-Written By Chris Sweet , of "Striving for SuperDad"
Check him out here at Striving For SuperDad!
Fatherhood for millennials.
Fatherhood in modern times feels a bit like one of those frenetic “pickle plays” that occur on the baseball diamond. I find myself constantly running like hell to get back on base safely. The truth is millennial fathers are juggling a broader range of roles and responsibilities than ever before. And while a greater percentage of females are graduating from college, the expectation that a father be the “breadwinner” still remains prevalent. All the while, the workplace is increasingly more competitive because of corporations’ need to do more with less, a surplus of qualified workers, and a shift to outsource knowledge workers. In the home, shared domestic duties have become an absolute must in a time where 6 out of every 10 families with children, have both parents working full-time.
Times have changed.
While it is not in our nature to complain, tread lightly if you want to discuss modern fatherhood with your father or grandfather. While our grandfathers were undeniably working more hours per week on average (1950: 36.9) than we are today (2011: 32.8), the domestic expectations were virtually non-existent. So how do we manage? How do we achieve “work-life balance?”
Dynamic work-life balance.
Balance should be written into my DNA since my astrological sign is Libra, but to call it a daily struggle is an understatement. My wife and I have a 3.5 year old son and a 2.5 year old daughter. We both have demanding corporate jobs in Health IT. We are a part of a church community, and both enjoy keeping physically active. I recently came to the realization that my perspective of work-life balance was a bit flawed. I thought, if my wife and I could agree on the percentage of time committed to the different dimensions of our lives, we could achieve the mystical “work-life balance.” The “a-ha” moment occurred when I realized that the work-life balance equation is dynamic and not static. Life is full of stages and those stages will have unique demands. Even if you are fortunate to have amazing guidance through mentorship, social networks, and a religious framework, you will never be prepared for what life throws at you.
Step 1 to solving any problem is awareness.
Reflect a moment on your own life. When you are home with your kids, out with your significant other, or simply having lunch with friends, are you thinking about work? If you cannot be present with the given moment, you are actually nowhere. Think about it…If all you can think about is a pending deadline while on a date or playing with your kids, you are missing out on life’s greatest pleasures.
Take a few minutes and do a life inventory on these aspects:
- Family/Social
- Financial
- Health
- Mental, Emotional, Physical, and Spiritual
- Career
I think this simple exercise of consistently taking inventory of these dimensions and fine-tuning based on the current circumstances allows one to get back in alignment. It’s been said that where attention goes energy flows. So wherever you are in today’s life-stage, whether it is starting a business, renovating a home, or bringing a new baby into the home, be a man and own it!
So what can we do to maintain dynamic work-life balance?
- Assess – you cannot change what you do not measure
- Optimize energy – the ability to sustain mental focus and having physical endurance is paramount being productive
- Optimize performance – working on the right things, at the right time, schedule retrospectives to learn from mistakes, automate menial tasks, and remove barriers to create more time
- Optimize recovery – nature, just as our bodies, has natural systems of ebb and flow; ignoring recovery is a huge mistake
- Schedule time to re-evaluate – seriously, put it on your calendar to take an inventory once a quarter!
Striving for Superdad.
This blog is a journey of self-discovery and self-improvement, but also to create value for others. I genuinely do enjoy helping those I am fortunate enough to have in my life. My hope is that others may learn from my successes and failures so, together, we can be the best fathers to our children, the best husbands/boyfriends, and, in general, being good men. So, enjoy this “pickle play”we call life because it is truly a spec of dirt to Father Time.
“Once you are a parent, you’re the ghost of your children’s future.” Cooper, Interstellar
