perseverance |

July 27, 2011

Life Skills: The Practice of Perseverance Builds Confidence In Ourselves

Teaching Children Life Skills — Teaching character and life skills to students

Martial arts schools so many times have students brought to them to build their confidence. What is it about the training that takes place there that accomplishes that goal, and what can you do as a parent at home that would emulate that training.

Confidence is built on feeling good about yourself and what you have achieved. In the martial arts you have goals set before you, some of them physical and some of them mental. You are given the time frame to accomplish them in, and if you stay on target and practice you will most likely reach those goals. When goals are reached, the confidence is built, so that when the next even harder task is asked of us, we know that if we commit ourselves to the task or skill, we will be able to accomplish it and yes – build even more confidence.

Imagine though, we quit or gave up saying it was too hard, or worse asked the instructor to excuse us from having to do something because… what would our confidence be like when the next task was asked of us. We may be willing to give up again, and possibly with even less effort.

Here is the bottom line: When we achieve something after working hard, we feel good about ourselves and know we can do anything if we commit. When we feel confident, we’ll set more goals, and have an easier time committing and persevering. What have you done recently that shows perseverance? Did you get past your fears, or not let others influence you to stop reaching for your goals? Did you tell yourself, “When the going gets tough, I don’t quit!”

July 26, 2011

Life Skills: When Perseverance Does Not Appear To Be In Your Child’s DNA

As I started this piece I was thinking of all those times my father and mother both told me I was not living up to my potential. I thought about how many times even teachers told me that I was wasting good talent. But I do not remember any of them coming up with a solution – other than just saying to me – You Have To Apply Yourself! Do you know how empty those words are to a middle school or high school student? What do you mean “apply yourself”? Then I would go off about how it was bad teachers or any other excuse that made perfect sense to me.

Now that I am in the other position and past having my own kids that are frustrating me with their lack of effort – I have looked at this subject with much more objectivity and deeper than ever before. Yes there are things that you can do. No there is not a single conversation you can have and then everything is fixed. But here are a few steps that should help over the long haul, and yes it can be a long haul.

Look for ways your child is already using perseverance. It may be saving money for a certain ‘thing’ they want. Discuss with them the steps they had to take to accomplish that goal and then offer the idea that the same techniques can be used to accomplish other goals.
Do not start with getting straight A’s. Start small and maybe something that is fun for them. It may be a finishing a book, building a project or learning a new skill.
Allow the child to choose the goal. “I want to learn how to ….” Now you have something that they are excited about and you can help them with planning how to reach the goal.
Be aware and alert to things your child says that will give you the opportunity to teach. They may say, “I would like to read the most books this summer, or win the science fair, or get a ipod” Now you have a place to start with setting out steps, an action plan, and a timetable to reach that goal.
Include your children in your own goal setting process. It may be for accomplishing something around the house, or learning a new skill yourself. Include them in on how you break down the tasks and make it happen over a period of time.
Be real with them. If there goal is to learn to play a musical instrument the amount of commitment is different than if there goal is to win the science fair. Helping them to grasp reality vs. making them believe their goal is impossible is the balance you must make. Helping them to think it through first will help to keep them from being discouraged when things do not happen as fast as they thought they might.
Celebrate, Celebrate, Celebrate! When you see them put forth the effort, sticking to their plan, and making progress – be sure to commend them and celebrate the effort! This will go a long way in keeping them on track and encouraging them to complete other goals in the same manner.

Finally, making goal setting a part of their life is key to working on these steps. Before the school year starts, begin talking about the goals they have for the year and how they plan on reaching them. They may be academic goals or social goals, or they may be goals for showing leadership in areas of interest to them. If your child has been the target of bullies in the past, they may have a goal of standing up to them and being proactive for changing the culture of their school. You can help them with role-playing and getting them to think of ways they can accomplish their goals.

I am here to help your child also to take leadership roles, to encourage them and provide help to them. What if your child was a part of or started a project to help the hungry, stop bullying, provide school supplies or something else that they were interested in. Balanced Life Skills wants to help them to accomplish their goals too.

