INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST
EPISODE 5
5 TRUTHS ABOUT ME
INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST
EPISODE 5 TRANSCRIPT:
5 TRUTHS ABOUT ME
Welcome to this episode where I will be sharing with you 5 things you may not know about me.
So if we will be spending some time together on this podcast I thought it would be important for me to share a little bit more about myself.
Let’s start with number one.
TRUTH NUMBER 1: I AM NOT A PERFECT PARENT
Now this is a tricky one for me to admit especially since I run a successful parenting blog over at inspiringlifedreams which got over a million pageviews in its first year of launching and I also won a best parenting blog award in 2019.
With these little badges of honor one would think that I have parenting down pat and that I never struggle in this area which is definitely not true.
For the record I am a mom of two teenagers: my daughter Savannah is 16 while my son Jake is 13 and I can assure you that even when I try my utter best neither would say I am a perfect parent.
Even I will admit that I am not the quote unquote perfect parent.
But that’s because perfection is never a goal I have been chasing because I honestly believe there is no such thing as perfection.
To expect perfection in life is just setting yourself up for disappointment.
To the contrary I always say that I am perfectly imperfect and just doing the best I can with the resources and tools I have at my disposal even if this sometimes falls short when it comes to my kids expectations.
The same with our own parents – even if we believe they fell short with their parenting skills, they sincerely did the best they could with the tools and resources they had at their disposal, even if they were severely limited at the time.
Just to share with you a funny story a friend and I once asked our kids a while back “what actually makes a parent perfect?” and they replied: parents who let us do, say and wear whatever we want, without a curfew or any consequences.
Now we sort of laughed when we heard that answer because as parents we understood that even though our kids might think that is what makes a perfect parent, from our perspective someone who lets their kids do, say and wear whatever they want, without a curfew or any consequences might not be compatible with our own definition of good parenting.
The truth is we will all have our own definitions of what makes a good parent and guess what? We get to decide what we want to aspire to.
There is no one set rule that defines the parameters of good parenting.
There is no book out there that can tell you DO THIS and your children will grow up to be respectful, confident, compassionate and independent individuals.
Even if that is our goal, we need to work to our strengths and adapt to the personalities of our children when it comes to journey and it helps to know in advance that there will be a lot of hurdles and obstacles along the way.
One of the reasons that I am so quick to put my hand up and admit I am not the perfect parent is because I know it is unrealistic to be the perfect anything in life because perfection doesn’t exist.
Instead I believe that we are all perfectly imperfect human beings doing the best we can with the tools we currently have in life.
We don’t need to be perfect anythings in life because when we chase perfection we set ourselves up for disappointment and heartache.
If perfection is something you chase you might find that you often expect that same from others. And this is where I give my kids permission to be perfectly imperfect too.
Some parents think and act as if everything their kids does is right and that their precious baby could never be wrong or at fault and I have to admit I have never felt that way.
That is not to say I don’t love my children – because I do so dearly, I think they are great and so full of potential and that they will do amazing things in life – it’s just that I have always had a realistic, as opposed to unrealistic, expectation about their humanness in life.
I don’t specifically tell them they are perfect because guess what?
They aren’t because no child is.
Kids make mistakes all the time.
They are sometimes disrespectful, rude, selfish and greedy.
They all have their periods when they are lazy, upset, whingey and mean to their siblings.
Just like adults.
You will catch just as many grownups displaying the same character “flaws” that you find in little people.
When you tell someone that they are perfect, you actually make a fatal mistake, even when you think you are giving them a compliment.
Because guess what? We all know deep down that we aren’t perfect.
No matter what our age we are all aware of our shortcomings.
So when you place this perfection label on a person, you actually give them a heavy load to carry, an unrealistic expectation to live up that they would honestly much prefer to throw away.
People were born to be real, not to fit into some cookie cutter mold of expectations.
