Everyone deserves to live their dreams, and we all have the capacity to do so. But how do we get from where we are to where we want to be? I recently had a very empowering experience with my son that proved to me the power of a very simple tool to help kids achieve their desires.
A couple of months ago we went to my son’s Christmas music program. It was a beautiful program and a couple children in each classroom were chosen to sing solos. In the build-up to the program, I asked my son what songs his class was going to sing, and who was singing the solos.
It was then that he looked up at me, a bit sad, and told me that he had hoped to be chosen for a solo. I asked him if he had a chance to volunteer, or if children were just picked by the music teacher. He said that he had the chance to volunteer, and he did so, but that the teacher chose someone else.
I could see that he was disappointed in not getting chosen to do a solo. He proceeded to tell me that he has put his hand up a number times to sing solos, but someone else was always been chosen.
So, I asked him if he’d like to change that, and he said “yes”. I then told him that we were going to write an affirmation so that he could sing the solo the next time the opportunity came to him.
I wrote an affirmation on bright green paper that went something like this “I am so happy now that I am singing a solo in our school program.”
I taped the affirmation to the mirror in the bathroom where my son brushes his teeth. I knew this way he would see the affirmation twice a day.
Six weeks later, my son’s school had an “Evening of the Arts” showcase, where parents and their children could visit the school, see programs put on in their children’s classes, and go to either a music or dance performance put on by their children.
My son’s class happened to be putting on a music performance. The music teacher demonstrated a number of different activities the children partake in during a typical music class, and then they sang a song. The child that was supposed to do the solo parts in the song wasn’t there that evening, so the teacher asked for volunteers to sing the solo. Three kids put their hands up, one of which was my son. He seemed so eager and I was just praying that the teacher chose him.
After what seemed to be an eternity, the teacher asked my son if he thought he could do it. My son said yes, he thought so. As the music started, I looked up to the heavens in gratitude.
My son ended up projecting his voice so well, and did a beautiful job. I felt so proud and happy for him. After the performance, as we were leaving the music room, the teacher pulled me aside and told me what a great job my son did. I then explained to him that my son has been wanted to do a solo for quite some time, and I thanked the teacher for giving him the opportunity (and hopefully planted the seed for more opportunities like this in the future).
So, here are three lessons you can takeaway from my experience:
1) Affirmations work, especially when you don’t have a deep-seated belief that opposes what you are affirming. In our children, affirmations are particularly effective and work very quickly, because many kids haven’t yet developed the deep-seated beliefs that block their desires from manifesting. In my son’s case, he hadn’t experienced the feeling of not getting chosen enough to develop any deep beliefs that he doesn’t deserve it or isn’t good enough to be chosen.
2) Creating what you want in your life doesn’t have to include struggle. We didn’t meet with the music teacher and convince him to give my son a try. My son didn’t recite or write the affirmation repeatedly. It was just there for him to look at twice a day; there to be absorbed by his subconscious. And that was enough to plant the seed in his subconscious mind that he would get a solo. The beliefs in our subconscious mind manifest our life’s circumstances and events.
3) Once the seed of your desire is planted, you never know how the desire will manifest. And it’s not our job to figure out the “how’s”. We only need to plant the seed, nurture the seed with the nutrients of repetition, faith, and positive emotion, and watch events conspire to bring us our desires.
Next time your child has a goal, dream, or desire they wish to achieve, you can empower them to achieve their dream through the use of affirmations. I teach more specifics about what NOT to put in an affirmation, how to write affirmations that work, and how to integrate the affirmations into your daily life in my “Self-Esteem ‘Bully-Proof’ program which I will be making available again soon.
