What kids can teach us about Goal Directed futures
Our son has just celebrated his fifth birthday and although we don’t make a huge fuss about milestones (the kids get a party every second year), there’s no doubt that he is learning about desired future outcomes and goals. I doubt he is different from most kids in his ability to spot something and declare with wholesome intensity ‘Ohhh – I’m so gonna get that…’. What I enjoy is his reaction when he doesn’t in fact ‘get that’.
He just moves on. What he is learning to do is separate the desirable from the worthy and that is a clue many of us can take from kids. The REALLY desireable goals can lead to kiddie meltdown whereas the distracting short term ‘so so’ goals hold minimal emotional attachment. The lesson adults can remind themselves of, is the ability to ignore the distracting and focus on the big issue. Setting goals may require small steps to achieve a large one, but it rarely requires getting lots of small things in order to achieve a large thing.
Activity versus productivity. Kids by and large live and let live – they move easily onto the next thing at hand. As parents our key jobs might be ensuring we do NOT teach them to get hung up on the minor things that aren’t that important. Most responses kids have are learned behaviours – from the fear of the dark, phobia of spiders, and even the foods they eat, kids typically build most of their understanding based on how they see us react and act.
If they see us all frantic and impulsive that is a key attribute they learn to mimic. If they see us not plan or see us fail think about our own future, that too is a habit they learn to mimic. If they see us setting goals, working hard to overcome obstacles and importantly, showing that we are able to discern the important from the merely attractive, it is likely they’ll also mimic that approach to their own world.
Right now our son Flynn is learning about being Goal Directed. Thankfully to date, he can focus on goals that matter, not just goals that are interesting – I hope we don’t teach him ‘out of’ that approach to the world.
I’ll be talking with Vicki Kerrigan again this afternoon, this time discussing robotics as in-home carers. I’m due on at about 4.45pm Darwin time which is around 5.15pm on the eastern seaboard. You can listen to the audio stream via the link below http://www.abc.net.au/darwin/programs/webcam_radio.htm?ref=listenlive If all things go well, I’ll record the session and…
Read More >I recently attended a session with South East Business Networks where the CEO of Siemens Australasia provided some great ideas as to where Australian Manufacturing was headed and could go, and indeed perhaps needed to go. What I found most useful from Allan Goller’s perspective was the encouragement for businesses to just get on with…
Read More >In this very brief chat with Vicki Kerrigan on ABC Darwin, we kick off the discussion of the future of clothing – not the ‘style’ elements but the functional elements like capturing perspiration to convert for water. You can listen to the audio via the link available here – cue it up about a…
Read More >Marcus Barber will present the case study of his work with Central Highlands Water and their use of Scenarios for Strategy setting at World Water Week in Stockholm this Thursday. You can follow the twitter feed via #watermanagement, #rightfuture or #wwweek This case study looks at the flaws in a reliance on forecasting as the…
Read More >A quick note for the history buffs among us – in this month of August fifty years ago, the first components of the Berlin Wall were constructed with rings of barbed wire severing Berlin into visually distinct west and east Berlin. Russia’s main challenge at that time was the 10,000 or so East Germans each…
Read More >Let me start by saying that my Masters of Science qualification is NOT held in economics and with that said I’m holding an interested person’s perspective toward wanting to know ‘why’ and ‘how’. I have some questions and thoughts about the theory of Supply and Demand and would be happy to have some feedback from…
Read More >Below you’ll find this afternoon’s discussion with ABC Darwin radio in which host Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber about the emerging research into lab grown meat as a potential addition to or replacement of, existing livestock farming methods. The program streamed live on 105.7 ABC Darwin this afternoon, discussing the University of…
Read More >Continuing the futures discussions on ABC Darwin Radio, this time with Paul Dale who is filling in for Vicki Kerrigan whilst Vicki is handling the breakfast time slot, we discuss some of the conference sessions at the World Futures Conference here in Vancouver You can listen to the audio stream here and cue this…
Read More >My slides from today’s presentation on ‘Getting You Future Right’ can be found at the link below To those at the session, my apologies for the technical challenges and hope these slides can provide more context for you – contact me if you have any questions. Access the Slides Here
Read More >Here’s the upload of my conversation with Vicki Kerrigan at ABC Radio Darwin. In it I offer the first three of ten steps designed to help you get your future right. In last week’s session I left Vicki with a question to ponder: Is my life headed where I want it to go, and if…
Read More >