The Business of Being Dad with Rob Rohde

#046: Mindset Matters for Single Dads

• Rob Rohde • Episode 46

Share episode

This episode delves into the pivotal role of mindset for single fathers, offering actionable strategies to overcome self-limiting beliefs and cultivate a positive outlook on the journey of fatherhood.

Overview:
In this episode, Rob Rohde, a single father himself, emphasizes the importance of mindset in navigating the challenges of single parenthood. Drawing from personal experiences and research, he discusses the impact of mindset on fatherhood and shares practical techniques to overcome negative self-talk and embrace an ownership mindset.

Key Highlights:

  1. Ownership Mindset: Rob explores the significance of taking responsibility for one's actions and decisions, rather than succumbing to blame and victimhood. He shares personal anecdotes and practical steps for single fathers to adopt an ownership mindset and regain control over their lives.
  2. Mindset and Identity: Rob delves into the connection between mindset and identity, highlighting how internal narratives shape perceptions of self and parenting roles. He discusses common doubts and negative beliefs faced by single fathers, offering strategies to challenge and reframe these thoughts into positive affirmations.
  3. Practical Strategies: Rob provides actionable steps for single fathers to cultivate a growth mindset, including practicing self-awareness, challenging self-limiting beliefs, and reframing negative thoughts. He encourages listeners to take proactive steps towards mastering their mindset and improving their journey as fathers.

What to Expect:
Listeners can expect a thought-provoking discussion on the role of mindset in single fatherhood, enriched with personal anecdotes, research insights, and practical strategies for fostering resilience and empowerment in parenting. Rob's engaging narrative offers inspiration and guidance for single fathers seeking to navigate the complexities of parenthood with confidence and purpose.


Rob Rohde l The Business of Being Dad
Visit Rob Rohde LLC
Connect with Rob on LinkedIn
To learn more about The Thriving Dad, book your FREE CALL with Rob here.

Rob Rohde:

You are listening to The Business of Being Dad. Get ready as we delve into the world of fatherhood, leadership and legacy. I'm Rob Rohde, your humble host and fellow single father, and I'm so excited you're here to join us. This podcast was intentionally designed for you, men who believe they're destined for greatness, those who never settle for excuses but instead take meaningful action, and individuals who reject the notion of being ordinary. We're here for the ones who understand that being a phenomenal leader goes hand in hand with being an exceptional father. Why? Because we believe in you. We believe you hold the power to shape your identity as a man, a father and a leader. We believe you are the architect of your future and you get to determine the impact and legacy you'll leave behind. So get ready to explore the depths of personal growth, strengthen family bonds and create a legacy that resonates through time. Together, we'll rise, inspire and change. Let's get started. Well, hey there, gentlemen, this is episode 46 of The Business of Being Dad, the podcast dedicated to help single fathers lead their families with impact and find fulfillment in every aspect of their lives. I'm your host, Rob Rohde, and I am here as a single father myself, a single father who understands the unique challenges we face, and I'm here to provide you with inspiration, support and practical guidance to help you thrive in your life as a single dad. Welcome, I am happy that you're here and I am happy to be here too. This is going to be a really good conversation today. In the last episode, we talked about my Business of Being Dad Method the method where I teach single fathers how to leverage proven business and leadership principles in their personal life in order to establish healthy boundaries, improve work life balance and build deeper connections with their kids. It was a great episode and if you haven't had a chance to hear it, I encourage you to go back and listen. So that's what we talked about in our last episode, and then today we're going to follow that up by talking about the other key component of my coaching programs and services, and that is mindset. Now I know what you're thinking. I don't want to listen to another podcast on mindset. How do I know that's what you're thinking, because that's exactly what I'd be thinking. But hold up for a minute Before you jump ship. Give me a minute of your time to explain what we're talking about today and then, if you want to leave, no problem.

Rob Rohde:

But what we're talking about today is a common struggle. That is real. It is real to many of us if not all of us as men, and it's especially true for us as single fathers. A lot of times, when someone brings up the word mindset, which is such a buzzword today, right, I mean, we hear it all the time. I mean for me, I think of, like, positive thoughts or meditation, or maybe even gratitude, and those are all good things, right, but that's not really what we're talking about today.

Rob Rohde:

What I almost never hear anyone talking about is the struggle we face as fathers who have fallen short, the struggle we face as fathers who have made mistakes, who wish that we could take a mulligan on different parts of our lives, but we can't. We know there are no do overs, and all of those times where we feel short, where maybe we let our kids down, we let ourselves down, maybe we even hurt other people. All of those things have impacted us and they've left a mark. And the way that presents for me and many of them that I've worked with, are these negative voices in our heads, these negative stories that we start telling ourselves, these negative I am statements that destroy our sense of self worth and our sense of pride. Maybe that's you or maybe it's not. I mean, maybe for you it presents as as blame and excuses for where you're at in life. Maybe it's excuses for the relationships that are that are broken, or for your financial struggles, or whatever that might be. But here's the thing these thoughts, these feelings, they have so much power over us, more power than they should. They are keeping us from reaching our goals. These thoughts and these feelings are preventing us from building our relationships and they're causing us to walk around as an inferior version of ourselves. The fact is, our mindset matters. So let's take a breath, open our minds and settle into this important conversation on how to shift our current mindset into one that allows us to lead our families with impact. Are you ready? Let's go.

