Three weeks ago my world changed forever - my daughter arrived into the world. Happy, healthy and beautiful.
All through our pregnancy, I spent a lot of time thinking and reflecting on how I would be as a father.
If I'm honest, I had my doubts about whether I could be what my daughter wanted and needed. Parents around me talked about the need for patience and giving up on plans and punctuality. They report that nothing matters as much any more, and how you would do anything for them. Then of course there's the sleep deprivation. They all mention that.
This presented a worry. Those who know me know that planning and being on time is my bread and butter. Patience is not.
What is more, the A-Type over-achiever in me shrieks in terror at the idea that work will no longer matter. After all, what does that leave me with to attach my identity to?
But my biggest fear was not being able to be a good Dad and provide for my family by doing good work, all at the same time. Both of these are full-time jobs after all.
But then she arrived.
There are plenty of trite phrases used to describe the feeling of becoming a parent. Whilst I now know that they all live up to hype, what I felt was the feeling of completeness, and of being unleashed.
Instead of wondering how I would make this work, I committed that I would.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed, I accepted that I would try my best, and that it would be enough.
Instead of the tiredness bringing me to my knees, I found the energy to move on to the next task.
I'm still tired. I'm still scared. I'm still riding that emotional wave of ups and downs that come with new Fatherhood. And I still have none of the answers.
But I have found that my daughter provides me with what I need. I call them Principles of the High Performance Mindset and I feel that they are worth sharing.
The High Performance Mindset
Mindset is everything. As James Kerr writes:
"In any game played by the body, it's the head that counts"
We live in uncertain times - now more than ever. A great deal of life we cannot control. But we can control our Mindset. How we think is how we view our world. With a High Performance Mindset, we can overcome bigger challenges. We can achieve greater things.
These are some of the Principles of the High Performance Mindset that are being trained as I navigate the wonderful world of Fatherhood.
Perspective
We spent a couple of days in hospital before we all came home as a family. During that time we were on a ward with about eight other families, all with brand new babies.
As with anything new, my wife and I worried that all was not well. Is our daughter eating enough? Is she sleeping too much? Am I holding her correctly?
Anyone who has been on a ward in a hospital will know that you can hear everything that goes on. And through night and day I heard new parents with their own fears, and problems that were greater than ours.
Our baby was eating and sleeping. Some were not. Some had been born early and were underweight. Some had infections and needed medication. And we were in the ward for parents and babies with no real cause for concern. Down the hall things were a lot more real.
Hearing all this gave me perspective - that the seemingly insurmountable problems before me, weren't.
Perspective is everything in life. We tend to get caught up in our own stories, our own problems, and forget that there is always someone who has it worse.
Those few days in hospital, and ever since, taught me perspective. We have a happy, healthy baby. Some do not. Any problems we face (and we will face them) are not trivial, but they could be worse. For me, there is power in that thought.
Gratitude
With perspective comes gratitude. Who knows what the future will bring, but for right now we all have things in our lives for which we can be grateful.
Gratitude is energy, and energy is what sustains us for the long haul.
The thing about gratitude, though, is that we tend not to practice it much in the good times, and forget about it in the bad.
When it's all going well, we can (and I include myself in this) become fixated on what else we need to be, do and have 'more'. We don't stop to look at what we have. We don't know what 'enough' is. (For more on deciding what you do and don't need, check this article out. For an exercise to work out what your 'enough' is, click here.)
When things are bad, we ruminate on what we have lost, instead of looking after and enjoying what remains.
With my daughter came a real clarity of what it important, and what is excess.
Detachment
On first glance, this one sounds like a bad thing. Detachment conjures images of not caring, of being disengaged. I believe however that it is one of the more important Mindset Skills that we can cultivate.
When your infant is screaming, and you've tried everything, and they won't stop screaming - panic can set in. The sense of overwhelm is massive.
The thing is - this child is your responsibility. She comes first. You can't curl up in a ball and hide - you have to keep going and keep trying.
