It is 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and my five year old daughter is getting ready for her first dance class of the season. As she comes into the room where I am working, she is excited! She dances around with a big smile on her face, tapping and twirling. I am happy to see that she is looking forward to a new season, particularly after the disappointment she experienced at the end of the former year. Let me explain.
At the end of each recreational dance season there is a recital, where all of the dance classes perform for an audience filled with parents, grandparents, and fellow dancers. At the end of the recital, the performers are invited back to the stage where a a few awards are handed out to each class. As we sat there watching the awards being distributed, I could see that my daughter’s eyes were beaming with excitement, in her head, she was going to win an award. Unfortunately, I knew there was no way she was getting an award. While she loves to dance, she struggles to make it through a full class. The awards were being given to students who showed dedication and enthusiasm to their practice.
Sure enough, she did not receive an award. It broke my heart to watch the joy from her face slowly slip away as she processed this. At first, I was bothered that the dance company would not recognize all of the children’s hard work, especially at such a young age. But then I recognized that this was a great learning opportunity.
When we met up with my girl, she was pleased with her performance, but right away mentioned that she did not get an award. This led to a productive conversation around what it would take to win an award (remaining in class, eagerly participating). She made sense of the fact that she did not get the award this year, but declared, the award will be hers next season.
So here we are, at the start of next season. She is beaming with joy practicing her foot taps and spins and all I can think is, I wonder if she remembers the award situation. I decided to ask her if she had any goals for this season. She replied confidently, that of course she did, she was going to win the award!
Knowing that there is only one or two children that win an award from each group, I knew I had to figure out a way to set her up for success. I suggested, rather than setting a goal to win an award, lets set some goals for things within our control that might lead to an award. I went on to explain that she did not have control over who receives the award at the end of the season, that decision lies with the teachers. But she does have control over how hard she works, her attitude and her behaviour in the class.
We settled on the goals of making it through class without needing a break and trying to take on a leadership role. These are goals that we hope will lead to the dream of winning an award.
When setting goals we need to make sure that the factors affecting our achievement the goals are within our own control. For example, wanting to make a certain sports team, or wanting to be the top student in a class are goals, but they have factors we cannot control (a coach’s perspective, other student’s efforts and achievements). If we change the focus of the goal to be something that we have control over (e.g., to improve in our sport or class by practicing X amount per week) we encourage hard work and effort. Hard work and effort will result in growth and growth can lead to the achievement of the overarching goal (making the team or being top in the class). Having a dream is important, and creating goals that lead us on the path to achieve the dream sets us up for success and to build resilience.
If you would like a break down of how to have this conversation with your own child or with a group of children you are working with you can click on this PDF “Goals for Growth” to head to my free download to walk you through setting attainable goals that will help us along the way of achieving our dreams. Or head to the downloads page on the site to checkout all the resources available.
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