We get what we get in life because of what we think, say, and do. Whether you totally agree with me or not, I believe that you fully understand those words. You know from experience that your thoughts turn into your words, and your words turn into your actions and ultimately your outcomes in life.
Now, through experience you have learned you can have one of three different attitudes in life. It could be a positive, neutral, or negative attitude. If you have discovered how to just roll with what life gives you and search for the lessons you remain positive. If you have learned how to be tough in times that required your inner strength you built your positive mindset to be stronger.
And, through all of what life has given you sometimes we tend to forget our little slip ups, our moments of weakness when we could have been stronger, and our self-imposed limitations when we could have soared higher if we wanted.
Were those seemingly “bad” or “weak” moments in life something we shouldn’t have experienced? May be…may be not. I believe that we need to experience it all in life and I believe we all will.
Here’s the hard part though…we as parents, teachers, coaches, and mentors try so hard to control the experiences that our children and students have. We want them to WIN! We want them to be stronger, more confident, and we want them to be that way right now and all of the time.
But what is WINNING?
This is where it goes awry. We all have a different definition of winning, so let me share with you my definition. You don’t have to agree with mine. You simply just need to listen to it and ponder if it makes sense…especially if you want to build your powerful child.
Winning in my definition is: That which one does to build, grow, and improve their belief-system and abilities in one self.
It has NOTHING to do with getting a first place prize or beating out all the other competition so you can say you are better than everyone else. It is a journey of the self and learning about who you are and how you can conquer your self-imposed limitations.
With that being said, as a parent and one concerned with building a powerful child, we have to look at how to celebrate “winning” in a different way. We have to be attentive to our child’s current “limitation” or “weakness”. And, fully understand that it doesn’t make them bad. This could be that they are shy, timid, or just don’t fully believe in themselves yet. Or, it could be that they don’t focus or pay attention as well as they could. Or, it might be that they don’t have any desire for what you think they should do. It would be best if we could spend some time to find out WHY they aren’t feeling this way or why they aren’t focusing.
When it comes to confidence, this could be a teacher in school that doesn’t make them feel secure, their friends aren’t being supportive, they are being bullied, or you as a parent need to see if your words are crushing their confidence. There is no one to blame here. It is what life is giving them to solve at this moment.
If you want to build them, then you have to accept them at where they are now and work hard at finding even the slightest of a wins you see them having.
Here is an example: Let’s say they are cleaning their room and normally when they clean their room they always miss the stuff under their bed. So, you give them the task of cleaning their room and tell them you will be in to check it in 20 minutes. They go and clean their room for the 20 minutes and then you go in to check it. You look at all the usual spots and then you come to inspect under the bed. You get down on your knees and lift the sheet a bit to take a look and find that they picked up some but not all of the stuff under their bed. You have two choices here. You can see it as a win or a loss. You can see it as an opportunity that they are moving upward and forward or simply still not getting it.
Most of the time, we would tell them that they didn’t finish cleaning under their bed and therefore did not clean their room properly.
Building them would take a lot of courage on your side to look for the smallest of wins here and praise them for getting some of the things under their bed for the first time. They won; they are beginning down the path of what winning is. Winning is a process and not simply some end result. So, you tell them, good job trying to clean all of your room, let’s just get the last bit under the bed.
Now, for a real life story…
I had a parent come to me to help build their child’s confidence. And, it had been the start of the fourth week that they had been in classes. However, at the start of their third week, the mom pulled me off to the side and excitedly told me about how her child normally would have flipped out and lost all control because they were late for something (in this case school). When she arrived at school that day the teacher had started class about five minutes early and while they were walking up to the classroom her child saw that the class was already going. In normal cases, they would have spent about an hour or so outside the classroom trying to pull it together just to make it in and start class. With pure joy she saw for the first time her child just jumping right into class and in that moment was winning. She walked away and was almost in disbelief. However, she was purely happy they were able to do something that was never done before. This is a big win!
But, moms and dads, it isn’t always like this nor does it happen in big moments. This same mother came in on the start of week four and her child was challenged with something in class (a learning experience) and was starting to lose it. However, the child was doing a great job staying in control the best they could. They never gave up, they didn’t stop class, and they continued to still give their best effort. To me, this seemingly small step is a HUGE win. Why? Because they are doing a little better than they did in their last class. We as parents, teachers, and coaches want change to happen overnight, and immediately stick forever.
It isn’t change we should be hoping for. It is a transformation that we should be allowing. Kind of like a metamorphosis…like the caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. The process for this transformation to happen takes TIME. And, time must do what only time can do. We must let it.
The mom wasn’t exactly happy that her child was losing it in class. I saw this and took a moment to explain that her child did great and to encourage them for the effort that they did do; for the little win that they did have.
We have to see the small win as a huge step toward one moment in the transformation process, rather than, getting outside and then telling them they should have done better.
If you want to build your child, if you really want to see them transform into something amazing…which I believe every parent does…then you must celebrate your child’s wins even when they come in small packages. We want huge leaps, but forget that even our own leaps weren’t jumping over canyons; rather, leaping over small cracks. Once we inspire and teach our children how to leap over these small cracks and praise them for this, they will have the certainty to soar over the canyons in life.
It starts with you empowering yourself to empower your child.
All the best to changing your child’s future.