Philosophy
- Make Catholic Husband the best blog on the Internet. While I’m not there yet, I made substantial progress towards improving the blog in both content and presentation. The website itself is much cleaner and more streamlined. I don’t foresee many changes in the design happening in 2016 (to Alison’s great relief). I was successful in publishing regularly and am very proud, and frankly a bit surprised, that I reached this goal.
- Make Catholic Husband self-sufficient. Goal achieved, in a big way! I started doing freelance web design and was able to completely reimburse our family budget for all Catholic Husband spending, as well as provide an additional revenue stream. This was a big goal for me and I’m so glad that I was able to achieve it.
- I’m going to launch my first iOS app this year. Well, that didn’t happen. When I got into I realized that I simply didn’t have enough time to learn how to code and maintain an app. Additionally, the cost benefit analysis pointed to a low possible return. I think I was wise to quit this goal.
- Reach my weight goal. Another miss. In fact, I’m further from my goal than I was a year ago. This is mainly due to my headaches and the medication that I take for them. It was a hard year to push forward. Look for this goal again for 2016.
- Read for 30 minutes a day. This was a mixed result. I didn’t complete 2 books per month and I was more successful in the beginning of the year than at the end. I attribute this to two causes. First, I spent more time reading the paper than books and second, my work in web design took up more of my free time.
- Double my web design gross revenue. I need to pick up 2-3 new clients each month in order to make this happen. It’s attainable, but I need to get intentional about prospecting and selling.
- Reach my weight goal by August 1st. If I stick to my plan, I only need to lose about 1 pound per week. It’s doable, with diligence. Not only will this help me with my energy and creativity, but it’ll earn lots of healthcare incentive money through our insurance.
- Become a Glider flight instructor this Fall. I have a lot of studying to do, but this is also an attainable goal and something that would be amazing!
- Publish 5 blogs per week. Same as last year, but still important. It’ll end up being 260 unique posts.
- Do something social with Benedict at least once per week. Now that we have wheels, I want to continue to socialize Benedict. I’m going to carve out time for us to do that.
- Pray daily with my family. It has been hit or miss in the past, so I want to make this a non-negotiable part of our routine this year.
- Read 24 books by the end of the year. I can do it, but I need to make the time.
Grading Your Performance
It’s a good idea to think about your performance as a man and husband in terms of a grading scale. In days past, while you were still in school, you had some subjects that came easily to you in which you easily achieved an A with little effort. In some other subjects, you had a natural ability, but had to apply yourself more and may have hovered in the B range. Finally, there were (hopefully) a few areas where you truly lacked a natural ability and had to really work hard to achieve a commendable grade. Life really is no different.
Understanding where you’re strong, and focusing attention where you’re weak can elevate your game. No one enters into a marriage with the expectation that they’ll be a failure. No man says “I do” with the full intention of being a deadbeat or a loser. We all aspire to something greater. We want to be that couple that has a 50 or 60 year marriage. The truth is, when you first get married, you’re really quite bad. It’s not you, necessarily, it’s just a whole new reality. Think back to when you were first married, you may have been going through the motions of what you thought a good husband was or what a good husband does, but you were lacking the “why” behind those actions. Now, as time passed and you and your wife matured within your marriage, the dynamic shifted and you both better understand one another. While time is an ally in helping you to both mature, it presents the danger of complacency.
That’s where grading your performance comes in. I try to go through this process on a regular basis, or anytime I feel like Alison and I are getting out of sync. It’s all about overcoming the natural inclination to place blame and instead to accept responsibility. I want to be honest about where I need improvement because I want a 60 year marriage and I know that the joy, happiness, tranquility and strength that a good marriage can bring to a family and a community is only possible when I do everything within my power to live my vocation faithfully. When I’m honest in my evaluation, find resolutions, and then focus on achieving those outcomes, Alison, and our children, are the real winners.
In order to effectively gauge your performance, it’s necessary to be hyper observant in your daily live. Marriage happens in that reality: the daily experience. If you’re not carefully paying attention to your behaviors, attitudes, and reactions to situations, you’re not going to be able to find areas for improvement. Oftentimes these observations lead to brutal truths about yourself, character flaws, and past hurts. We all have to confront the uncomfortable in order to move on to greener pastures. Analyzing your responses, especially in times when you’re stressed, frustrated, or reacting poorly to a given situation can help you to identify trigger points and chain reactions so that you can better contain yourself in the future.
It should be noted that evaluating yourself is as much about celebrating the good things that you’re doing as it is about correcting the things that need to be fixed. The fact remains that you are doing some things very well and exceed not only your peers, but your wife’s expectations. Those good things that you’re doing should be reinforced, and the underlying actions and principles that result in your high marks should be duplicated in areas that could benefit from them.