Rob Rohde:

As single fathers, our minds can either be our greatest asset or sometimes our worst enemy. How we think about ourselves, how we perceive the world around us, that impacts how we view the challenges of parenthood and the challenges of life. Well, today we're going to kind of peel back those layers of mindset in order to uncover some tools and strategies that can help empower us to thrive as single dads. When I work with clients. You know their circumstances. Their experiences are all different, as is mine, and their concerns might not be the same as mine, but still we all tend to struggle with the same things. We tend to struggle with these voices in our heads that are telling us we're not good enough. Voices in our heads that are reminding us of all of the mistakes that we've made and all of the times we've led others down. We all tend to struggle with these thoughts that keep us wondering whether or not we have what it takes to lead our families well, whether we're the right person for the job.

Rob Rohde:

And you know, when we go from being a married parent to a single parent, there is this overwhelming sense of responsibility that immediately falls on us. It can really weigh us down, and what I have found is that, even though all of our circumstances are different, even though all of our experiences are different, there's really just a couple of categories that you could almost kind of sort all of these different mindset challenges into, and so that's what we're going to start off talking about today. We're going to talk about the two main ways our mind tries to screw with us as fathers, especially as single fathers. So we're going to start by taking a look at having an ownership mindset Again. As fathers, embracing an ownership mindset is so important for our growth and really for our overall success. This mindset shift involves taking full responsibility for our actions, our decisions and our outcomes, instead of blaming external factors, all of those things that are happening around us.

Rob Rohde:

Here's a common story that so many single fathers face. We're happily married, or maybe not so happily married, and then we get divorced. It becomes strained, our relationship with our ex-wife becomes volatile, the courts get involved, there are financial battles, custody battles, lawyers are hired and so much of the process is centered around blame and fault. In most cases, both parties leave this process feeling beaten down and degraded. We've just undergone six to nine months, or maybe even longer, tossing blame back and forth and trying to leverage who did what in order to get what we want out of the court proceedings. I mean, maybe you took a big financial hit, maybe you didn't get as much time with your kids as you wanted, and so on and so on.

Rob Rohde:

But the point is that it becomes so easy to sit in this place of blame and excuse making and, before you even recognize what has happened, you start identifying yourself as a victim. You start identifying yourself as someone who is having all of these things happen to them, and it becomes so hard to get out of that state once you're there. I mean, that was my story. Some of you have heard it before, but that is also the story of a lot of men that I've known and worked with. And here's the thing it is fully understandable. It is so easy to see how other people end up there, but here's the thing I recognize that it was impossible for me to be the type of father I wanted to be until I was willing to shift my mindset from victim to empowered leader, and that's true for you as well.

Rob Rohde:

So how do we do that? The first step is recognizing that we are in the place of being a victim. So the first step is always awareness, right? We need to recognize that that is what is happening, that if we are in a place where we are making excuses and placing blame, we are most likely in that victim place or in that victim state of mind. Number two we need to take ownership of our lives past, present and future. Number three we need to make amends for our mistakes. Number four, and perhaps most importantly, we need to take responsibility for where we are going from here. So what are we gonna do? Moving forward? Those were the really simple steps that I took when I was trying to get unstuck myself.

Rob Rohde:

I recognized that the excuses in the blame game was not going to help me improve my relationships. It was not going to get me to where I want it to be, and I adopted the mantra from this point forward, and the point of that mantra was really to keep me forward thinking, keep me focused on what lies ahead. I believe in only looking back for the purpose of learning and for the purpose of righting my wrongs, but otherwise, I believe in looking ahead, towards the future I wanted, towards the relationships I wanted, towards the success I wanted. So let's take a look at what the research shows. There's a study in psychology today which highlights that individuals who adopt a sense of ownership over their lives experience higher levels of satisfaction and higher levels of goal achievement, which makes sense, right.

Rob Rohde:

When you take ownership of your life, you are taking control over your destiny, you are empowering yourself to make positive change, and avoiding ownership has a negative impact on us. You know, we talked about the cycle of blame and victimhood, but what that leads to is it can prevent us from taking proactive steps to improve our situations, because we are sitting in this place where we feel that we are helpless and we have no control over what happens to us. But, on the flip side, embracing ownership allows us to identify these areas for growth and to take intentional action in order to address them. So, if this is something that you're struggling with, if you're sitting in this place where you are feeling like a victim, that you are making excuses or blaming others, just a quick tip to get you started I would like you to think back over some recent struggles or some setbacks that you've had in your life. Instead of blaming all of the external factors or even the people that were involved, instead, I want you to ask yourself what role did you play in that outcome? By taking ownership of your actions, you can then identify these areas for improvement. And once you identify areas for improvement, the next step is to develop strategies to overcome these obstacles. So that was adopting an ownership mindset, one of the primary struggles that single fathers face.

