No excuses scale of justice

After last week’s article, I had a few emails suggesting that change is tougher than just a few words on paper. And of course, yes, it is. Action is required. And not just any action, but the action that will produce the best results.

So for today, I am going to start with home and family. Included are suggestions for a few very simple action steps that have a profound impact on you and your family.

Don’t give up. Give it 30 days.

Okay, let’s be clear. Life can be very difficult and overwhelming at times. I get that.

But I am asking you to consider that just 30 days of intentional effort can turn around many struggles at home. Perhaps not perfect for some of you, but a dramatic improvement can be made. If this interests you, then let’s get started.

No Excuses Scale of Influence

Let me ask you to imagine this. Suppose I have been magically following you around your house for the past year carrying two huge buckets. One bucket has a plus sign (+) for positive moments. Every time that you engaged, noticed, smiled, or talked to your kids during a positive or healthy moment, I put a penny in the positive bucket.

On the other bucket is a big negative (-) sign. Every time that you invested energy in a negative moment, I dropped a penny in that bucket. In other words, every time you were nagging, reminding, prodding, pushing, arguing, giving nasty looks, or even “commanding” your children to change their negative, sassy, disrespectful behavior, you got a penny in the negative bucket.

What is critical to understand here is that I am putting pennies in the bucket every time you engage (i.e., give your attention and energy) in either a positive moment or a negative moment.

Now, I pull out the ‘no excuses scale of results,’ and we put the buckets on the scale, the positive pennies added up in one big bucket against the negative pennies in the other big bucket. What would your buckets look like?

If you are overwhelmed and ready to give up, I can guess with certainty that the negative bucket outweighs the positive at least ten to one, and often more. This is the ‘scale of results because it will reflect where you are investing your energy with your family, and the results are undeniable, and now we are reflecting back to you that investment. This is what you are influencing in your home.

Again, no excuses. Just honest feedback that points us to where change must begin. This is the essential starting point in the 30-day plan.

Why? Because you can’t nurture more positive behavior by investing your energy in negative behavior. This is the law.

The strong-willed, oppositional or difficult child tends to PULL us into those negative moments (let’s call these ‘weeds’). Their negativity PULLS us into it, and gets us to react, to nag, or argue, and to feed into those ‘weeds.’

The more we engage those moments, the more we feed them with our energy. And the more this will grow into a monstrous weed as time goes on.

Remember: it’s the law. We can never get more positive moments feeding into the negative moments with our attention. Never will that happen. (This is true for children, husbands, wives, parents, siblings, and friends.)

Master Feeding Seeds While Starving Weeds

Seeds refer to positive, healthy, and productive behaviors. There are seeds of happiness, seeds of responsibility, and seeds of kindness. All such positive behaviors can be nurtured and grown if we patiently invest our attention into those seed moments.

Then, there are weeds! They include negative behaviors, such as whining, complaining, negotiating, arguing, not listening, disrespect, kids squabbling, and general attitudes of negativity.

If you are desperate and feeling that your home is out of control, you can bet you are feeding weeds every single day. If you take the 30-day challenge, you can turn this around.

How To Turn Things Around in 30 Days.

Step 1: Start ‘watering’ seeds very heavily.

For the next 30 days, obsess on moments of thoughtfulness, kindness, hard work, and responsibility. Be patient if these positive moments show up rarely. Wait. They will happen. Any moment that is positive in your mind, then smile, wink, or offer a gentle touch. Nothing more. Just engage by noticing these positive moments, and you are water seeds of a positive life with your attention and energy. Again, be patient here.

If you can’t always feed the seed with attention directly, just sweetly say a’thank you to yourself. In other words, talk sweetly and appreciatively to yourself about this ‘seed’ moment and feel good about that.

Step 2: Starve the weeds of negativity.

This is more difficult than step one. Those negative moments must go without getting your energy and attention. Otherwise, you keep feeding them.

I repeat, you must ‘starve weeds,’ or otherwise, they will just keep growing. So, over the next 30 days, see what happens when you start ignoring those weeds. It’s going to be hard, not to mention annoying, but you have to show them that this negative behavior is not worthy of your attention. In order to prepare them for the healthy, happy world, which will not invest in these negative, annoying, and unproductive moments, reflect what the healthy world will do: walk away.

In next week’s article, I will expand on the power of this and dig deeper into transforming your home and your life with mastery of where you invest your attention. I leave you with one thought to ponder: You are what gets your attention, and your children become what you repeatedly show them is worthy of your attention.

Dr. Randy Cale, a Clifton Park-based parenting expert, author, speaker and licensed psychologist, offers practical guidance for a host of parenting concerns. His website, www.TerrificParenting.com, offers free parenting guidance and an email newsletter. Readers can learn more by reviewing past articles found on the websites of The Saratogian, The Record and The Community News. Submit questions to DrRandyCale@gmail.com