Today I went to an elementary school to give a talk and presentation to a grade three class. A lady I train has a daughter in the class and this week was her ‘celebrity’ week where she gets to bring in a guest speaker. I was honored to be asked to come in and talk, and have to admit I was a bit nervous going in. I wanted to talk about the importance of getting involved in sports, goal setting, and believing in yourself. But how do you make these topics interesting and useful to an 8 year old? Does an 8 year old even understand what a goal is and how you go about setting one and achieving one? Well, I was absolutely blown away by the knowledge and maturity these kids had. They totally surpassed my expectations! When asked why it’s important to play sports their responses were more realistic and valid then a lot of the adult responses I work with – no losing weight, or so I can drink more wine on the weekends – but how about ‘it makes me feel good about myself’ ‘its fun’ ‘so I can overcome obstacles’ . And every kids hand shot up when I got to the part about goals and asking who knew what goal setting meant. Such intelligent responses coming from these mini adults! I then asked for examples of goals and again every child had a goal they were working towards -  from getting 20 seconds faster on the timed math quiz, to making the allstar soccer team. And they were getting excited by all this goal setting talk, and how they were going to achieve the goals.

 

I loved it; I was getting excited seeing them all so motivated and taking it all in – especially in a society where mediocre has become the accepted and ‘being equal/no one fails’ is encouraged. These kids were anything but that. They really allowed me to see how natural goal setting and the need to be better is. 7 and 8 year olds setting goals to better themselves, making steps to get there, and getting excited about the process! This is more then most of us as adults do on a daily basis to improve ourselves. But what happens when these kids become teenagers and then adults. Where in there do they lose this excitement and ability to believe that nothing is unreachable, that if they believe in themselves and give 110% that they can do whatever they set their mind to. Who starts telling them that ‘that’s impossible’ ‘you can’t do that, you’re not fast enough, smart enough, tall enough, thin enough, strong enough..etc etc etc’ We do. Don’t we all wish we had someone to believe in us, to tell us that yes, if we want it bad enough and believe in ourselves, that anything is possible. Its up to us, as teachers and leaders, to tell these mini adults, who are not jaded by the worlds negativity, that despite all the obstacles standing in front of their goals, that they only need to believe in themselves. To not let anyone tell them they can’t because they can and will. These grade 3s need to keep this same excitement and attitude towards themselves as they enter highschool, University, and finally become contributing members of society – but it all starts with us, we need to lead them, teach them, and mentor them to be the best they can be by providing the challenge and adversity a goal presents and encouraging them to not give up, to work hard for it and give 110%, and if you are passionate about it – and believe in yourself you WILL succeed.

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