I mean if you constantly brag to someone about how perfect your kids are, the truth is you set them up for disappointment, increase their anxiety and blanket them with an underlying feeling of pressure that never really goes away.
Even they know intuitively that perfect people aren’t real and real people aren’t perfect.
The cool thing is that we all have flaws and issues that make us unique.
We all lose it sometimes.
We all have something that we wish we could change about ourselves. We all have good days and bad days and that is perfectly okay.
It is instead a gift when you tell your child, partner, parent or even yourself that hey, you aren’t perfect but I love you anyway.
When you do this, you give yourself and others permission to be imperfect, real and inadequate in areas when they can’t help it.
You help release them from their self-imposed shackles of expectations that previously kept them afraid to make mistakes or fail.
It’s a gift because the truth is we all fail.
Failing, making errors and falling down are in fact how we all learn in this journey called life.
I want to encourage my kids to not be scared to make mistakes in just the same way that I give myself permission to make mistakes.
That’s why I have never aimed for perfect but instead to love myself and others for their imperfections.
I think it’s important to grant people permission to be whoever they were born to be.
That isn’t to say I don’t aim to be a good parent because I do.
But I also give myself permission to have days when I recognize that my parenting skills are less than stellar and to understand that if we are facing a new season in life it’s okay to me to be kind to myself as we learn new skills.
We are all going to make mistakes in life and that is okay.
My goal as a parent is to try and always be act with love but sometimes being loving means having to follow through with consequences that the kids don’t like, that make them really dislike you in that moment.
It means having to make tough decisions and never been entirely sure if that was the right decision to make but trusting anyway that you made the right choice using the tools and resources at your disposal at that given moment.
It means knowing that on this journey there will be good days and bad days and that you can still love your kids even when your kids are acting unlovable because loving someone is a choice you make on your end, no matter how they choose to behave.
You are the parent and you can be a good parent without being a perfect parent because remember there is no such thing as perfection.
If that is something you were chasing, I’m giving you permission to stop chasing unrealistic goals today.
Your kids need you to be authentically you, flaws and all.
Showing affection is so much more important than expecting perfection from yourself or others.
So remind your kids that you love them, kiss and hug them, imperfections and all and forgive quickly.
And before you demand perfection from anyone as a parent, partner, friend or work colleague, I beg of you please: make sure you don’t have any yourself.
There is that saying: let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
So before you point your fingers, make sure your own hands are clean.
But I think we all know that our hands are a little bit dirty at times, right?
Lots of parents say that they feel bad about the fact that they are sometimes snappy or they wish they had done things differently but I want to remind you that that’s just another sign of the fact that you are being a good parent.
It indicates that you recognize your shortfalls and want to improve in areas that you can improve, while granting yourself the grace to be human, and this awareness is necessary before you can make any positive improvements to the way you interact with your kids.
So that is truth number one about me.
I am not a perfect parent by any means but I am always striving to do my best every day even though I sometimes fall short and make mistakes.
NOW FOR TRUTH NUMBER 2: MY FAMILY IS WHAT SOME MIGHT CALL SLIGHTLY CRAZY
So I should start by stating that once upon a time, I thought this was a terrible thing to be born into a super loud family but now I think I’m the luckiest girl in the world for belonging to this tribe.
When we are together we are usually loud, often talk over the top of each other and we always wear our hearts on our sleeve.
When we are with my extended family, we play our music way too loud and often break into a dance or song for no reason at all.
We try to hang out as often as possible because we sincerely love each other and when we are all together it feels like home.
Even now as adults my sisters and I still make sure to get together at my parent’s place for a weekly family dinner, every week without fail.
Right from the day dot, we grew up with the expectation and belief that “family comes first.”
Now when I was growing up, I didn’t always understand how lucky I was to have a family like this. I just knew they were different – not quiet and mild like the families of my school friends and being different wasn’t something we ever aspired to be as kids.
I remember visiting friends as a teen and being shocked at how quiet their homes were and thinking “okay maybe something must be wrong with my loud, crazy family.”
