We
are bombarded with How-To messages, lessons, sermonettes, advice. Let’s whittle them down to The Three
ABSOLUTES for SUCCESS for Your Teenager, drawn from 25+ years in the success
trenches - coaching, observing, advising, failing, rebounding… These are THE THREE key, top, critical
components: Without them, your student is committed to a life of
mediocrity! And WITH THEM, even if they’re average
in all other areas, they are essentially guaranteed success.
Here’s
why: we’ve been told repeatedly that
knowledge is power. IT IS NOT! Like a battery, knowledge is potential power – but it’s
useless until and unless it’s connected to something – to life, as it were! To
connect that battery, the three attributes below are the ‘connecting cables’ to
success! And as reported by college officials, far too many college students
are significantly lacking in these three traits.
They
are:
1. The stamina and willingness to rebound after a
defeat. No one has ever achieved
anything of significance without failing along the road to success. And if
you’ve shielded them from failures or defeats, they have probably not developed
this capacity. [hopefully, not your teenager.]
2. After suffering a defeat, it’s crucial to LEARN
from that setback. REMEMBER - a failure is a mistake you didn’t
learn from. If they keep repeating the same mistake over and over, success is
getting no closer! As a parent, it’s OK for you to ‘comfort them’ - “oh, it’ll
be OK” – but then move quickly on to “what did you learn?”
This can take time, effort and exploration. Recognize that it’s overly
simplistic and virtually worthless to say “work harder.” Your student needs
specifics: do more of WHAT? Do LESS of what? Focus on what specific area or
element? And if they were ‘lazy’ – there’s A REASON they were lazy: didn’t
really care, didn’t really know what or how to it. This is where you explore,
ask, ask, and ask, deeper and deeper.
3. The final prerequisite building block
is true and
real goal-setting. If your student/
teen/ young adult can’t convert a wish or a dream or a hope into a real goal,
they don’t yet have it.’ Real goals are specific and measurable. If that hope or dream isn’t either of those,
they aren’t goals. And if they’re not specific and measurable, you’ll never
know if or when you arrived. The pursuit of goals IS LIFE – whether family and
relationships, business or professional success or physical health, etc. Goals
need to continue THROUGHOUT life!
As
we said at the top, if your teenager possesses and APPLIES these attributes,
they WILL SUCCEED – even if their “potential” is only average. And if they don’t, you can pretty well bet
they will fall short of their true potential throughout all of life.
And
your key role as a parent is to check, assure or help them obtain these traits
and habit patterns. DO NOT ASSUME they know and do these things!! If you’d like
an assessment tool please contact us at CoachSteve@Launch-Your-Life.com
for further information or guidance! SUCCESS!!
