Think about anything that you currently do in life that you really enjoy. Maybe it’s soccer, or perhaps writing, or you might like to do home improvement.
Myself, I love writing. In addition to writing this new dad blog, I’ve created a science fiction series called “Coma Imprisonment”. It’s a crazy premise: one day in the near future, all killers are struck by incurable comas. From then on, any kill will result in the killer being hit by a coma.
When I am writing in this world, I go into a mental flow that feels kind of like a higher plane of happiness.
Think about the hours and hours you spend tinkering and concentrating on your thing, your brow furrowed as you are immersed in what you are doing, what you are enjoying.
Does this feel like work to you?
Hell, no. It’s a ton of fun.
So, how can we get into this mental flow when it comes to being a new dad?
I strongly believe that having the right attitude can get you there.
I think that it is impossible to enjoy fatherhood by complaining all the time about how much work it takes to raise a child. Wrong attitude.
I think that the right attitude is to consider child-rearing to be one of your key passions in life.
When you really care about something and want to spend a lot of time and energy on it, it ceases to be work and becomes play.
These days, Victoria is almost a year old. The biggest challenge that I have these days is finding ways to get food into her mouth and into her stomach (both are important, as she has recently discovered that she can spit food out!).
Instead of getting frustrated with her non-compliance, I put my man brain to work and started to obsess about finding ways to get her to eat.
As her hand dexterity improves, Victoria has come to love playing with her food. So I experimented with different finger foods: rice balls, sweet potato pieces, different pastas, berries, you name it.
This paid off–Victoria now has her favorite finger foods!
The right attitude for a new dad is to have fun with figuring this stuff out. There are life hacks for everything: getting enough sleep, finding time to do everything, taking care of your recovering wife, and optimizing your diaper and baby bottle systems.
Put your man brain in gear and have some fun solving these problems! Start thinking about baby care as a challenge you relish tackling.
All of a sudden, it will barely seem like work at all.
‘Till next time,
–Anthony