Of course now I knew there was nothing wrong with it.
Families come in all different shapes, shades and sizes.
Mine just comes preset at the highest volume possible!
So my parents were hard-working migrants for whom English was their second language.
I went to school not even knowing how to speak English, even though I was born here in Australia. My dad was strict and our mom was constantly cooking and trying to feed anyone that entered our home.
If visitors didn’t leave the house feeling stuffed, I think she felt slightly offended.
Every weekend my house was constantly filled with visitors.
Back then friends and family would pop over without having to call in advance and the kids would play while the men played cards until late into the night.
It is only when I got older and went back to live in the village where my parents were born that I realized “oh my gosh, my family is perfectly normal!”
Over there all the houses were side by side and you could hear loud conversations floating out into the village and the tone was the exact same one I had grown to think was totally normal over time.
For an outsider it might sound like yelling or as if some fight might be going on but of course I knew better, everything was perfectly fine, they were most likely having a perfectly normal conversation about their day, just turned up three to four notches.
Another thing about my family and the village where my parents come from is that we sometimes make fun of each other and I imagine that strangers would think it was incredibly mean but inside our family we understand that it is always said with loving affection.
We all have thick skin, are not quick to take offence and we give as much as we take.
So yes that is another truth about me.
My extended family is loud but never boring.
We are not the typical quiet and serene family but we always have so much fun together.
We would do anything for each other, we know we can depend on one another, through good times and bad, through thick and thin and we are tied together by this unbreakable bond that is made of love and feels as strong as steel.
NOW FOR TRUTH NUMBER 3: I WASTED YEARS NOT CHASING MY REAL GOALS
Part of the reason why it was so important for me to start this podcast is that I don’t want people to make the same mistakes as I did and if I can share anything that will help light a fire in your heart and inspire you to dream bigger today rather than wasting precious time then I will feel like I have achieved my purpose in this world.
So for me…I have always loved writing.
In fact I now have over 20 books published but I didn’t actually get started on this dream for many years.
In fact I opted to study my second love which was psychology and the study of the mind back at university and instead of becoming a writer, I ended up starting a life coaching business helping clients chase and achieve their dreams, even though I was ignoring the one niggling at the back of my own mind for years.
It was an irony that didn’t quite hit me in the face until years into my coaching business when one day I had a client who set a goal to have a published book and I realised I actually wanted to achieve the same thing.
He went on to do just that – he wrote and published a book within a year and in his dedication he acknowledged my help as being a contributing and motivating factor for helping his dream come to fruition.
And that was when I hit a fork in my road. I could continue coaching clients to achieve their goals or I could stop and take the time to work on my own.
So I did just that – started writing, one book after another and it took until I was actually 40 before I stopped procrastinating and found my groove and confidence to put myself out there.
After that I started my parenting blog inspiringlifedreams which achieved over one million pageviews in its first year of launching and went on to win the best parenting blog award in 2019. And after that I went on to launch three more websites: dreambigmyfriend, mamalovesmoney and superhealthymama.
I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I had the confidence to follow this dream right from the start.
But it is what it is.
I truly believe everything happens for a reason and my time to live this dream happened later in life.
However I do think that if someone had whispered in my ear years earlier something like “you can do it, it is possible!” maybe just maybe I would have taken the great leap of faith earlier.
So I want to whisper it in your ear now.
If you have a dream act on it now.
Start small, believe in yourself, take action because you only have one life to live and there is no better moment than the present to begin living with more intention and chasing your dreams.
The truth is I wasted years myself ignoring my real goals and in retrospect I would have definitely trusted in my ability and worth to begin acting much sooner rather than later.
NOW FOR TRUTH NUMBER 4: HAVING A CHILD WITH A DISABILITY HAS BEEN THE GREATEST GIFT EVER
So for those who aren’t aware I have a son with a neuro-muscular degenerative condition called Charcot Marie Tooth disease that requires him to use a wheelchair.
