It’s understandable to feel exactly how you’re feeling right now. You just received some of the most life changing news anyone could receive!
There’s probably a million thoughts going through your head at the moment, huh? You were probably feeling super excited, but then sat down and these unsettling thoughts started to creep up on you a bit. Sound familiar? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
When my wife told me she was pregnant, I was ECSTATIC! But as soon as I sat down and thought about it later on, I started questioning so many things, and had feelings of doubt.
- WIll I be a good father?
- How am I going to afford everything?
- I can barely manage myself, how am I going to be able to manage another person?
The list goes on. These thoughts are normal, BUT we’re not going to live in that.
You Decide How You Feel!
Look, sometimes we need a little tough love, and I’m going to give it to you.
You are 100% in control of how you feel about everything going on. YOU, and ONLY you decide how you feel. Your lady is going to need help, the baby will arrive, and you’re going to need to learn SO many different things. These things are inevitable. So why not shift your perspective from that of fear and worry, towards excitement?
I didn’t grow up around a bunch of babies. I’ve never changed a diaper in my entire life, and have absolutely zero idea how to do so.
We have our struggles financially at times, especially being self employed.
I’ve let these things occupy my mind and make me feel absolutely dreadful of becoming a father. But you know what? I made a decision to refuse to be scared. I refuse to worry about it.
I decided to shift my perspective, and be excited instead. I choose to believe that I work hard to provide, and every single time that I have been worried in the past was for no reason. All the times I put myself through hell mentally, and everything has always been perfectly okay. I’m not saying it was easy, or we didn’t have to make sacrifices at times, but we never have gone without food or a roof over our head.
There is a lot to think about, I get it (especially because I’m living it just as you are!), but life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it!
Treat Being A New Father Like Any Other New Hobby!
We all have hobbies.
Some of us work on cars, enjoy fishing, baseball card collecting, painting, building computers, whatever. We all have something
When you started that hobby, did you know everything you know now? No. You thought “huh, i’ll figure this out” and you did. You had your hiccups, and struggles with it, but you got better every single day. You probably got overwhelmed at times, but it never was enough to take you away from the fact that you loved whatever it was that you were doing.
We, as new fathers, need to approach fatherhood in the same way. Are we going to face struggles? Yes. Are we going to be amazing off the bat? No.
We’re going to need to practice, and learn, and show up every single day. After enough repetition, we will develop our own way of doing things. We’ll test techniques out, improve on others, and cut certain ones out entirely. Overtime, we’ll just become better fatheres.
It’s also important to remember that every child is different. You may want to parent a certain type of way, and that’s fantastic, but how you get to that point is going to be different than anyone else. That’s just something that we have to figure out overtime, and with practice. We can’t beat ourselves up for not being amazing right away. Just as everything else, being patient and persistent will pay off.
The time will pass, and you will be a parent. So why not live in the excitement of getting to raise a beautiful child with the person you love? Be excited about doing all of the things you were never able to do as a child! To have all the fun times you want to have with your child! Yes, it’s a new chapter, but don’t let society tell you that your life is over. Sacrifices do need to be made, yes, but how beautiful is it that we get to make these sacrifices to raise one that we created with someone we love?
You’ve got this.