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.
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!