Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

To give our children a good head start in life, so they can enjoy better success than we have (and in the process contribute to society even better than we will), we must help them discover themselves.

In other words, we are obligated to help our children find their purpose in life.

If we can successfully do this for each of our children, we would actually discover that we (parents and/or teachers) would need to do very little afterwards, to get them to work towards becoming successful in life – in any chosen areas of endeavour.

Why?

Because once a person finds his/her purpose in life – call it a magnificent obsession, a passion or whatever else – such a person will need no reminders to work towards achieving it each day!

All you would then need to do is point out what might be useful to helping the child move closer to achieving his/her goal. And you’ll find that he/she soon jumps to get it and more. The child becomes self-motivated!

Have you ever noticed how preoccupied a child can get with mastering a new toy or gadget?

For weeks he/she will tirelessly work at mastering it’s features/capabilities, and soon begins operating it masterfully.

Many busy executives, who are parents, will confess that their kids often tend to be the ones that teach them how to use advanced features of the video, TV and other new or complex devices in their homes.

Why is that so?

Because children are by their very nature highly inquisitive.

They are unafraid to venture beyond the realms of the known. They are never afraid to ask questions when they do not know.

Also they do not mind making mistakes on the way to achieving mastery over the object/subject of their interest.

In addition, they relish the opportunity of learning directly from experience, and have no difficulty exposing their ignorance in any subject by asking questions.

Think of the opposite to every one of the attributes enumerated above for kids, and you have the equivalent attributes for many adults/parents!

These equivalent attributes have been proven to be why many such adults never get ahead in life.

Just think about it.

Overwhelming evidence abounds in society, and in literature, that one of the best ways to master any art, or field of science, is through prolonged direct contact/real-life practical experiences.

That’s why our “automobile experts” with competence to FIX CARS, in Nigeria, for instance, are seldom the ones who studied the trade in school.

If anything, those who “schooled” in the trade can often NOT match the practical competence of those who received “education” on the roadsides in it!

Our computer whiz kids/gurus are not the ones who graduated with degrees in Computer science. Instead they are those who burned extended hours of time, money and effort in order to acquire mastery of the vocations they chose.

Most times they never even needed to go back to school at all!

I therefore wonder where the rest of us got our attitude problems.

The danger I hope to alert you – as a responsible parent – to, by pointing out the above, is…

That we might end up passing these wrong ideas/attitudes to our children, if we fail to help them discover their purpose in life very early.

A child that fails to get this guidance might end up as what Kiyosaki’s military Sergeant called “An idiot with a pilot’s license”…or for our purposes:

“An idiot with an educational qualification”!

PS: This article is based on Tayo Solagbade’s ebook titled "How to Help Your Child Discover His/Her Purpose in Life"