Driving home today into the country from having performed a series of general jobs around town my 13 year old son started to ask questions around motivation and performance. This conversation was sparked from the hockey game that his sister was involved in last weekend, where the ‘Player of the Day’ award was awarded seemingly undeservedly to satisfy “political correctness” expectations.
Sam (our son) wanted to know what drives performance and achievement. So I explained…
There are 4 main ingredients that together greatly increase the likelihood of a person experiencing success – or at least achieving goals.
Ingredient #1 – Attitude
The right attitude (frame of mind) will always be the primary determinant of performance. Without a “can do” focused mindset it is unlikely that a person will aspire to show any real “initiative”. Initiative relies upon a person being prepared to apply themselves (thought/ behaviour/ action) – and this is about having the right attitude to start with.
Ingredient #2 – Initiative
Initiative is the act of interpreting a situation/ issue/ problem and being willing to apply one’s own thought to conceive a determination/ answer/ resolution/ way forward…without the intervention/ assistance of another person.
Sam caught-on to this concept quite quickly and said “I get it, in the morning I would be using my initiative if I got up out of bed and made my bed without you or Mum asking me to make my bed ?” “EXACTLY !” was my response.
Ingredient #3 – Aptitude
Aptitude is a person’s natural ability to do something – to apply themselves readily to a task/ activity/ performing an action. The important element of aptitude is the “doing” part. A person can have a great attitude, show good initiative, yet fall-down miserably when it comes to the “action” required in order to achieve the given goal/ activity/ outcome.
This is where leaders often get tripped-up. Their positive attitude shines through when communicating their good intentions to do this, that and the other thing/ pursuit; and the initiatives talked about are generally palatable from the audience’s perspective; yet they then fail to “walk the talk” (i.e. perform the “doing” of the thing that they promised they would do)…and in doing so let themselves down in the eyes of the people who they are charged with the responsibility of leading.
Ingredient #4 – Tenacity
Simply put, this is “stick-ability” – the ability to finish what you start.
My illustration to Sam was, as I started to unload groceries from our vehicle, I have taken the initiative to unpack the van into the house soon after arriving home, and now I am going to perform this action until all that needs to be inside is indeed inside the house.
Now the really interesting part of this conversation with Sam…
At the end of having the above explained to him, Sam then said to me “Why don’t they teach this stuff in school, Dad ?” And my answer to him was simply “I don’t know, Sam – I guess that learning facts and figures is mostly where education is still at”. Yet I did also say to him “However, when I receive the opportunity to teach adult students about human relationship dynamics, I build these 4 x important principles into my teaching”.
And this leads me to make/ repeat this critical point for educationalists to come to terms with – in the best interests of those who they/ we teach (at whatever level); if we as adults don’t teach practical understandings such as the 4 x principles above…who is going to ? Answer: no-one.
So why don’t we make more of a concerted effort to build these sorts of practical teachings into curriculum delivery…after all, these are some of the most critical understandings/ skills for any person to know and practice…throughout their life. And if kids latch onto these principles sooner rather than later, won’t it make their adult life easier…and quite possibly filled with more successful outcomes ?