"I am like a cloud. I have no direction at all. I go to wherever the wind blows. I have no purpose in life and what makes you think that you know my purpose?"
The above entry was taken from a student when he first joined the purpose discovery class. He meant it as a joke and a challenge. This student is a very intelligent child and I see immense potential in him. However, he was also lost.
(I have a small class on purpose discovery and accelerated learning. The students were selected on their readiness and extra lessons were designed for them. Purpose discovery is one of the hardest part in education and it takes a long time to 'open' the students' eyes.
The success rate is 100%. When the student discovers his purpose, he experiences a paradigm shift. His old beliefs will be substituted by a new set of beliefs and he will experience an exponential increase in his ability to learn.)
I replied to his journal entry:
You might not have a purpose. The cloud has a purpose. Its purpose is so important that mankind will not survive without clouds.
Without clouds, there will be no rain. The clouds play a very big role in the water cycle.
However, its purpose is also so mundane that it could easily be taken for granted.
Is your purpose also so mundane to you that you are taking it for granted?
It is an educator's reply. I took the chance to revise a Science topic (water cycle) and to bring the focus back to himself. The class is not about discovering my purpose. It is not about me discovering the student's purpose. It is about them discovering their own purposes.
It was a very long journey for this child but he eventually found his purpose.
I use a 3-step process to create a purpose for the student. It is a very time-consuming and effort-hogging process. The incubation period is also very long. Your child will not find his purpose within one day.
Step 1: Encourage Your Child To Have Big Dreams And Write Them Down
Firstly, you need to get a journal for your child. On the first few pages, ask him to write down his biggest dreams. Some examples are
- I want to be a pilot.
- I want to own a big mansion when I grow up.
- I want to be a great musician.
- I want to eat, sleep and play all day next time.
- I want to help the poor in India.
Do not criticise any of the dreams. You want your child to feel secure about sharing his dreams.
Step 2: Create A Vision With The Child
In the next few pages of the journal, you want to transform the dream into a purpose. There are 4 main questions that the child needs to answer. I will use the 'great musician' example from Step 1.
- What is a great musician to you? What are the things that a great musician will do? How does it affect other people?
- How can someone become a great musician? What are the steps involved?
- Before you become a great musician, do you need financial support? How are you going to survive before you become a great musician?
- What are some things that you can do now to help achieve this dream?
The above are examples only. You need to customise the questions according to the dream. What you want to do here is to list down the steps and challenges in achieving the dream. It will then automatically be translated into instructions for purposeful living.
Step 3: Link The Vision To Everyday Stuff
This is the monitoring part.
You will need to monitor the child and ask him if his actions are aligned with his dream. Some examples are:
- I see that you have been playing computer games for the last 4 hours. Is this time well-spent? How can this help you to become a great musician?
- You are taking good care of yourself. A great musician needs a healthy body and mind to create great music.
- You speak good English. A great musician might need to address his audience in his performance. Imagine the disappointment if the musician speaks bad English.
The feedback can be both negative and positive. What you want here is to use the purpose to push out the bad habits and to establish good habits.
It seems like a simple 3-step process, but the customisation is crazy.
I had another student. She is a very good volleyball player. She was very sure that she needed only to polish up her skills in volleyball. English is totally useless to her as her purpose was to play good volleyball.
I created three videos for her. The first one was a man teaching volleyball with no verbal instructions. The second was a man teaching volleyball using improper English and some dialect. The last was a man teaching volleyball using perfect English. And, I asked her which one she would like to emulate?
After the videos, she was convinced that she needed proper English to pursue her dream at a higher level.
Like I said, the whole process is simple but very time-consuming. Some students took a long time to discover their purpose. Some took a long time to fight with their purpose. Some never found their purpose.
The whole process is a cycle and it strengthens the purpose constantly. It is very important to note that this vision might change as the child grows up. With the structure in place, it should be easy for the child to recast his vision.
The key thing here is to let the child have the full ownership of the purpose. As parents, we are always quick to feed the child with our purposes for them.
If the purpose is not owned by the child, it will not create the paradigm shift.
Have fun!
