How To Keep Your Kids Motivated To Do Anything

Or “Use The Force, Luke”

One of the best TED talks I've ever seen is by Dan Pink on motivation.
The talk is in a business context with respect to employees, but it’s principles can be applied to parenting as well.

If you don’t have 18 minutes to watch it, he talks about motivation having 3 components:

1. Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives

In a business context, this is about employees having the ability to self direct themselves. The goals are still set by their managers but how they are achieved are up to the employees.

Kids are no different. They all want to have some choice in things that they do.

It’s an easy parenting trap to tell your kids to do this or that in a certain way because that’s the “right” or most efficient way.
But honestly, who cares what way he takes as long as he gets to where he should.

As long as he’s aware of the rules of engagement & the expected outcome, how he does it is irrelevant.

As an example, my kid likes swimming. My job is to get him to swim class and let him swim. He knows that if he doesn't achieve a certain level of proficiency in a certain time, he’s not moving to the next level & gets to watch his friends move on. That’s really all he needs to figure out what he needs to do.

2. Mastery: The desire to get better and better at doing something that matters

In the business context, this is about providing an environment that allows for the development of expertise.

Kids want to get better at the things that interest them. Most just don’t have the patience to keep at it. That’s where the parent comes in.

This is about building on the foundation of Autonomy, where I take the role of a guide that helps him see his progress. This is important perspective because at times kids don’t realize how much progress they've made. The knowledge of how much they've achieved kicks of a positive feedback loop of getting better & better, quicker (than if he were left to his own devices).

Using the swimming example again, I observed what he was doing and put it in the context of where he started from . Once he saw how far he’d come, he was in a much better position to see how close he was to moving to the next level up and was excited to do what it took to get there.

3. Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves

In the business context, this has to do with employees doing their job not (just) for money, but because they believe that what they do makes a positive difference in this world.

With kids, its fairly easy to tell when they’re doing something just because they enjoy it. That’s where the thinking stops though. And certainly thoughts about a greater purpose are difficult to grasp for most.

Now it’s not that doing something for the joy of it is not enough. But what if they could double dip? What if they could do be doing that something not only for fun, but also because they would be setting the stage for (doing) something greater?

Coming back to the swimming example, it’s a great skill to have but the greater purpose (that he understands) is that it’s not just about being able to swim. It’s about then being able to learn how to snorkel and then how to dive.

How cool would it be to swim with Nemo!

This idea is far more exciting than swimming as a life skill. But without learning this skill he won’t be part of that much cooler thing down the line. As a result he’s always eager for swim lessons.

Depending on what your kid is into, it may take some thinking to figure out what that greater something is, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with an immediate benefit to him.

So if you've always wanted to, but never knew how to, you can adapt this framework in whatever way you think best(Autonomy), that will help you become more proficient(Mastery) at motivating your kids.

After all, what parent doesn't want happy kids (Purpose).

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Anuj Adhiya is experimenting with writing about whatever comes to his mind. He’s not quite sure what to expect next. You can connect with him on Twitter