Got Something Hard To Do? Take Cues From A Child


You ever notice that when little kids really want something they never focus on how hard it is?

Whatever It Takes

As adults, we learn and we teach ourselves what’s hard, what’s easy, what’s impossible, and what’s within reach.

That’s why, in the face of something difficult, most people tend to say they’re “trying their best” when deep down they really don’t believe it’s possible, knowing that others will sympathize with their failure since it was nearly impossible anyway.

But little kids believe everything is within reach. They know not any different. Their wants and their beliefs are aligned.

Whatever It Takes

Isn’t it true that we must often “unlearn” what we believe in order to accomplish what we really want? To achieve the seemingly impossible?

Whatever It Takes

So, next time you have a challenge, instead of focusing on how hard it is, focus on how much you want to do it.

This will do two things:

  1. It’ll make it more likely you’ll succeed.
  2. It’ll make the process more enjoyable.

That’s because this approach will take you back “into the moment.” When what we do is in the moment — in the “now” as they say — then our wants align with our beliefs and the universe responds accordingly.

These moments are the ones we’ll remember. They’ll be memorialized whether or not we make the shot. What we’ll remember most is how we felt and that we really did give it our all.

This is the zone where we make history now.

(Photographs by Claude Johnson)

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[…] example, I reminded her that this precisely is how kids approach life: instead of focusing on the difficulty of something, they focus on how much they want it. So we […]

Claire
15 years ago

knowing about hard is not instinctive, it’s learned. That’s why children don’t think about how hard something is. A sense of failure also isn’t instinctive, that’s why children don’t consider that they might fail. These possibilities are learned. And as they are real possibilities, it is important to learn how to deal with them. Kids learn this from the adults around them. The advice to focus on how much you want to do something rather than how hard it is can be applied from the earliest ages and becomes the foundation for how someone moves through his entire life. This doesn’t ignore or deny hardship or the possibility of failure – it just puts it into perspective and allows joy and success to have first dibs.