The ONE Thing You Must Do At All Costs

I know what you are thinking.  If there is one thing I must do at all costs, it must be to eat more bacon, right?  Uh, no.  Although that does sound like a good idea.

This article is going to be mainly directed at those who have kids.  The one thing that is a critical must do is to spend time with them.  Let me give you a question to ponder as you read this.  What needs to change in your life in order to spend more time with your kids?

A number of years ago when we were living in California, I was working 50 or more hours a week on my construction business.  My oldest son who was about 9 or 10 at the time was on a soccer team.  After the season was over, I realized that I only saw 2 of his games and none of his practices.  The time had flown by.  The next year I volunteered to coach my son’s soccer team, but at this point in time my 2nd born son was playing soccer too.  So that year, because of the schedules and locations, I only saw one game of my 2nd son.  All of a sudden I had a burning desire to find a way to spend more time with all my kids.

During our soccer years, I had a friend who had been bugging me for months to come check out the karate school where he trained.  I have always loved martial arts.  I studied Kung Fu for a while when I was eleven and some karate in college.  My schedule at the time was so busy, with work of course, so I told my friend I needed about 6 months to wrap up some loose ends before I tried it.

So about 6 months later I walked into a karate dojo with my two oldest sons.  I tried one class.  I came home and told my wife, I am doing this for the rest of my life.  At that point in time, owning my school never even entered my mind.  My goal was orange belt.  When I got my blue belt, the light started to come on and I really realized – I can do this.  My kids progressed along with me and we were together.

When soccer season came around the next year, I sat down with my sons and talked about it.  We realized that soccer was seasonal, we would be separated yet again and we did not want to do both at the same time.  It was simply too much.  We chose karate because it was year round, we could be together and we could do it for life.

About a year later, my 3rd son joined, then my wife and eventually our daughter.  We were all in it together.  I can honestly say it is one of the best decisions I ever made regarding my family.  We still do it together to this day and love it!  Four black belts and two brown belts in our family.

Most things in life are designed to separate families – work, school, sports and even most churches.  So, back to my original question – What needs to change in your life in order to spend more time with your kids?  You don’t have much time with them left.  Do something, it is so worth it.