The unexamined life is truly not worth living, but even more likely is the fact that your wife has zero interest in staying married to the man of her wedding day. She married you because she wants to share a life together and to grow old together, not stand still with a young, wild, and slightly immature man while she and the world keep spinning. Keep doing good, understand where you’re falling down and grow in those areas. Then you’ll both benefit from a rich life together.
Discipline Trickles Down
Alison’s schedule around Holy Days is always a little tricky. Our parish generally offers sufficient Masses, but they don’t offer evening Masses on Holy Days (or Sunday). That means that we can be legitimately scrambling to get to Mass. This year, her schedule meant that we needed to go to Mass on December 31st, instead of January 1st. While praying before Mass, I decided to ask for a gift for the new year. I thought about plenty of options, but settled on one that I thought would bring about all. I asked for the grace of discipline.
Discipline is something that we all love to hate. It forces us to do things that are good for us when our laziness or fear try to keep us down. It brings about tremendous benefits and, executed over time, takes you to where you want to be. Discipline is the mature version of us making a decision and not letting the immature version of ourselves call the shots.
I thought discipline was the perfect gift because it can’t help but trickle down into other areas of our lives. If I’m disciplined in my daily routine, I’ll be disciplined in my prayer life. If I’m disciplined in my exercise plans, I’ll be disciplined in my eating habits. If I’m disciplined in my financial life, I’ll be disciplined in my spending. The heart of all success is discipline.
I love the saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” We have today to hit our goals, to implement our plans, and to check off our to do list. We can’t fix yesterday, and we can’t work on tomorrow. While January 1st is a huge psychological turning point, truly your alarm clock going off is just as much of a fresh start.
I need to inject discipline back into my life because of the stability, diligence, and productivity that it brings. Laziness and idleness starve my creativity and drain my energy. The best way to fall asleep is when your body is tired and your mind is at peace because you used the day to the fullest. Work on discipline and watch it bear fruit across all areas of your life.
When to Quit
Around this time of year, I’m always excited by the potential of the new year. I have a long list of things I want to try and do, and inevitably I start running at all of them, at the same time. While the new year is a great time to add some things to your life, it’s also the perfect time to pare down activities that aren’t producing results.
Productivity and focus are as much about being diligent with what you take on as they are about quitting. Too often we get lost in our pride, intransigent to our calendar’s pleas that we let go of some things. Whether you’re single or married, the day still only has 24 hours which means that every minute you dedicate to one pursuit, another pursuit sits idle. The finite amount of time in the day is the biggest reason why you need to be willing to cut certain activities or goals from your life.
Choosing what to cut and what to keep is a major decision. It’s made that much harder by the fact that you’ll have to face down a lot of emotions. There will be some projects that you should keep moving forward with but that you’ll feel the urge to cut. Laziness and inaction are always advocating their case. Ignore them. If it’s important, even if you haven’t seen progress recently, keep pushing. Projects that need to be cut are the ones that have little potential for success or that don’t deliver a good return on investment.
Here’s an example. For years now, I’ve wanted to develop mobile apps. I have no programming experience, but assembled the tools and coursework to get me on my way. A few months into learning how to code, I was making steady progress. As a part of my learning, I immersed myself in the world of developers, listening to their conversations and understanding the nature of the market. I came to the realization that I was going to sink a massive amount of time into learning how to code, more time each year learning new coding languages, more time into programming the app, and a significant chunk of my daily workload into customer support and new feature implementation. All of this time was going to be dedicated to what would likely be very small returns, less than $10,000 over the lifetime of the app. So I could sink a ton of time into a project with dim prospects, or I could work really hard to build up my web design business which was waiting and ready to go.
You’re going to face decisions like this all of the time, and January is the perfect time to clean out your to do list. Get rid of the stuff that’s getting in the way of doing work that matters. Add in more things that will propel you and those around you to greatness. Be brave enough to quit.
2016 Goals
2016 is officially here! As is my tradition, I wanted to share with you my goals for the upcoming year. Just as I did last year, my goals are balanced across all areas of my life: financial, spiritual, intellectual, career, social, family, and fun. Sharing them with you is a great way for me to stay accountable to them. I began my goal planning at the end of November and started actually working on my goals in mid-December.
Before sharing my 2016 goals, I want to go over the results of my 2015 goals.
Here’s what’s up for 2016.
What’s going on in 2016 for you?
Preserve Your Energy
Negativity is the biggest drain on our energy. Every day we encounter plenty of rabbit holes to go down; negative news stories, clickbait links, and even entertainment programs. I’ve just decided that it’s not worth it to waste my time and energy on things that I have no control over and that are just going to bum me out.
We need to be conscious of how we spend our time and energy, two of the most precious and finite resources that we have. If we waste them away on things that will create anxiety, we lose more than we could have ever hoped to gain. Prioritizing our time and consciously choosing to spend our energy on positive thoughts and activities are the best things we can do for ourselves.