July 25, 2011

Life Skills: Goal Setting + Perseverance = Confidence

Marie Curie said, “Life is not easy for any of us. We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.”
When you think about the goals you have already achieved you no doubt can look back and say that perseverance played a large part in accomplishing that goal. Maybe it was riding your bike or learning to swim or conquering that math problem. Each goal that you set out to achieve was conquered by doing the little things and not giving up.

It may not have been easy, but now that you know that if you work hard, put in the effort and get coached for knowledge and skill, you can accomplish anything that you set out to do. This is important for every aspect of our life, including our academics, social or work we want to do on ourselves emotionally. Step by step, little accomplishments when strung together with perseverance results in great achievement. Great achievement will build confidence for the next goal that you want to reach.

In our next article on perseverance we will look at what to do when we do not think our child puts forth enough effort to reach goals and helping them learn about goal setting. This will be a great way to start the new school year.

July 20, 2011

Life Skills: Answer the Question Why to Teach Children To Persevere

The R in SPARK stands for REASON. If we are going to persevere to reach a goal knowing why we want to do something gives us a great deal of push to accomplish that goal. Part of goal setting should always include the answer to WHY. Any goal worth reaching must move us in a way that we feel that it wouldn’t just be a nice thing to have happen – but rather – we must.

For an example if someone wanted to lose weight. Answer the question WHY first. What will losing this 15 pounds do for me, save me from, or affect my life? How will my children be affected? How will I feel? What will I be able to do that is hard for me now? Why is this important?

Getting the reason firmly planted in our mind and heart will keep us going when the hard days come and it is difficult to stay on our path to our goal. Asking ourselves the right questions will move us to continue taking action.

In the next month I will be writing about the questions we need to ask ourselves to be sure we stay on the path to reach our goals.

July 20, 2011

Life Skills: Persevere to Your Goals By Getting Knowledge & Skills

The K in SPARK stands for KNOWLEDGE. Wanting something or wanting to do something and knowing how to get to that goal surely are two different things. I may want to rock climb, but if I have no knowledge of the techniques, tools or where to go, it is not likely that I will become a successful rock climber.

If I seek out a skilled teacher though who guides me with the basics, shows me what equipment would be good for me to have and takes me to a place to practice, now I will start to have the knowledge and skills I need to reach my goal. The same is true for any practice that we would like to take up, whether it is computer science, playing a game, or learning how to study.

Part of gaining knowledge and skills though is our willingness to be coached. When I have a student that is ‘coach-able’ I am speaking of someone who will listen to the suggestions (new knowledge) and then try to put it into practice. While it is good to ask questions of your coach to gain deeper knowledge, it is not good to question the validity of the suggestions made by the expert (why do I have to do this?). We may not understand how this change or suggestion is going to help us reach our goal, but if we practice soon enough we will see how it helps us with details later.

When dealing with children or anyone new in a practice, getting the basics is key to the building blocks. It has been suggested by some researchers that unless gross motor skills are developed in children before they are asked to perform fine motor skill tasks – they will never reach their greatest potential. The same is true in math, reading, studying or leadership. Gaining knowledge and skills in the correct order will help us maintain our perseverance to complete our goals.

July 20, 2011

Life Skills: Teaching Children Perseverance by Taking Action

The A in SPARK stands for ACTION. Before we can persevere we must take the first step – we must act on our goal – even if we are uncertain of the outcome. Not being afraid of taking action, or afraid that our action may not yield the result that we hoped for is an act of courage and confidence.

As a parent we can praise the effort or the actions that our child has taken to reach their goal. We can also teach our children how to break down a very large goal into smaller steps and accomplish them one by one in a consistent manner – with the end result being reaching your goal. In our martial arts training we may want to reach a goal of being able to do 50 push ups on our toes without stopping. To reach this goal we need to break it down into do-able steps.

doing perfect pushups develops perseverance Here is how we might reach that goal by taking action.
1. commit to doing 5 good push ups 5 times every day. (using a timer allow 10 minutes between each set of 5)
2. after one month start doing 10 push ups in the same pattern. (at first this may be a little hard, but soon you will be able to do it without any problem)
3. continue adding 5 every month to your set and if you persevere, you will be able to do 50 in less than one year.

The key to this is you must take ACTION 6 days per week and not skip days. You must persevere!