Be selfish, invest in your family

The more time you invest in your family the better chance you have in creating the type of family that you have envisioned. With life there are no garantees, but if you can enjoy the time spent staying in good health, see some realistic short term gains, and build a strong family structure then the long term vision of having a successfull family should take care of itself. A happier family always makes a happier runner.

Healthy lifestyle patterns, good health, and strong family relationships are all things that are attainable goals for your family if you are selfish enough to make it happen.

How does being selfish pay off in trying to acheive a family goal? Certain things about being selfish can help you take action or different action to try and create a new result. For example if it is a fact that your family plays too many video games at home and this is a perceived problem, then being selfish for the good of your family may move you to try something different to cut down the amount of time video games get played.

Here are some steps for the approach if you see a problem that is not agreeing with one of your family goals:

1. Identify what the problem is and try to measure it. This will help you to understand if it is a perceived problem or an actual problem. Time is the key for families and then money. Is something taking too much time or is it costing too much money?
2. Figure out if the information you have collected about time and/or money proves that your problem exists. If there is a problem, try to understand by how much you want to improve.
3. Once you have indentified the actual amount of time or money that the problem is taking up and eating at your family goals, then you need talk to your family.
4. Create a plan to save the time or the money. Not only you have to say "This is how much I want to save", but you need to go into the reasons why, and then how you are going to do it, and then how long will it take to reach your goal.

Your plan needs to ultimately support the family goal that you have in mind. A way to test that is to ask a question about your plan. So for example, "Does it support building a strong family relationship?", "Does it establish a healthy lifestyle pattern?" or "Does it promote staying in shape?". If the plan supports one of more of these family goals then you need to be selfish enough to put your plan into action.

Credits

Run The Planet thanks Marathon Family (www.marathonfamily.com) for the permission to reprint the article "Be selfish, invest in your family" by Scott Winter. For more information about how to support your runner, in all phases from getting started to training to race day and back again, please visit www.marathonfamily.com. Questions, comments and suggestions can be mailed to info(at)marathonfamily.com. Illustration copyright © by Run The Planet.