I like to have a running list of the things that I need to do each day in order to be successful. My list includes reading, eating well, exercising and a certain amount of work. I limit my unscheduled time in order to help me stay on track with things that I know yield positive results. For example, if I had three hours of free time each day, I might waste them binge watching Netflix. Instead, if I take those same three hours and give 1 hour to exercise, 1 hour to work, 30 minutes to reading, and 30 minutes to free time, I can relax knowing that watching Netflix isn’t going to hurt me somewhere else. I’ve never finished a book and said to myself, “I wish I’d spent that time watching TV.”
We only have so much energy each day. Spend it on things worth doing so that tomorrow you’ll wake up a better person for your wife, your family, and yourself.
Setting Your Goals for 2016
I think that the most interesting aspect of goal setting is looking at them in hindsight. As I sit here looking at the goals that I set for myself, I have to laugh at how much things have changed over the past 12 months. Some goals I beat by huge margins, and others I completely abandoned. It’s the nature of the year and the nature of change. The real secret to having goals that get accomplished is to start planning, in detail, right now.
The time to set goals is not January. Goals, given their long-range nature, require lots of contemplation. First, you have to consider where you want to go. What are the projects that you want to complete? What are the passions that you want to pursue? How do they fit into the schedule of your life? You have a finite amount of time to dedicate to pursuits, so what should you spend that time on? If you’re panicked in January because you’re losing time, you’ll make different decisions than if you completed the same exercise in November or December.
There are perennial goals that end up on all of our lists, the most common one being weight loss. We’re likely to pick up a few pounds over the holidays, but [we still struggle to keep momentum moving past January] (https://www.catholichusband.org/files/why-resolutions-fail.php). It can take up to 12 weeks to start seeing the results of your increased physical activity, which means if you quit before April, you did something wrong. If weight loss is on your list, start working towards the goal now, not January 1st. It’s a worthy goal and one that’ll pay dividends in your quality of life. Keep in mind that maintaining a healthy weight is more than reaching a goal and checking off a box, it’s a lifestyle.
In addition to health, financial, and career goals, I like to add in one extra goal for something that I’ve always wanted to do. It may be a skill that you want to learn or a lifelong dream. Have something fun in your goals so that it’s not all boring.
Once you’ve set your goals, spend time planning, in detail, how you’re going to accomplish them. What’s your plan? What does your daily and weekly calendar look like? What are the milestones and how are you going to reach them? How will you track your progress and remain accountable?
Now is the time to think about, write down, and plan your goals. Use the last few days of December and first few days of January to clean out everything in your workspace and get everything set-up. Then, charge!
Drive Safely This Season
As the cool fall air moved into the region, I made a concerted effort to get Benedict outside more. We ran around in the yard, cleaned up our garden, and put away flower pots. He’s a determined little guy who loves his freedom, so we’d also walk the 50 yards or so of sidewalk in front of our house. Since I regularly take him on my walk with me (he rides in the stroller), he’s had plenty of opportunity to see cars drive by. During our walks on the sidewalk, he’d stop for every car, yell “HI!” and wave as they passed by. Many drivers looked and waved back, most did not.
Are we really so distracted that we miss a 3ft child waving at us as we drive by?
Driving is one of the most dangerous things that you and I do on a daily basis. Although we’ve grown complacent in our surroundings and confident in our abilities, the fact remains that driving is an activity that demands total focus. Even a momentary lapse of judgement could result in serious bodily injury or death. The complacency is what’s really getting to us. We’re too comfortable. We’re comfortable enough to text, to talk on the phone, and even to develop tunnel vision.
The result of this complacency and comfort is experienced by each of us every time we drive. Motorcyclists drive near the centerline, changing lanes without signaling, and rapidly accelerating and decelerating. Vans drive slower than expected, drift, and make sudden corrections. Motorists unfamiliar with a particular area drive erratically as they seek to balance finding their destination and not crashing. Drivers text while traveling at speed on highways, or even in dense congestion.
While this is partly a warning about the dangers of complacency while driving, it’s also a warning against tunnel vision. We often only look out the window to glare at someone whose driving habits displease us. We can’t be complacent, we can’t be comfortable, but we also can’t be solely focused on what’s ahead.
Drive safely, drive defensively, but also be aware enough of your surroundings that you can anticipate changing situations and keep your passengers safe. We need to bring safety and courtesy back to the road, and it begins when you and I get behind the wheel.
Everyone Craves Respect
The Golden Rule should be the gold standard in human relationships, but my experience tells me it seldom is. I think we’re all a bit confused about just what it means to be respectful of others. The fact remains, we all have within us a desire to be treated with respect, even when we disagree.
