I recently read the story of a popular Nigerian female blogger who just bought a house in a very choice location in Lagos, Nigeria worth about $2.8m. While I was happy for her about her acquisition, what excited me more was her story – she made it very clear that young ladies didn’t need to sleep around to be successful and that hers wasn’t a case of overnight success – it had come through a lot of hard work determination and refusing to quit even in the face of looming failure.
Have you ever wondered why a number of youngsters these days either want to be Artistes or Footballers? My take is that in addition to the allure of glitz, glam and celebrity status, it’s the seeming overnight success. Something tells me that blogging may be the next vocation of choice (lol). Hardly do they get to see BTS (Behind the Scene) where loads of practice, rejections, mistakes, trying and retrying are record.
We owe it to our children to let them know that “Grit” (perseverance, doggedness…call it what you want) is not a dirty word. Rather it is a TTV (Time Tested Value) imperative for true success in the real world!
So what can we do to raise children with grit in todays “microwave” generation? I’m glad you asked 🙂 We should teach our children to:
- Set meaningful Goals – Remember it’s their goal – not yours. It’s important that our children take ownership for their goals. By choosing the goals they want to achieve and the steps they need to take, they begin to feel empowered. Our role is simply to guide, motivate and remind them of why they set that goal in the first place.
- Have the right mind set and develop a “can do” attitude.
- Form positive habits by daily taking steps that lead them closer to achieving their goals – study; practice; healthy food choices, saving…
- Never dwell on setbacks. Rather they should learn from it and try again and again.
A child who falls down when learning to walk doesn’t just sit there and not try again. The child gets up, tries again and again and again until he / she perfects the skill of walking. So whether our child’s goal is to “tie my shoe laces myself”; Get a part in the school play or on the soccer team; Get straight A’s; Get admitted into an Ivy league school; loose weight or Save towards a project, they will need grit.
Children who learn to bounce back and refuse to quit or let setbacks get them down have gained a valuable life skill. If our children are to succeed in this competitive world, they must learn to hang in there and not quit.
Grit…Perseverance…Doggedness… is what helps them bounce back and keep going till they reach their goal.
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Makes for very interesting reading. No one who ever made enduring wealth achieved it without smart work, consistency and perseverance. These are values we must all teach our children as soon as they become old enough to get with the GRIT program !
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Grit is a life skill that often determines how far one will go in life. That’s why setbacks aren’t necessarily such a bad thing! They develop perseverance and so we must stop trying to make everything smooth sailing for our children.
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