No New Year's resolutions here. At the very end of 2012 I very quietly proclaimed, "I will be restored."

Today is exactly five months and twenty-four days since I uttered this statement.

How To Inspire The Dad In Your Life To Be His Best All Year Long


Today is also almost a year ago to the day (June 22, 2012 to be exact) I was laid off from what I thought was my dream job. And don't get me wrong, layoffs happen all the time. But it was the how it happened, rather than the why it happened. I was legitimately heartbroken as I scrambled and failed for several months to get new work. My ego suffered, my lifestyle suffered (didn't have one to begin with at the time) and my marriage was accelerating toward disaster. I stopped eating, but gained weight, and then started losing weight and my appetite stayed away. I prayed and prayed but began to lose hope, --- something I've had for as long as I can remember. Then in the fall things began to look up. Work came and I began the slow climb out of debt, began to budget and began doing my best to repair home. On New Year's Eve I forgave myself for everything, especially since I was blaming myself for everything, and told God in 2013 I'd make triple what had been taken from me in 2012. I knew I wasn't blaspheming when I financially able to slip in a trip to Disney World not soon after this. And this past Wednesday, 3 days shy of June 22, 2012, I began a new gig where I was recruited --- making double what I made in 2012. In a masterstroke of bringing things full circle, I was able to assist getting a former colleague from that old "dream" job hired into the position I just left. I'm too awestruck and thankful to question it. I'm still committed to making triple by the end of the year and with freelance stuff and blog stuff I may actually hit that mark. But that's neither here nor there right now. What is true is that I've almost unknowingly doubled what was taken from me in 12 months flat. Believe me there have been hiccups and plenty of self-doubt along the way. But don't tell me I did this "out of my own hard work" - no matter how hard I worked others who work just as hard or harder and for longer still haven't seen their circumstances change. I won't take credit for the blessings, but I will accept them thankfully and know that the Most High is driving. But what I did do and continue to do is remain steadfast to these 7 principles of self-restoration:

1. Know your value - know what you add to this life, your friends, your family, your community, your job and refuse to be undervalued by those who WILL try to convince you that you aren't special.
2. Trust and use your power - when opportunity strikes, don't spend a single second doubting your ability to rise to the occasion. Stand up, speak up and use all that you have to step into what is yours. If you don't, rest assured someone else will. Don't be on the sidelines knowing you could've done better what you should've been doing in the first place.
3. Love a little more - patience, forgiveness, reassurance...speak words that bear fruit and don't tear down, refuse to stoop to lower levels when you feel yourself being pulled down, resist temptation when you know you and/or someone around you will be hurt, resist the desire to defend and fight, instead seek concessions, be the peacemaker, see the other point of view - even if it is wrong and speak truth, calmly and assertively.
4. Surround yourself with people who make you better - this may require you to seek out folks who are better than you. [UPDATE: and separate yourself from others]. I hope your ego will allow for this to happen. 
5. Talk less, listen more - this shouldn't need any explanation, but revisit "Love a little more" for a refresher.
6. Play - if you have any children in your life, watch them for pointers. Set your imagination free, find hobbies that allow your mind to soar: cooking, reading, working, traveling, chasing down that passion on the side (Note to men: if you have a family the bills MUST be paid first and the food MUST be on the table before you begin chasing dreams).
7. Write down your goals - how do you expect to succeed if you don't have a plan? You don't have to physically write them down if that's not what you do but there's no way you're going to stay on task if you don't have any. And an unorganized mind makes for a disorganized life. 
8. *The bonus point - if you count yourself as a believer, pray and praise with all your heart mind and soul. Pray when things are bad and pray when things are good. Invite God into your life and do this FIRST. And all else will follow.

So enough about me. How is your 2013 going for you?

---

Thoughts? Please, let me know in the Facebook or Disqus comment sections below.

Yeah, that's me full tilt on the Disney sauce. It's been almost two weeks since I posed for my wife here (she rolled her eyes as soon as I posed). Although it's only been a short time I feel like I've been gone for centuries. Each day the "magic" fades just a bit more than it did the day before. Of course I am thankful I have the gift of life and I'm gainfully employed but I'm no longer waking up to the sound of the ferry that shipped patrons to Epcot. There are no more smiles that greet me in a ginormous lobby. The traffic I'm in now isn't headed to happy-land. No one is asking me if I'm enjoying myself or if I need anything. I'm not powering up at 9 pm in anticipation of a fireworks show that is better than the one that happened the night before. I'm back to my usual station --- the wonderfully exhilarating but thankless job of being Dad. Dad who isn't buying everything he's being asked for. Dad who is saying, "no" and "go to bed" and "throw out the trash."

