Why are we so anxious?
It is really simple.
Balance is a top 3 contributing factor.
Most of us have no concept of balance in our lives.
To understand why our kids might not have balance, we first have to take a look at the 10 areas of life that adults must balance in order to be joyful, happy, fulfilled, and balanced.
The way the 10 forms of wealth works is you assess how you are doing, and then rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each area. Super simple and extremely enlightening.
For kids, I think the list would be:
- Spiritual/Inner Self
- Physical health
- Mindset
- Emotional health- communication thoughts, feelings, desires, etc.
- Family
- School (effort, engagement)
- Sports OR other forms of activity that require challenge and spark competition (it is healthy to have challenge and/or competition to stimulate the mind, body, and soul)
- Friends/Social/Quality of Inner Circle
- Adventure/Fun/Recreation
- Leadership and Impact in others lives via volunteer, service, etc.
I introduced this exercise during a Confident, Successful Athlete Workshop with a group of gymnasts.
Guess what? Even the 11 year olds recognized that they struggle with balance. More importantly, they had never done a lesson or an exercise like this before that workshop.
WHAT!?! No wonder we struggle as adults– we never really learn about priorities, time and energy management, and how our daily/weekly/seasonal schedules reflect what we value most.
When your values don’t align with your actions and the way you spend your time (outer life), your inner life goes awry.
95% of our effort and attention in life are on sports (accomplishments), school/work (grades and promotions), and social (being liked, being popular). In other words, 95% of the attention is on caring for our outer life.
How much longer are we going to neglect caring for our inner life? Our souls. Our mental, physical, and emotional health? Our contributions?
We are out of balance, and it is showing.
Anxiety is at an all time high and climbing quickly. As adults we know anxiety is highest when we are out of balance, giving too much attention (or emotional weight and emphasis) to one area of life and not enough to others.
Anxiety gets even worse when we give disproportionate energy and emphasis to areas where the results are largely out of our control. (accomplishments, grades, and our status/being popular are not always within your or your kids control).
We need to teach more kids about this “Wheel of Wealth” so that they become “wealthy” adults in more areas than just their bank account (although we hope they succeed financially as well).
As a society when it comes to sports and school, we’ve got the achievement part on overdrive. We don’t need to talk about that anymore. In fact, if we want to INCREASE physical performance, we might want to consider stepping back and focusing on the root- what’s going on inside the car, the engine, the soul.
If you want to build a strong, sturdy, amazing house, you work on the foundation for the first 75% of the time it takes to build it. Then you add the bricks, the fancy, flashy, bells and whistles.
If you want to build a bullet-proof, confident, successful athlete (or build yourself up), you’ll need to get back to the foundation.
NOTE: Yep, it will require going against the grain, against society, against what everyone else is doing. But you will also see yourself and your athlete reap rewards like no one else does. They will be mentally strong and resilient, emotionally balanced and connected, spiritually tuned in and purpose-driven, and physically energized and powerful.
Do you have questions about how to create a more balanced, confident, successful athlete?
Reply to this email and I will do my best to answer them or point you in the right direction.
Dedicated to your athlete’s success,
Coach Andrew Simpson
P.S. For Parents: You are doing great. Up until the age 12, parents have the biggest influence on their child. After that, it is their coaches, peers, and teachers, in that order. Consistently surround them around great coaches who will echo your words and teachings, and they will be that much more likely to unlock the full greatness and potential that is within them. If you’d like our help, book a free discovery call here and we will help your son or daughter thrive.
