Hands On

                                                Hands On

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." Aristotle 

It takes practice
to get your hands
on just the right 
treasures in life.

As we talk, a lot, about here at Family in the Arena, you've got to be in the arena, doing the thing.  We talk to our kids regularly and frequently about the importance and benefits of deliberate practice in building capacity and capability.  The essence of that practice comes from doing the thing or doing component parts of the thing often.  From a football example, you or I could watch a season marathon of every NFL, college, or local Friday Night Lights game...and not be markedly better at actually doing it by Christmas.  

Watching can help; it gives us context and creativity.  From a family perspective, you've got lots of options for what to watch...but remember the adage, "We are what we eat."  We'll change that slightly from eat to consume for our analogy.  From a family media consumption standpoint, are you watching the one-night-stand RomCom?  The womanizer conqueror lusting after a "body count?"  The dad's-only-in-it-for-a-punchline?  Ask yourself those questions.  Or, are you watching Beaver's parents, the Cleavers, or Little House on the Prairie with Ma & Pa?  (Hint: I'd guess anything with a set of main characters named Ma & Pa is probably closer to what you say you want to be like).  

Seek the good
and the 
beautiful in life.

I'm not so Pollyanna to say, "G-rated only."  Far from it...and we don't always.  I am saying, you have to monitor what goes in, proactively.  We've mentioned it before, but the amount of murders, muggings, rapes, and violent acts you consume in the "background" in a year is staggering.  That all said, when the rubber this the road when we go hands on, are we imitating Ma & Pa or the flavor-of-the-month reality star in our homes?  

To continue our football analogy, football players can practice with pads, without pads, just pants/helmets, and an associated variety of skills/combinations.  At home, do we practice getting better as spouses, as parents?  Do we practice getting better at work?  Building new skills?  Exposing ourselves to new ideas?  The idea of a football lineman taking ballet lessons to build foot speed and dexterity seems crazy at first blush...until you see the results of progress season over season.  

Sometimes it means getting messy...like the
annual no-forks spaghetti night sort of messy.

Standing in the Arena or going Hands On requires us to up our game.  It requires us to get out of our own way, to admit we may not be great, let alone perfect, and that we have room to learn/grow.  Once you've gotten the hard part...starting...out of the way, there are plenty of resources out there to help you chart a course toward the shores of better land inside your home.  Start with the crawl-walk-run strategy that we talk about in other posts...consume a book, podcast, or movie with plots/characters that are closer to who you want to become.  Pick out a thing or two that you're going to be deliberate about practicing in the next month.  Commit to that for 30 days...evaluate your progress...repeat.  

Fingerprints on the
important things in 
life matters most.

For us, my most recent "go hands on" commitment is paradoxically going hands-off on cell phones to be more present in the moment with family.  We all have seasons of life where we lean in/out...but pay attention when they persist.  Recently, I found myself going more readily to my phone in the little moments...subtly choosing and saying the shiny screen was more important than my wife or kids.  For a new season, I'm going as close to cold turkey as possible with that thing.  We won't get it all right, all the time.  With a commitment to action...we'll get it more right, more often.  

In order to fulfill the Aristotle quote we led with, you've got to go hands on...you've got to commit, with actions to get better.  Doing that consistently at home, over time, will make you better.  Without hands-on intentionality, when you look back ten years from now, you'll likely just be an older, more out-of-shape version of your past self...don't let that be the way forward.  Get introspective, get creative, get committed, get hands on.  

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick a role (parent, spouse, etc) and pick three things you're going to spend a month more intentionally going hands on.  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Name a friend that you're going to have a hands on conversation with to help share some accountability as a partner.  
• Commit to making hands on a piece of your family meeting where you support and encourage each other with their hands on goal.  
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) - seasonal focus on hands on being a team sport as a family.

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Definition - characterized by active personal involvement.  

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