Motivation is key to success
“It’s not that I’m so smart,” Albert Einstein once said, “It’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
How telling that one of the greatest geniuses of all time explained his success in this way.
Einstein gave the credit not to his superior intellect, but to his tremendous persistence. He was
motivated.
Of course, not everyone can come up with a theory that will forever change science. But every-one can use motivation to achieve personal success, beginning from an early age. Research has
plainly shown that motivated children do better in school—not necessarily because they feel they
have to be the best, but because they are trying their best.
Motivating your kids is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks in parenting. Every kid has a different motivation level and all kids cannot be motivated in a similar manner. Motivating your kids is also a process of enhancing personal growth and assimilation of a positive character. It is very tedious to know what exactly motivates your kid. The first step towards motivating your kid to achieve good things in life is to know and understand his or her mind. To know the mindset, you may also need to learn to listen to your kid, what he or she says and comprehends, and how they work and act. You will also need to learn how to spend quality time with your kids to know their likes, preferences and dislikes. In essence, as a parent, you will need to get closer to your kids and learn their behavior and mannerisms. Once you know what motivates your kid to perform their own duties and responsibilities, then you can start devising better and individualized methods and ways to motivate them
• Choose work that is inappropriately
easy.
• Need lots of prodding to get started.
• Put in minimal effort.
• Show a negative or apathetic attitude
about learning and schoolwork.
• Give up quickly when the going gets
rough.
• Leave many tasks unfinished
Bobby the mountain climber was famous for his attempts to climb the big snowy mountain. He had tried it at least
thirty times, but had always failed. He began the ascent at a good pace, focussing on the snowy summit, imagining
the marvellous view and the sense of freedom up there. But as he went on, and his strength dwindled, his gaze
would lower, and more often would he look at his worn out boots. Finally, when the clouds had gathered round him,
and he understood that he wouldn't be able to enjoy the view from the summit that day, he would sit down to rest,
relieved to be able to start the descent back down to the village, though slightly worried about all the jokes he
would have to endure.
On one of these occasions he went up the mountain accompanied by old Peeper, the town optician, who bore
witness to the failure. It was Peeper who most encouraged Bobby to try again, and he presented him with a pair of
special sunglasses.
"If it starts clouding over, put these glasses on, or if your feet start hurting put them on too. These are special
glasses; they'll help you.”
Bobby accepted the gift without giving it much mind, but when his feet started hurting again he remembered what
Peeper had said, and he put on the glasses. The pain was pretty bad, but with those new sunglasses he could still
manage to see the snow-covered summit; so on he continued.
Just as nearly always seemed to happen, misfortune returned in the form of cloud cover. But this time it was so
light that he could still see the summit through the clouds. And so Bobby kept climbing, leaving the clouds behind,
forgetting his pain, and finally arriving at the summit. It was certainly worth it. His feeling of triumph was
incomparable; almost as magnificent as that wonderful view, resplendent in its silence, the mountain below
surrounded by a dense sea of clouds. Bobby didn't remember the clouds being as thick as that, so he looked more
closely at the sunglasses, and understood everything.
Peeper had engraved a light image on the lenses, in the form of the snow-covered summit. It was made in such a
way that you could only see it if you looked upwards. Peeper had understood that whenever Bobby lost sight of his
objective, he would similarly lose sight of his dream, and his will to continue would wane.
Bobby realised that the only obstacle to reaching the summit had been his own discouragement. When he could no
longer see the top of the mountain, the problems had set in. He thanked Peeper for using that little trick to help him
see that his aims were not impossible, and that they were still there, where they had always been
Ten Ways to Motivate Children
1 Set Proper Expectations
Expect your child to succeed, and her chances for success improve greatly.
will help your child accomplish little unless he has a plan for how to do it. Here are
A motivated child is likely to:
• Choose tasks that are
challenging.
• Begin tasks without having to be
prodded.
• Show serious effort and
concentration.
• Have a positive attitude toward
learning and schoolwork.
• Use coping strategies to get
through the rough times
• Stick with tasks until successful
completion.
A child who is not motivated is likely to:• Choose work that is inappropriately
easy.
• Need lots of prodding to get started.
• Put in minimal effort.
• Show a negative or apathetic attitude
about learning and schoolwork.
• Give up quickly when the going gets
rough.
• Leave many tasks unfinished
Bobby the mountain climber was famous for his attempts to climb the big snowy mountain. He had tried it at least
thirty times, but had always failed. He began the ascent at a good pace, focussing on the snowy summit, imagining
the marvellous view and the sense of freedom up there. But as he went on, and his strength dwindled, his gaze
would lower, and more often would he look at his worn out boots. Finally, when the clouds had gathered round him,
and he understood that he wouldn't be able to enjoy the view from the summit that day, he would sit down to rest,
relieved to be able to start the descent back down to the village, though slightly worried about all the jokes he
would have to endure.