Now some may see this situation as a challenge but guess what?
We all have our own challenges to face in life and ours is just different.
Having a child with a disability has led to me living my days with so much more purpose, passion and strength, because that it is only way to live when you realize how precious life really is.
Just because we sometimes face hurdles that other people never have to worry about doesn’t stop us from working hard to jump over them.
Indeed, we embrace these hurdles every day and we appreciate them.
And why wouldn’t we?
These obstacles have increased my capacity to love and feel compassion for others in a way I never thought was possible.
A lightbulb was switched on for me the day I realised that yes, the cards we were dealt with in life looked a little different from everyone else’s hand but I could do what I wished with these cards.
This lightbulb moment also made everything clear to me.
These are my cards but I have a choice to make the very best of that special hand we were dealt.
There is no point in looking to see what cards everyone else was holding in their hand. Focus on the cards instead that you have in your hand!
When life is difficult, you need to have faith and hope that better days will come.
You need to believe that something great will eventually come out of this adversity.
You need to let go of your expectations and go with the flow.
Maybe our path isn’t the one we expected to take but hey, that’s okay.
We make the best out of the cards we have been dealt with every day.
Your eyes open immensely when you are raising a child with any kind of disability.
Other people take so many things for granted – their health, their ability to walk, even each passing moment.
To me, it is all a gift and this gift of foresight has only come to me by my exposure to this other world, where children don’t live “perfect” lives.
They have wheelchairs or conditions that make them grow sick or they are robbed from the expectation of living a long and healthy life.
But rather than feeling weakened by this reality that most people never see, I am strengthened by it.
It has given me new clarity.
Once upon a time I too was like so many people in this world, totally blind to the important things in life.
I used to also think my time on Earth was endless.
Now I know that when I reach my last day, there will be little regret because I ask myself every day: what can I do today to make it special?
For everything I do have, I am grateful.
All humans are deep down the same.
They bleed when they cut.
They cry when they are hurt.
They laugh when things are funny.
We all have the power of choice and for me, this has led to me CHOOSING to make the best of the cards I have been dealt with in life and knowing that if I want to live an amazing life where I can CHOOSE peace and happiness on any given day.
NOW FOR THE FINAL TRUTH NUMBER 5: I WAS ALWAYS HAVE A BIT OF VILLAGE GIRL IN ME
For those who don’t know my parents are from a tiny island village in Europe where life is super simple.
It is a village where people are frowned upon if they think they are better or smarter than others.
Over there you get to strip away any pretence and be unabashedly YOU and that is what people love you for: for being genuine rather than fake, for being honest rather than dishonest, for being down-to-earth rather than acting high and mighty.
And I realise now that even if I earned a billion dollars, even if I lived in the fanciest mansion ever and could fly on private jets all around the world there would still be this little village girl in me that would feel blissfully happy playing cards with my old friends or watching a sunset.
That deep down in my core I will always be someone who aspires to live simply and will feel at total peace walking around in a village where people don’t have much material wealth but they have enough riches in the form of friends and family to be happy.
As they say you can take the girl out of the village but you can never take the village out of the girl.
But trust me, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
And so there you have it: 5 truths you possibly didn’t know about me.
Unless you are in my inner circle who witnesses my imperfect parenting and maybe crazy to you but never to me family, and my late embarkment on this goal chasing adventure plus my love for all the simple village girl values on a daily basis.
This is me and I feel so blessed to be able to share with you today on my podcast.
Thanks so much for listening and I will catch you later my friend.
Before You Go…
- Grab your free gift: How To Stop Self-Sabotaging Yourself Guide (4 steps to finally get out of your own way) CLICK HERE
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With a degree in psychology, Frances Vidakovic is a certified life coach, course creator and host of the Inspiring Life Podcast. Her superpower is transforming dreamers into doers with simple, kick-up-the-butt strategies.