Detachment can help with this - taking a step back, removing some of the emotion from the immediate situation, and looking at things with a cooler head. It helps because you can see logical solutions that you couldn't before. You can take a break from the draining, intense, negative emotions swirling around, and summon the energy to keep moving on.
You can step out of the detail and see the big picture.
Whether it's parenting, a work crisis, or a personal struggle - being over-invested in it does not always help. It can pay to detach and look at things more stoically. Realising this has really helped me these past few weeks.
(Re)-Prioritisation
Once you can detach, you can prioritise, and re-prioritise, with greater clarity.
There are things that are important to me professionally and personally. There are things that my wife and daughter need. I have been pretty good historically at letting work always be the priority. My daughter is good at convincing me otherwise.
This is not to say that work is not important. I love what I do, and as a Dad part of the job description is to provide, so I need to work, and to take work seriously. But having my daughter has helped me to really think about what is important minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day.
For a planner, this is not an easy evolution to be going through. I had a plan, and then my daughter needs something, and that plan has to change. It has to. She is the priority. I can sort my stuff out later. She can't, because she depends on my wife and me for everything.
Prioritisation is such an important skill, because it helps us make better and more timely decisions for us and our loved ones, in relation to the goals we have for our lives.
A strong and clear set of priorities - listed in order of priority - is a compass that guides us through unclear times.
Adaptability
I thought I was good at adapting before my daughter arrived. I'm fast becoming a master at it.
We live in (very) changeable times. Business landscapes shift, personal lives are full and busy. The ability to adapt is crucial.
Adaptability is the skill of reacting with purpose to a change of circumstance. A situation arises that forces a re-sorting and re-prioritising of one's current activities.
The best way to build the skill of adaptability, therefore, is to have clear priorities., which we discussed above. Not just an ordered to-do list. Priorities for your professional life, personal life, or simply life itself.
This 'template' takes work to clarify. But when you have it, it can serve as a compass through highly changeable times - like living with a newborn!
You don't need to think about what to re-prioritise, you've already made that decision. You can park what you were doing, move to the more important demand of your time, and then come back to the previous task at later.
Patience
I am not a patient man, but my daughter is teaching me to be one. There are of course frustrating times. Back on the hospital ward I heard different parents going through different stages of insanity. (I heard them bargaining, chiding and plea-ing with newborns who were, at most, 72 hours old...)
Patience made this list for two reasons. The first is simple - I'm not good at it. I've been working on it for years and will need to keep working on it. But my daughter is helping me. With her, I am my most patient, because she is here because of our choices, not the other way around.
People get frustrated at their situations - big or small - when they don't go the way they want them to. But as a wise man once told me - "you are exactly where you want to be in life".
Think about that for a second - it isn't always a happy thought.
Wherever you are, in whatever situation, at least 50% of it is because of choices you made. Take a moment to reflect on this and see if I'm wrong. I won't be.
Owners of startups chose to take on an uncertain future. People frustrated with their jobs choose to stay there. The situations that are making us angry are at least partly of our own doing.
This can be a difficult realisation, but I find it immensely helpful. It helps me to just breathe and keep going. Because if you're the only one to blame, there's very little point in getting angry, at least for very long.
The second reason is because of how important it is to have patience when trying to do anything worth doing.
Quite simply, nothing in life of real value comes easy. We have to work at it, consistently.
So what now?
These Mindset Skills take time to strengthen, and they take commitment to maintain. But they can help to take you wherever you want to go.
Of course, this list is not exhaustive. But it is a good start for anyone embarking on a long, demanding, and ultimately worthwhile journey. For more on these and other helpful disciplines, I recommend these two books, and one app.
Headspace (App) - I do 10 minutes of mindfulness, most days. What I love about it is that it offers packs on different skills, including many of those mentioned above.
Ego Is The Enemy, by Ryan Holiday - I've recommended this book before and I'll do it again. This is great for getting yourself out of your own way.
The Tao of Seneca - These are a collection of letters by one of the ancient Stoics, Seneca, to one of his students. All of them help you think about life differently, and more objectively.
Be it building a business or building a family, let these help you along the way. Good luck.