What you think is what you get

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Over the weekend, I volunteered at my son’s rugby club’s end of year prize giving.  The club had kindly organised some carnival rides and side shows for the kids to play on after their team had held their team’s prize giving.

It was an absolutely fantastic day, well organised and a whole heap of fun for the kids.

One such activity was a water balloon bombing game where the kids had to pass a rugby ball and knock a round target, which caused a water balloon to burst above the head of the person sitting in a chair underneath the water balloon.

Obviously we set up different distances from the target to adjust for the age of the child, with the under 6’s & 7’s 3 metres away, the under 8’s & 9’s 5 metres away and the under 10’s and over 7 metres away.

During my 90 min shift, I was shocked to listen to the negative mindset of the kids waiting in the cue, especially from the older kids 10 years plus.  “I can’t hit the target from here”,  “It’s too far away”, “I’m never going to hit that” were just some of the statements coming out of these kids mouths.  And the scary thing was that whenever they said one of those things, it was pretty much guaranteed that they would miss the target.

Ironically, the under 6’s – Under 8’s said virtually nothing and they had a far more successful “HIT” rate.  My point is this, no matter what you are saying to yourself, you’ll end up doing exactly what you’ve said, so why bother saying the negative stuff?  Where are these kids learning this?  Is it from their parents?  Is it at school?  Are we teaching the next generation what they can’t do instead of what they can?

Here in the studio we have a “Negative” jar.  Clients that say the 4 banned statements, “It’s too heavy, it’s too hard, can’t do it & I’ll Try” all get fined $2.00 and we donate the contents to a charity.

The longer my clients stay with me, the less they say those negative phrases, the more they change their thinking to what they CAN do, not what they can’t, the more likely they are to achieve not only their health and fitness goal, but more importantly, ANY GOAL.

So c’mon people, change the way you think and more importantly the way you teach your kids.  Don’t tell them what they can’t do, tell them what they can.