We live in a pluralistic society with a myriad of hot button issues. In the discussions, debates, and arguments over those issues, it can be easy to see how rarely the Golden Rule is utilized. Instead of approaching a discussion with calm collected reason and logic, we see both sides maliciously attack one another’s background, character, and intelligence.
In the marketplace, both as consumers and employees, we see companies and managers act disrespectfully towards people. Companies refuse to stand behind their product and managers fail to be open and honest with employees.
If we all agree that the Golden Rule is a great thing, then why don’t we follow it more uniformly?
The problem is that we’ve become very confused about how to apply respect in our interactions with one another. Respect doesn’t mean rubber stamping or rolling over for someone else’s viewpoint. Instead, respect insists that we see each other for who we really are, people with feelings. The Golden Rule asks that we share truth with people with whom we disagree, but without attacking them as people. It’s entirely possible to have an intellectual debate over an issue and to still be friends with your debate opponent. At their core, they’re still a human person worthy of dignity and respect.
If a company is disrespectful towards you, they’re unworthy of your business, so take your dollars elsewhere. If your employer is disrespectful, they’re unworthy of having you as an employee, so take your services elsewhere.
While we want everyone else to adhere to the Golden Rule, the only person that we can really force to change is ourselves. Although respect may not be reciprocated, set a good example. Be mindful of your interactions and treat others with the respect that they deserve.
My Own Biggest Obstacle
When your thirst for change exceeds the threshold of your objections, things start to happen. We all have a series of objections when it comes to making changes in our lives. We like things the way they are, or the cost to make this particular change is too high. While it’s convenient to place the blame for our lack of change on external factors, the truth is that we’re our own biggest obstacle.
In our quest to change everyone else, we forget that we have full sovereignty over ourselves. We have within our power the ability to control every aspect of our lives. We can choose which pains we hold on to, how active of a lifestyle we lead, what activities we spend our time on, and how we manage our relationships. The only thing that I need to improve my physical health is discipline and time. The only thing that I need to let go of pain is permission from myself. The only thing that I need to improve my intelligence is literature, which I can get free of charge at the library.
The biggest obstacle in my life is me.
Change is part physical pain, part mental block. If I choose to make reading a priority, I’m going to have to cut back on something else in my schedule that I like, such as Netflix. If I want to get my family out of debt, I’m going to have to cut back from some other area of my budget, like entertainment. If I want to break free of habitual venial sin, I’m going to have a few rough weeks of temptation and behavior correction. If I want to move past pains, I have to revisit uncomfortable memories in order to dismiss them.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle that we put up in our lives is the mental block. We should give our mind some serious credit as it holds a lot of sway in our decision making. The creative power that it possesses is often the last bit of weight that we need to tip the scale and get momentum moving in our favor. The mind tends to the negative, so it needs convincing.
One of the more common mental blocks that we give ourselves is, “You’ve tried this before and failed. Don’t bother again.” We need to recognize when our mind is limiting itself, it’s trying to save us. When we hear it tell us things like that we have to change the script. “You’ve tried this before and failed. Now you know what you need to change in your plan so you can succeed!"
External factors can make change and healing difficult, but far and away the biggest obstacle is the one that we set up before ourselves. Recognize that reality, and smash through those walls like the Kool-Aid man.
Change Requires Pain
There’s something very real and raw about wanting to make changes in our lives. We all want to be better than we are today. We can see our future and (hopefully) we foresee brighter days with better financial security, better jobs, better opportunity, and better quality of life. The challenge is enduring the pains that it takes to get us from where we are to where we want to be.
For the past 4 (almost 5) years, I’ve been working on my physical health. We all innately understand the challenges of weight loss and, once we achieve our goal, the challenge of maintaining it. With all of the delicious foods in the world, consistently saying no to the bad things and yes to the good things is a real challenge. My main tool for getting me to my ideal weight has been walking and tracking my daily steps, but lately I’ve added in more traditional exercises. I’ve chosen to do the 7-minute workout about five times per week. if you’re unfamiliar, you basically do twelve 30-second exercises at an intense pace. I hate every minute of it.
It’s pretty cute when Benedict comes over to hang out with me while I workout and mimics what I’m doing, but overall, it stinks. It’s difficult, it’s oftentimes painful, and it’s always uncomfortable. I know that since I’m just beginning, it’ll get easier, but jumpstarting this routine is all uphill. So why continue? Because I know it’ll get me where I want to be.
Physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, and even relational health all require us to, at times, experience difficulty, pain, and discomfort. Yet, after we push through the challenges, we reach the other side where there is increased quality of life. People never reach their weight goal and say, “That wasn’t worth it.” No one puts down a novel and says, “I wish I had spent that time watching TV.” No one spends an afternoon with their child and says, “I wish I had worked.”
The more resistance you face in making your life, or the life of your family, better, the more assured you should be of your goal. Keep pushing, it’s almost always worth it.