How Parents Must Build their Child’s Foundation for Self-Motivation
As a parent, it’s likely you dream that one day your child will grow to be good if not great at something. Sometimes that something is something you were good at. Other times that something is the result of a natural talent or gift you see in your child. Either way, it’s exponentially harder to help a child become good (let alone great) at something if you want it more than they want it. In other words, your child must have self-motivation.
No matter how much talent you have to teach your child or how much natural talent your child was born with, without self-motivation they will never be better than average. However, before you can start thinking about developing self-motivation in your child, you must first start with the right foundation.
Self-motivation is the drive to do an activity for only the satisfaction gained in doing the activity. This satisfaction is the result of an innate mental stimulation that comes from autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In addition, this innate mental stimulation must also exclude external pressure.
That last statement is what creates a child’s foundation for self-motivation. Pressure from external sources kills self-motivation. External pressure breeds the fear of failure and drives up anxiety as well as unhealthy stress. These things zap energy, and since by definition motivation is the energy to act, they also zap motivation. Therefore, self-motivation can only develop in a child with a foundation built with the absence of external pressure.