By my pic you might think it was my first time there and not my daughter's. She went full tilt on the Princess sauce and didn't have a care in the world. Neither did I and that's a good thing at a place like Disney World where you can wind up spending the equivalent of half a year's worth of mortgage payments or more once the smoke clears. In the eyes of a storyteller (myself) Disney is a monster storytelling machine, selling narratives at every turn from the time you wake up until you return back to your hotel or resort wishing you could do more before morning and excited to get going the next day.  Stories, whether written or visual, create the canvas for the mind to imagine and dream. I wasn't about to let something like money get in the way of my daughter's, and to some extent my own, desire to plunge as far down the rabbit hole as possible.

So how did I and how can you experience the Disney Vacation YOU want to have without being left in the poorhouse upon your return to reality?

If you're a blogger then you know as I do that sooner or later blogging can become a bit much. The idea frequently sitting down to type onto "the Internets" can be maddening even. It's even worse when you don't have anything to say.

When these times come, and they will come, consider pushing your content to your blog in a different format:



Agree? Disagree? Any questions? Please sound off in the comments.

---

Thanks for reading! To learn more about me, you can read my story.

For those of you who began reading with me 860+ posts ago (or maybe even 700) you know that I began to dabble in photography right here on this blog. My love for it predates this blog, but my skill in it has grown from merely a fan of it to my being a student of it. It is yet another way for me to express myself when words just aren't enough or I just don't feel like talking.

As family folks there is no shortage of opportunities to capture images of the people who matter most to you. Make them count on film by capturing the timeless quality each and every one of us possesses. I hope the video below will help you in your efforts.



If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to "speak" your mind in the comments below or sending me an email via my Contact page. For this and more videos, please subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

Peace.

---

Thanks for reading! To learn more about me, you can read my story.

An old flame once told me that I lived life larger in my mind than I did in reality. I couldn't argue the point. After all, I do have a penchant for writing. And I definitely have an overdeveloped imagination. But she raised a very powerful point. In my own mind I knew that sooner or later I'd be doomed if I stayed in my head with my dreams.

I don't remember if it was in church that I learned to write down my plans or if it was advice given to me by someone else, but by the time I was 25 I had a house filled with notebooks and journals of day-to-day plans, monthly and annual plans. Before I realized what I was doing, I was amazed that most of what I was writing was coming to pass. I didn't know then that I was calling it into reality and making it even more concrete by writing out a road map for myself to follow.

At the end of the month I'll be coming up on my 39th birthday. This year is a special year for me, not because I'm one year shy of forty, but because at 23 I wrote a plan of action for myself that spanned 16 years. It included a tremendous amount of self-discovery and the associated pains that come with it; it had warning for me to warn others that might get involved with me that the ride would be nothing less than rocky, in fact I didn't even factor in a loved one until the age of 36 with the idea being that I'd be coming out of the worst of it by then.

But at the age of 36 I was already married with children. Just like life, marriage and everything I've never met a plan that was perfect. But having a written plan does wonders for the soul. When you write out your goals and aspirations:

• You have a document to consult and run self-check ups with.
• You get to see with your own eyes the plausibility of what you're trying to do.
• The more you write the more direct, succinct and specific you will be with your goals. (The method by which you wish to become rich vs. "I wanna be rich.")
• You can change, adjust, adapt your plans for the changes, hurdles and hiccups life puts before you.
• You have a written document that you can submit before God for approval.
• You have a written document you can share with your spouse/significant other. (Don't go overboard sharing this with everyone else as they may discourage your plans.)
  
• When you start to feel frazzled, lost, out of focus or begin coming down too hard on yourself, you can check back to see if you're still on the same page with yourself.
• You have a measure by which to gauge your maturation. Ultimately you may decide your plan is not adequate for where you are now and you can scratch the whole thing and start over new.
• It gives you the opportunity to reconnect with a younger you on those days that you feel old, dispassionate or just need to revisit where you came from for inspiration.
  

My Bye, Bye Backfat Saga was written down on my calendar long before it showed up here. When I don't write my plans down I lose focus, get blown around a lot by life and definitely begin to embrace the "woe is mes". But each person is different as are their needs.

If you believe you may need a little more focus or some redirection you should make the time to try it. If there is something you want to do, write down in a special journal or pad, not on a piece of scrap paper and make it plain for you to understand and reason with. You'll be surprised how the things you want (barring breaking the laws of physics or practicing magic) get you centered on your goals.


There's a new book on Fatherhood coming to a store or e-reader near you! Add your name to list of people who want to see it happen. Please "Like" Bottom Line Fatherhood and count yourself as one who supports positive outlooks on the Dad Life.