major principles of the Fatherhood Formula. Let’s get started.

The first principal of the fatherhood formula is commitment. As it related to fatherhood, commitment is about making your role as a parent a priority. You have to decide how committed you are to being a father. The truth is you should have thought of that before you had a child but here we are anyway. My hope is that you landed here because you are already committed or you WANT to be committed. Although this is very important it’s actually the easy part.

The hard part is taking action. The hard part is learning new skills as a parent so you can improve your relationship with your child. The hard part is sacrificing yourself for you child. The hard part is doing this over a very long period of time….. say 40 to 50 years.

Maybe you aren’t actually sure if you are ready to commit to being a father. Why do people fail to commit or choose not to? Here are a couple of common reasons:

We don’t know what to do – I’m not going to commit to it because I have no idea what I’m doing. I peronally had only held two babies in my life before having my first child. I had no idea how to relate to kids.

We are easily distracted – Shiny red objects keep us from focusing on what’s important.

We fear failure – What if I do try to do it but I fail miserably? That’s embarrassing. I don’t want to be seen as a failure. I personally struggle with this. I put so many expectations on myself as a parent. Heck I’m doing dad university, what if my kids have major issues? If you think you are going to fail, you will likely fail. If you feel you will succeed, you will succeed. I am choosing success.

We don’t have enough time – We actually do have time, it’s just not a priority. It’s B.S. You don’t have time for your children? Let’s be honest and say the truth. It’s not a priority.

Takes too much effort – I don’t want to try that hard. That’s a lot of work. Yes it is. And you will be challenged like you never have been challenged before. But it’s worth it.

Not important enough – At least with this one you are honest with yourself. With some things, that may be acceptable, but not when it comes to children. Your child deserves to be and feel important.

There are so many reasons not to commit. We may be subconsciously deciding not to commit, or we use excuses and have great stories on why we don’t. But here you are, on Dad university, which is proof you are comitted. But to really commit, you need to hit that subscribe button.

Now that I really know you are committed to being a successful dad.

Here’s a 5 step process to solidify that committment:

#1 – Define Your Goals – What is it that you want to get out of being a father? Do you want to raise a healthy, happy child? Are you wanting to feel loved? Take a deep dive on this to really understand what you want.

#2 – Make the decision to commit – Are you prepared to put in the time and effort to be the best dad you can be? This is not a decision to take lightly.

#3 – Create a plan – Like in business, no plan is perfect and you reserve thew right for it to change, but you should have a plan. What are the things you are going to do to reach your goal. If you really want this to stick, write it down.

#4 – Hold yourself accountable – Listen, you are not going to perfect. You are going to screw up all the time. But you need to hold yourself accountable. Not only for your own sake, but your child is watching.

#5 – Check in and revisit – As I said, the plan can change. You’ll want to check in and see how you are doing. Are you and your child on the right track and where you want to be? Do you need to modify something in order to get back on track towards your goals?

Commitment is not an easy thing. You may have recently gone through a hurdle just committing to the person you had the child with. Now you are committing to be an integral part of your child’s life. But don’t let that scare you, trust your instincts that you can do it and do it well. Being a dad is incredible. You have the opportunity to experience amazing things. Just know that to really get the sweetness out of it, you must commit.