The things we can learn from our kids – setting goals.

It can be amazing the things that we can learn from our children. My eight-year-old daughter Madison is quite the character. With many passions. One of the many things that she loves to do is run. And to run fast. Since the day Madison could talk, she has told us how fast she can run. When she was three years old, she started asking us to let her go out for track. After three years of her nonstop pleads, we gave in and it turns she is pretty fast. More importantly, she loves to run. I have loved watching her and all of the kids participate in this great sport.

From observing her and the other young athletes, I have noticed so many lessons that we as adults could learn from. With the new year upon us, a lot of people are talking about setting goals for the year, I think the story below is quite fitting.

During the cross-country season, Madison had a goal to beat the fastest boy in her age bracket. In the second to last race of the season, the boys and the girls ran together in the 2000m race. Madison won the girl’s division and only two boys were ahead of her. It was a great job by Madison and most observers thought it was truly amazing, but she was not satisfied.

She knew that she had one more chance to beat these two guys at the state championship the following week. She worked hard and was focused on preparing for the big meet.

When we showed up at Walnut Grove Park. Madison learned that the boys would not be running at the same time as the girls. At first, I could tell she was disappointed. But then she said, “you know what daddy I can still beat their time”.

So, the race starts and Madison is way out in front and running a tremendous race. She crosses the finish line in 8 minutes and 43 seconds. Her time was a minute faster than any other girl and as it turns out, it was almost 2 seconds faster than the winning boy’s time.

After the race, we noticed that there was a large stick stuck to Madison’s spikes. She ran most of the race with this piece of wood stuck in her shoe. She barely even noticed it because she was locked in like a laser on her target to beat those boys.

The moral of the story – set a goal, prepare well, work hard in practice and then have fun. Just like Madison during her race. She stayed focused and was determined not to let anything stop her from achieving her goal, even when most people would think it is impossible.

In 2020, set your goals and don’t let anything stop you from achieving them!

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