Rob Rohde:

Next, we're going to move on to mindset and identity. So, as single fathers, our identity plays a significant role in shaping how we not only perceive ourselves, but our roles as parents. So often we carry with us these negative internal narratives and beliefs that influence our behaviors and our decisions, and so we're going to dive a little bit deeper into this realm of mindset and identity and take a look at how the stories we tell ourselves can either empower us or hinder us in our journey as fathers. So here's another common scenario we have all had moments where we kind of doubted our ability as a father, or maybe we questioned whether we're doing enough or whether we're even capable of giving our kids what they need. We have all these doubts Am I a good father? Am I a good person? Am I capable of taking care of them? And sometimes these doubts come from our past experiences, right From mistakes that we have made. We have in fact, made mistakes and then we beat ourselves up for them. But also sometimes these thoughts come from almost like negative societal expectations that are out there, the thoughts that single fathers are deadbeat dads or single fathers are not capable of nurturing their kids in the same way as single moms Whatever those stories are that you have heard in the past and then they start echoing through your minds and over time, we almost start to believe them.

Rob Rohde:

You know, for me, I have shared this in the past, but for me, I had these negative thoughts of you are a bad person, Rob. You are a bad person, Rob, you are a bad father. And I started to identify myself as a bad person, as a bad father, and this negative self-talk was eating away at me and it was becoming my identity. And then any negative thing that happened, any time I didn't connect well with my kids, or any time somebody said something derogatory about my parenting, it just reinforced these limiting beliefs, these thoughts that are already echoing in my mind. And so why am I sharing that? I'm sharing that because this is the truth Our mindset shapes our reality, and our mindset can become our identity. The stories we tell ourselves have so much power they can either uplift us or hold us back, and so it is so important to recognize that we have the ability, the autonomy, the power to rewrite these narratives in our head, to challenge these voices, these voices of doubt or shame, or regret or insecurity.

Rob Rohde:

According to the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, individuals who adopt a growth mindset have an increased capacity to learn, grow and adapt to change, and are ultimately better equipped to overcome obstacles and meet their goals. And I think that this is especially true for us as parents, for us as single fathers, who are going to face so many obstacles and so many responsibilities in trying to balance work and parenting and personal growth. And so let's talk about what this could look like, what it could look like to challenge these voices in our heads and to reshape these negative thoughts into positive ones. So, for those of you who are struggling in this area, here's a quick tip for you I encourage you to practice self-awareness by beginning to pay attention to the voices in your head, pay attention to that conversation that's going on, think about the stories you're telling yourself about fatherhood and about your role as a dad, and once you become aware of these, then, when you notice negative self-talk starting to surface or these limiting beliefs starting to come up, I would like you to challenge them with evidence of your past successes or with evidence of your growth, and as then, when you do that, you can reframe these beliefs into positive affirmations that align more clearly with your goals and your desires. So that's a lot of words, but this is what that looks like.

Rob Rohde:

There was a period when my oldest daughters didn't want to come over to my house and that was really hard for me. And the negative voices that were in my head went like this Rob, you are such a failure, you're a bad father. Your own daughters don't even want to come over to your house. And now, if negative thoughts like that start to rise in my head, I can circle back and say, hey, wait a minute, I recognize that this is negative self-talk. There are some limiting beliefs here and that's not true. I can challenge it by saying actually, I have grown a lot over the past few years and I have had so many really good moments with all of my daughters. And then, to take that one step further, I can reframe those thoughts into Rob, you are a good father because you love your daughters, because every day you are committed to trying to connect with them and reach out to them and show them that you care. As we reframe these thoughts, we are actually reframing our identity, because then we start to view ourselves as a good father versus a failure, as a committed father versus one whose kids don't want to go over to their house and see our identity starts to change and the way we view ourselves starts to change.

Rob Rohde:

So we covered kind of a lot in this episode, but I don't want to leave you hanging without a practical, tangible next step, and so I am asking you to take action today. Whether it's challenging a self-limiting belief, committing to a daily mindset practice or seeking support from a mentor or friend, I encourage you to take that one proactive step towards mastering your mindset as a single father. As we wrap up today's episode, I just want to remind you to not underestimate the power of your mindset and how that can affect your reality and influence your path as a father. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and found some value in it. My goal for these episodes is for you to be able to take one nugget, one kind of golden nugget, from it and use it to help improve your life, to improve your relationships and to improve your journey as a single father.

Rob Rohde:

And remember we are all struggling with a lot of the same things. There is no shame and there is no judgment. I appreciate all of you and until next time, stay strong, stay focused and keep making an impact. Take care, man. Thank you for joining us for the Business of Being Dad podcast. If you found value in today's episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend who could benefit from our discussions on fatherhood, leadership and legacy. Together, let's build a community of like-minded men who embrace ownership, commit to growth and make an impact. And now, before we go, remember greatness is within your reach, so stay strong, stay focused and create your legacy. I'm Rob Rohde and you've been listening to the Business of Being Dad, where fatherhood meets success. See you in the next episode.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Rob Rohde

Host