You Don’t Have to Be a High Achiever to Teach Your Children to Be High Achievers

Do you think you can’t teach your children to be high achievers because you don’t have any awards, or you aren’t some kind of highly respected leader or a millionaire? What if you’re just an average, ordinary, everyday parent?

I’ve got some good news for you. You don’t have to be a high achiever to teach your children to be high achievers. You just have to understand, believe in and follow one principle. Here it is: You have to decide to be, do, have.

Decide

First you have to make a decision to be a high achiever and to be a family of high achievers. Not only is it okay to make that decision even before you’re a high achiever, you have to. You have to decide what you’re going to be first, and then do the everyday things that prove to yourself that it’s true.

What does it mean to make a decision? I learned from Myron Golden that there’s a difference between “decide” and “choose”. Dr. Golden says “choose” just means to pick one, but “decide” means to cut yourself off from any other possibility.

When you decide to be a high achiever, you cut yourself off from any other possibility. If you decide to be a high achiever, you will be a high achiever. If you and your family decide to be a family of high achievers, then you will be a family of high achievers.

Don’t worry about what other people might say. You don’t have to tell anyone else outside of your household that you’re a high achiever and that you belong to a family of high achievers. Let your actions speak for themselves.

Be

Once you’ve decided to be a high achiever, make it part of your family culture. You’ve decided, so now you are a family of high achievers. Refer to yourselves that way. If your kids want to know why you’re doing something, you say “because we’re the Harre family and Harres are high achievers!” Or, we’re the Smith family or the Jackson family. Make it a common expression in your family. We’re the Joneses, and Joneses are very successful. Say it often and say it with feeling. Take on that identity and make sure your children know you believe it.

Do

You’ve made the decision to be high achievers, and so you are high achievers. The next thing to do is find out what high achievers do, and do those things. This is where you start to prove to yourself that you are what you say you are.

Before you start doing what high achievers do, you might have to find out what things high achievers don’t do and give up those activities. I’m not asking you to give up all your activities, but you are going to have to give up some things that are just distractions and time-wasters in order to have time to do your new, positive habits.

I can’t remember his name now, but I was listening to a speaker who said people at work would ask him if he saw the latest Game of Thrones episode. He said “Absolutely not! I’m too busy playing my own game to get my own throne!”

Many of the high achievers I follow say they completely gave up television until they had achieved most of their goals, because they didn’t want to spend their free time watching other people live imaginary lives when their own real life wasn’t what they wanted it to be.

Still others have said that they give up following sports teams while they’re working on their goals, because they didn’t want to spend their free time watching people play a game and making millions of dollars while their real life wasn’t fun and games, and they were broke!

I’m not saying you and your family need to give up all the fun things, but you know where you need to cut back. For me, it was scrolling through social media. Another person I know said he loved to watch basketball, but in order to work on a goal he decided to stop watching every basketball game that came on TV, and instead only watch the home games of his favorite team. The rest of the time was spent on actions that led to achieving his most important goal.

Now that you are a high achiever and you’ve stopped doing things high achievers don’t do, you need to start doing things high achievers do. Begin adding some success habits until they’ve become part of your life, and then you can teach your children to do those things that you’re doing.

I recommend scheduling these new habits in your daily planner or writing them on your to-do list. Set alarms on your phone if you have to. Do whatever it takes to make sure you remember the habits and do them every day. You want to get to the point that you’re doing the small success habits automatically and you don’t even need to think about them any more.

Start small at first. There’s a reason the old saying is “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” and not “a bushel of apples all at once”. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself by expecting to completely overhaul your entire routine with unrealistic expectations, and then give up because it’s too much.

You’re going to need to spend some time researching what high achievers do and deciding which habits to add to your routine. Do some general searches about high achievers and do some deep dives into highly successful people that you admire.

While you’re doing that, here are a few suggestions of habits you can adopt to get started:

Get up earlier in the morning. If you’re like me and you’re not a morning person, start with just 15 minutes earlier per day. Think of this 15 minutes as a gift to yourself. Once you’re used to it, try adding another 15 minutes so you’re getting up a half an hour earlier than before.

I’m not saying you have to join the 5am club. There’s nothing magical about 5am. The reason all the experts suggest getting up so early is because that’s the time many people are likely to have no distractions because nobody else in their house is up at that time.

Another reason is because if you wait until later in the day to get something done, it often goes undone. A million other things come up and steal your time. The next thing you know, it’s 11pm and you’re too exhausted to work on your success.

Pick a success habit to do during that 15 to 30 minute gift to yourself. You could plan your day, exercise, read a good book or spend time in prayer or meditation. You decide the best use of this time.

Exercise. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this topic, because we all know we should be exercising more for our health. If you don’t already have a good exercise routine, maybe start with just a ten minute walk or a stretching routine.

Read a book. This one is usually easy for homeschooling families. We read all the time. In this case, I want you to start reading books about personal development and success principles. I suggest going to your local library and starting with whatever they have on hand before buying new books, but eventually you’ll want to have a home library of books written for, by, and about high achievers.

Those are just 3 success habits you could start with, but there are plenty others out there to pick from. The important thing is not which habits you start with. The important thing is to start.

Have

The final part of this framework is to have. Even if you start out believing you’re an average parent, if you decide to be a high achiever and you do the things high achievers do, you’ll have the things high achievers have. What those things are depends on your own family’s goals.

Conclusion

You don’t have to be a high achiever first before you teach your children to be high achievers. If you wait until you’re ready or you feel you “deserve” to be called a success, you might never make it. The key is to get started now and become high achievers together.