At some point in your life, perhaps as a parent, mentor, or leader, you will be pushed to express tough love to the people around you. It may seem a harsh approach, but it is actually a unique expression of care that brings out the best in others and in yourself as well. April Shprintz shares three ways to describe tough love and why you should not be afraid of it.
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What Is Tough Love And How Does It Help?
Tough Love
I am so glad you’re here. If you are someone who is a leader, a parent, a good friend, a mentor, or just a person on the planet, chances are you’re going to be called upon to show and express tough love. You may not even know what it is. First of all, before even defining it. I’m going to tell you that it is natural to want to be lenient with the people that we care about and love. Often, that is not the most helpful thing for them. Maybe easier for them or maybe easier for us in the short term, but it is not the thing that is most likely to lead them to success.
If you’ve read the episodes for any period of time, if you’ve read my book, Magic Blue Rocks, you know that I had a mom who had struggles in different areas of life. I’ll tell you, she did a good job with tough love when it came to punishments and things. She was always creative. She always had them be something that would teach me a lesson and for me in an amazing way, but I didn’t understand how hard it was what she was doing for her until I had stepchildren.
Sometimes, I would find doing a punishment for them that I knew was good for them and I knew would make their life better, in the long run, was soul-crushing in the short term. They don’t get to go do this fun thing with their friends they wanted to do because you want that for them. You want them to be happy. I have a friend named Aaron who summed this up in the best way years ago who’s a parent of four.
He was doing some results and/or punishments. However, you want to look at it based on choices that his seven-year-old had made and his seven-year-old responded, as his kids sometimes do. “I hate you.” He said the best thing. He was like, “It’s a good thing that I’m not in need of any seven-year-old friends” if I went on to reiterate, if I make these hard choices now. When he’s 22, I will want to be friends with him. That’s the end goal.
Those are examples of tough love. Doing the thing that’s harder for you and the person you’re looking to help at that moment, but paves the way for a better future for you both. It’s one of those things like choosing your heart. People can say that working out and eating healthy is hard, but being hospitalized for a heart attack is also hard, too and some would argue harder. Choose your hard.
Sometimes, from a place of love, we are choosing something that may feel like it’s causing strife or pain for someone and for you to show them the results of their actions or inactions and that’s hard but watching them suffer throughout their life because you didn’t take a stand for you and them. It’s way harder. My friends joke and anyone who’s close to me that I am an “expert” at tough love. It probably comes from the fact that I have told properly too many people that I would set them on fire if I thought it would help them but it’s true.
Three Things
I am willing as a person to endure short-term pain to get what I want in the future. I’m willing to go through that with other people too, especially if I can see that it’ll help them. You might be asking yourself, “That’s all fun and great, April, but how do I even know it’s tough love?” These three things are how I know that what I’m doing for and with someone is tough love.
Number one, it’s going to come from a place of wanting the best for them. Not wanting to punish them or not because I’m pissed off. It is, I want the best for them. Number two, it’s usually the harder choice. Harder choice right in the moment, but it paves the way for a better future. If you like to shoot out this relationship and the result of these five years, you can always see how this harder choice will lead to a better future and that gives me peace of mind and helps me know it’s tough love.
Tough love comes from a place of wanting the best for your loved ones, and not wanting to punish them. Share on X
Number three, it helps that person choose a course correction instead of just being anxious and not knowing what’s going to happen but hoping it will get better because hope is rarely a strategy. Those three things are how I know it’s tough love and it is not easy. It’s called tough love for a reason because it allows you to love both those you care about and yourself and make the choice that again is tougher now but paves the way for the future life that you want.
Episode Wrap-up
Give this a try. If you have more questions about it, don’t forget you can always reach out to me directly. Go to the website, WinningMindsetMasteryPodcast.com. All the way down near the bottom, there’s an Ask April section. You can push that button and ask me a question personally, and I will answer you personally and privately in my own voice. It is me. I will give you more information about this or any other mindset questions you have. Here’s to your success.
