“I am trying the best I can.”
Being a parent of a chronically ill child is a tough and emotionally draining experience. The constant need to make difficult decisions and the fear of making the wrong ones can leave you feeling stuck and indecisive. In such situations, it’s common to tell yourself that you’re trying your best, but are you really trying?
It’s important to evaluate your thoughts and actions without judgment so you can objectively assess whether you’re truly putting forth the effort. This compassionate evaluation can help you gather valuable data to improve your approach and make progress towards your goals.
It’s easy to fill your time with activities like researching health problems and treatments or learning about a new diagnosis. While these are important tasks, they can also be a way to avoid making difficult decisions that could result in failure. However, it’s essential to remember that indecision keeps you stuck, and making decisions, even if they might not work out, moves you forward.
We are faced with countless decisions when parenting a child with challenges. We often feel like we as “trying” because our time is consumed with things like researching health problems and treatments or learning about a new diagnosis. These are important, but we sometimes fill lots of time with these activities to avoid a decision that might result in failure. When we are deciding about things that impact our child’s health and happiness, we place a heavy burden on each and every decision and forget that deciding moves us forward regardless of the outcome. Staying in a place of indecision keeps us safe, but it also keeps us stuck.
As a mother of a chronically ill child, I understand the challenges that come with making difficult decisions. My daughter, Kyleigh, survived neuroblastoma as an infant, and now lives with Type 1 diabetes. When Kyleigh was first diagnosed with diabetes, I was overwhelmed with fear. Soon as her diagnosis, she wanted an insulin pump. My fear began to result in indecision. I spent countless hours researching treatments and trying to find the “perfect” solution to manage her blood sugar. Did an insulin pump provide good blood sugar control? Should she continue on shots to give the best management of her diabetes? I soon realized that this was just a way to avoid making decisions that could result in failure.
When we are really “trying”, we are making decisions that could result in failure. Failure is uncomfortable, but it is part of the process of living because it teaches us how to adjust and do it better. It can be liberating to understand that not every decision will be perfect. The outcome of every decision whether it is positive or negative is just feedback, but we limit our ability to collect this feedback if we are stuck in indecision.
Trying in life means putting forth extraordinary effort and making unwavering commitments to our priorities and goals. Trying is continuing to put one foot in front of another and when we reach a crossroads, trying is picking a direction and accepting that the path ahead no matter what the outcome. Trying is deciding. Trying is living. Today is your day to go try!
Is there a decision that you are “trying” to make? Make the commitment to decide.
