Mrs. Jane Impact shows us a mistake many people make in life. She focuses her whole life on raising her children. She’s all about being a mom.Don’t get me wrong, raising kids well is an important job. It’s a responsibility that has an incredibly deep and long lasting impact on those lives.
However, maintaining an inward family focus deprives many people of all that she has to offer. Let’s look at three different ways maintaining this limited focus is having a negative impact.
First, Jane is selling herself short on her own personal development. While being a mom can be quite challenging, being a force for positive change in the world would likely require new skills and knowledge. Jane is capable of influencing so many people for good. It takes effort and determination and a lot of hard work. The growth she would experience in learning and trying those new things would benefit her, too. There is no need to wait until the children are gone to begin this process.
Jane is also depriving other people of her unique and positive impact. There are people who need her to step up and make a difference in their life. But she is not doing that.
Finally, Jane is showing her kids how to live small lives. Her kids are growing up thinking life is all about them, their wants and their desires. They have learned to focus on their own enrichment and growth. They have karate classes, football practice and dance recitals. They do stuff they like and they have come to believe that’s what life is all about.
I can talk about Jane Impact because I know her well. She was me years ago. In 2006 I made a drastic shift from pushing hard on my career to focusing solely on my family, in particular raising our children. I know from experience that taking the job of mom seriously takes a lot of work. There’s nothing easy about it.
For all you moms, dads and grandparents out there, I’m going to share an important lesson I learned. Now that I have discovered my passion and I’m using it to have a focused and positive impact in the world, my children will never be the same. They have seen firsthand what it takes and what it’s like to make a real difference in the world. They have seen what it’s like to assess one’s values and put those values to work. They know what it’s like to make priorities and live them.
When we are using our lives to make a positive impact in the world, our children’s lives will be changed, too. These lessons children will not learn from a book or from a story. They learn them by watching us. When we are having a positive impact with our lives, our children will learn to have a positive impact with their lives, too.
How about you? If you are a parent or grandparent, have you found balance in focusing on the children and in making a positive impact in the world?
