PUSH UPS AND PARENTING: HOW THEY RELATE
I hate push ups. So.So.Much. Recently, my totally awesome and amazing friend, Kelly put together a 5 day work out plan to get me in shape. (Here is where I would “hashtag” Kelly if I actually knew how hashtags work. I need lessons from my 16 year old— or the neighbor’s cat. I think I’m like the only one who doesn’t get them.) ANYWAY, these work outs are kicking by rear end. I thought I was doing reasonably hard work-outs before. I was wrong. So wrong. This morning I was doing a new one and on my list was the exercise that I hate the most—push ups. Did I mention that I hate them? Because I do. A lot. They are difficult and uncomfortable and I look ridiculous while I am doing them. Yet as I was working through my third (THIRD!) set of them this morning, I realized that push ups and parenting have three things in common.
CONSISTENCY:
You are not going to make much progress doing one push up. Or even doing one set of push ups once. No, you have to do multiple reps, multiple times, and multiple days a week. For like the rest of your life. Sound familiar? We can’t make our kids do their chores once and expect to see long term results. (And believe me, I’ve tried!). They have to do it over, and over, and over again. We can’t just take them to church once and expect the lessons there to stick. We have to do it over and over again until hopefully one day they are doing it for themselves. If we want to see real progress—with push ups or parenting, we must be consistent.
DIFFICULTY:
Remember how I said push ups are hard? Being a parent is hard. Some days I don’t want to get out of bed and face it—just like those pesky push ups. It would be easier to throw some Cheerios and goldfish at them and curl up with a good book—or an episode of Hoarders. And every once in a while we do that—but it’s not going to get us the end result we want. Nope, you’ve got to get up and face those little (or big) lovable monsters because the only way you are going to get better and more confident at this is by practicing and facing that it’s hard—but it’s worth it.
PAY OFF:
If I stick with the push-ups, eventually I AM going to be better at them. Who knows, I might even graduate to the non-granny, actual real deal variety of push ups. (As opposed to my current level which means when I attempt a “real” push up I easily can handle the “push” part of the exercise but it’s the “up” part that is lacking.) Somedays being a parent is like that. When you are in the day to day thick of it, you don’t always see what the end result is going to be. But I promise that the more you flex those parenting muscles. The more you practice, refine, and improve, the easier it will be and the more successful you will feel.
CONSISTENCY:
You are not going to make much progress doing one push up. Or even doing one set of push ups once. No, you have to do multiple reps, multiple times, and multiple days a week. For like the rest of your life. Sound familiar? We can’t make our kids do their chores once and expect to see long term results. (And believe me, I’ve tried!). They have to do it over, and over, and over again. We can’t just take them to church once and expect the lessons there to stick. We have to do it over and over again until hopefully one day they are doing it for themselves. If we want to see real progress—with push ups or parenting, we must be consistent.
DIFFICULTY:
Remember how I said push ups are hard? Being a parent is hard. Some days I don’t want to get out of bed and face it—just like those pesky push ups. It would be easier to throw some Cheerios and goldfish at them and curl up with a good book—or an episode of Hoarders. And every once in a while we do that—but it’s not going to get us the end result we want. Nope, you’ve got to get up and face those little (or big) lovable monsters because the only way you are going to get better and more confident at this is by practicing and facing that it’s hard—but it’s worth it.
PAY OFF:
If I stick with the push-ups, eventually I AM going to be better at them. Who knows, I might even graduate to the non-granny, actual real deal variety of push ups. (As opposed to my current level which means when I attempt a “real” push up I easily can handle the “push” part of the exercise but it’s the “up” part that is lacking.) Somedays being a parent is like that. When you are in the day to day thick of it, you don’t always see what the end result is going to be. But I promise that the more you flex those parenting muscles. The more you practice, refine, and improve, the easier it will be and the more successful you will feel.
This is so true, Kristyn! Consistency is the key, why is that so hard? Also, I can only get to the "push" stage. Still working on the "ups". Thanks for posting this!
ReplyDeleteThanks Anne! I agree--consistency seems to be the biggest hurdle to overcome. I'm on day 1 of "Morgan Boot Camp." So far, so good. But who knows about tomorrow?
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