On one of these occasions he went up the mountain accompanied by old Peeper, the town optician, who bore
witness to the failure. It was Peeper who most encouraged Bobby to try again, and he presented him with a pair of
special sunglasses.
"If it starts clouding over, put these glasses on, or if your feet start hurting put them on too. These are special
glasses; they'll help you.”
Bobby accepted the gift without giving it much mind, but when his feet started hurting again he remembered what
Peeper had said, and he put on the glasses. The pain was pretty bad, but with those new sunglasses he could still
manage to see the snow-covered summit; so on he continued.
Just as nearly always seemed to happen, misfortune returned in the form of cloud cover. But this time it was so
light that he could still see the summit through the clouds. And so Bobby kept climbing, leaving the clouds behind,
forgetting his pain, and finally arriving at the summit. It was certainly worth it. His feeling of triumph was
incomparable; almost as magnificent as that wonderful view, resplendent in its silence, the mountain below
surrounded by a dense sea of clouds. Bobby didn't remember the clouds being as thick as that, so he looked more
closely at the sunglasses, and understood everything.
Peeper had engraved a light image on the lenses, in the form of the snow-covered summit. It was made in such a
way that you could only see it if you looked upwards. Peeper had understood that whenever Bobby lost sight of his
objective, he would similarly lose sight of his dream, and his will to continue would wane.
Bobby realised that the only obstacle to reaching the summit had been his own discouragement. When he could no
longer see the top of the mountain, the problems had set in. He thanked Peeper for using that little trick to help him
see that his aims were not impossible, and that they were still there, where they had always been
Ten Ways to Motivate Children
1 Set Proper Expectations
Expect your child to succeed, and her chances for success improve greatly.
Expect her to come up short, and the odds are that she will. Children are usual-ly keenly aware of how their parents view them, and they often tailor their
actions to those views. So it’s very important to have high expectations—and
communicate them to your child. It’s equally important to base your expecta-tions on your child as an individual who has strengths and weaknesses like
all individuals.
Set appropriate expectations by:
• Communicating with your child.
Talk kindly but honestly with your child about where she thinks
her interests and abilities are,and where she thinks she has less interest and ability. Then share your own opinions, based on your observation of your child. Look for common ground, but never dismiss your child’s self-assessment as inappropriate or unrealis-tic. Those areas that both you and your child view as her strengths may represent the areas where she will truly shine. These should be the focus of
your highest expectations for achievement. On the other hand, those areas where you both agree she struggles should be the focus of different expectations. Here, make it clear that you expect to see her top effort. If the effort expectation is met, then she has succeeded. It is natural to be con-cerned with results. But if you look only at the final product, you might miss the enormous amount of work that went into every step.
• Re-evaluating as necessary.Your child will grow and change, and so will her interests and abilities. Plan to review expectations with your child about every three months (more frequently if needed). Talk often and make adjustments if you and your child agree that any of your expectations were too low—or too ambitious for the moment.
2.Help Your Child Set Goals
Small kids cannot simply finish a large task that needs a lot of work. The assigned task could be simple and straightforward, but your kid may not like to finish that task because of various causes and reasons. The simple thing to do here is to split the task into many sub tasks and explain your kid the importance of finishing each one of them. Assign each of these tasks as separate goals and fix a small reward for finishing each of these goals.
Goals turn expectations from ideas into reality. Knowing what he is expected to do
will help your child accomplish little unless he has a plan for how to do it. Here are
some ways to help your child set meaningful goals:
• Write the goals down.Research shows that we are more likely to accomplish written goals than those we merely talk about, perhaps because written goals provide a visual reminder of what we need to do. So don’t let your child hide his list of goals in his desk drawer. Post them in a prominent spot—such as a
kitchen wall—where he can refer to them often.
• Make the goals specific. “Connor will do better in math next quarter,” is a diffi-cult goal to achieve. What does doing “better” mean? What steps will he need to take to achieve this “better” performance? But change the goal to “Connor will raise his math grade from a C to a B,” and then the child knows exactly what is expected of him. The goal doesn’t stand on its own, however. Connor still needs a
map to get there. “To accomplish his goal, Connor will do the following:
1) review
math problems 20 minutes each night, whether or not he has an upcoming quiz;
2) stay after school once a week for Ms. Stephens’ math enrichment class;
3) ask
Mom to give him a practice math test every Thursday.”
• Make the goals measurable. A measurable goal allows you and your child to
chart his progress. For example, you can tell whether Connor is on his way to
raising his grade by whether he is finishing homework with less difficulty and
whether his marks on math quizzes are steadily improving. If there’s no way to
check progress, the goal is not measurable. Change it
