Issue Number 16.

                   
Our mission is to give you the latest information on how to raise self-reliant, emotionally healthy, highly successful children and to help you maximize the benefits of their participation in sports.

The Type of Goals That Will Make Your Child Fail Instantly

Thousand of kids fail in many areas of their lives because no one ever taught them to sight the right type of goals. Here is how to prevent this from happening to your child.

The key concept that Harvard researcher David McClelland came up with after studying high achievers for forty years is that of:

Medium Risk Goals.

According to McClelland the single greatest difference between achievers and non-achievers is that achievers think very carefully about the goals they set; non-achievers do not.

Achievers know how to calculate the risks involved. Risk, in this sense, means the chance of not achieving the goal. Achievers set goals that are challenging but possible to achieve if they plan and make the effort. These are medium-risk goals, not too easy but not impossible to achieve.

Achievers are not interested in working for low-risk goals which are very easy and present no challenge. They also avoid high-risk goals, which are impossible or nearly impossible to achieve.

The way McClelland determined this was by setting up a ring toss game and observing where high and low achievers set the peg. High achievers preferred to set the peg where they had a 75% chance of scoring. Low achievers set the peg too near – getting easily bored – or too far – causing them to quit in frustration.

Three Tips

Here are some tips on how you teach your child to set the kind of medium-risk goals that characterize high achievers:

• Ask your child to tell you about times they have either achieved or failed to achieve their objective.
• Ask your child how difficult the task was, and how the difficulty influenced the outcome, leaving them with a feeling of accomplishment or one of failure.
• When playing games with your family – whether boggle or bowling – keep asking your child what the odds are of them succeeding in some tangible way. Then point out how much more excited and interested they are in the game if the odds of success are 75%.

Let’s use the example of bowling to see how you can intelligently manipulate the way the game is scored to reinforce the concept of medium-risk goals in your child. Make it a goal for them – not to get a strike or spare every time – but to go for the number of pins they have a 75% chance of knocking down. If the number happens to be five pins record this as a success every time they knock down five pins. If the people in the lane next to yours think you are a little nutty don’t worry, just remember that there is a 75% chance that some day their kids will be working for yours.    

What about you?

Have you been thinking about what kinds of goals you set when you read this? Ask yourself what specific things you can improve by setting medium-risk goals in the following areas:

• Business.
• Health.
• Personal relationships.
• Fun.

I hope you find this information useful and, as always, I look forward to your comments and questions.

Wishing you a happy and productive week, this is Rafael Beer

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