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.
In a recent article in The Age, Clive Williams of Macquarie University’s Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism suggested that athletes booked in to attend the Commonwealth games in India need to consider a terrorist attack as a potential wildcard. Whilst an interesting perspective, I’d like to suggest that a potential terrorist attack at…
Read More >If my information is correct, the 14th of February is the start of the New Year and instead of the usual flowers and chocolates, you might be wise to invest in another gift for your heart’s desire Because Feb 14 is the start of the Chinese New Year – the year of the Tiger. So…
Read More >Had any thoughts yet? I have – plenty and judging from the number of media inquiries it appears lots of other people are also curious to know what might lie ahead in the next year or next decade. I’m putting my thinking hat on so that we can consider what 2010-2019 might hold, the second…
Read More >I’m tipping that Consensus will be reached at Copenhagen this week. Alas it will be a consensus for more talking, thinking and commitments to agree to a proposal to set a time for a discussion around more concrete targets. In otherwords, a commitment to not commit. The politicians waver whilst our planet is being poisoned.…
Read More >The cycle of consumption rears its head as it has done for quite some time. Consumption is neither good, nor bad, it ‘just is’ and right now the majority of media exposed potential consumers are being lured, enticed and occasionally conned into parting with their hard earned money to satisfy needs and whims. Some consumers…
Read More >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…
Read More >Here’s a little something I’d like you to think about. Are you really who you say you are? And, how do I know that I can trust you? Identity Theft is one of the most debilitating crimes a person can suffer for it strips away the very core of your own belief system and that…
Read More >‘World – we have a problem’ (apologies to astronaut James Lovell). We are killing ourselves with food and it’s happening at both ends of the continuum – millions starve each day whilst a gluttony caused obesity epidemic is killing others off in different ways. We have a growing global population requiring sustenance, whilst Climate Change…
Read More >Anyone looking at the final rainfall figures for Melbourne’s rainfall might be heartened by the news that the final result was about 10mm above the September average. Compared to last year’s disastrous result where we had about 12mm, it was over 50mm better. But I wonder if the final result, and the current ‘average’ isn’t…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber discussed the future of travel at the ANTOR session at The American Club in Sydney, NSW on the 24th of September. Along with Angela Smith from Roy Morgan Research, Martin Kelly from Travel Trends and Gail Rehbein from the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility Marcus proposed some of the emerging…
Read More >