This past week my son turned 5 years old, this was a big birthday for my family because this is where both my wife and I have our earliest memories, at the age of 5. My son is moving on from the toddler stage and becoming a little boy. That night I watched him turn the pages of some lego instructions, reading each step and constructing a large vehicle on his own for the first time, without my help.

The relationship between a parent and their toddlers is something indescribable, there is just so much love going both ways. Since our son is the oldest, we are always experiencing new territory with him. So as we move into the boyhood years, I feel a deeper sense of responsibility to help him make good choices, to assist him in becoming a good man, one who thinks for himself, and is also responsible.

Sharing with your children a lifestyle of activities that will help them be more happy can only be done through a living example. Think about it, if you want your kids to eat better, be physically active, and learn new things, you can’t be sitting on the couch watching sitcoms eating ice cream. I am not the man who I want to be today, but by the Grace of God, I am going to be that man, so that my children will have great lives.

Here are a few things I need to work on…. I am writing these down publicly so that it’s out in the open, and friends who read this can hold me accountable.

1. I need to lose weight, my physical activity needs to rise dramatically. I often like to tout that I have a walking treadmill desk, but I only use it about 1 hour a day, so I am setting a goal to use it 3 hours a day from this day forward. Every time I go to the park, I need to be up there on those slides.
   I am fairly good at playing, but occasionally after pushing the kids on the swings, I love to find a nice bench in the shade. It’s time for me to get out there every time, not only will it be fun with my kids, but it will also be a good physical activity for my body.
2. Prayer and meditation, two things I am just not doing enough of, and certainly not doing enough with the kids. These past 3 days I’ve made it a point to do it with my kids in the evening, but I really need to make sure my kids have a connection with our creator. If I fail at this, I fail as a father all together.
3. I really want to learn spanish, but I’ve procrastinated with this for years. I’ve ordered books, Rosetta Stone, and plenty of tapes for the kids and I to listen to. I signed the kids up for spanish classes, but I have failed to learn it, and without my help, it’s going to be difficult for my children to learn this language.
   Living in the U.S., knowing how to speak well in both english and spanish is a core skill set that will give my children an advantage as adults in life and business. I need to schedule a time to learn spanish, even if it’s just 90 minutes a week.

I’ve acknowledged some things about my own life that I’m not happy with, my thought is that by making it a point to post it on 28ThousandDays.com, these actives in my life will become a reality.

One thing I will do as soon as I am done writing this, is write each of these 3 goals down, and tape them on my bathroom mirror. This will be a daily reminder for me to ask myself what have I done to accomplish these goals.

I haven’t done anything like this in years, but it’s important to me, and maybe by sharing it with you, it will help you achieve some of the goals you have been procrastinating on as well.