When we drive a car, a lot of the time we aren’t doing much. We just keep doing what we are doing. Then we turn slightly with a curve or take the foot off the gas and brake to a stop. The clues, indicators or triggers are somewhat minimal: dashed lines, curves, a stop sign, …. and just a few other things are all we need to pay attention to. These are triggers or control points when we have to do something. When a person wants to go to medical school, he knows he has to have good grades, pass tests with a high score, write an essay and sell himself at an interview. Let’s get a plan: Go to school and hope for the best! Yikes! I hope not. No, we need to train ourselves with study skills and speed reading. We need to takes “test taking skill” course and prep. We need to develop vocabulary. We need to practice writing essays. We need to do interview prep. …… there is lots to do to be able to take advantage of our “control points”. We train them so we execute these control points perfectly, automatically, naturally.
A kid from a laborer’s family, may have the plan: “hope for the best.” But a kid from a doctor’s family, they know to have a strategy, a plan to be able to take advantage of the “control points”. There is no, “hope for the best” There is a strategy, a plan, a training, a practice to ensure this kid will be a doctor.
Just like a driver’s license, there is no hope for the best. To get a driver’s license, you need to practice and prepare and prove with a written and driver’s test. Does this person know how to use the “control points” to get to their destination safely? Hope for the best! NO WAY! Go practice and prepare and get those automatics, habits machines to take advantage of your “control points” correctly and predictable safe. The results need to be automatic and natural.
There are a variety of strategies or plans to become a doctor. Because there are different ways, doesn’t mean there is no plan or strategy that has “control points”, that must be trained for or habit machines built to handle the situation or “control point”. When you clarify and set the goal, get a plan and strategy, the “control points” pop up.
In school many children never learn to write legibly. This means they must type or somehow word process their written assignments. With verbal interaction, grammar isn’t near so important as in written form. Vocabulary is a “control point” used for distinction, variety, but most importantly communication. Sentence structure and length are control points. The teachers know these control points and attempt to teach them. But there is no strategy or plan that the student has that it figures into. They simply complain: “Why do I have to learn that?” “Why is that so important?”
Without a goal or destination, none of this “control point” stuff makes sense. Driver’s License, Medical School, …… any goal has control points? How far in advance should a person be strategizing or planning? Day to day? Week to week? Year to Year? When should a kid start to look at future destination and develop themselves to handle the control points. When should they start to see these control points and see them as important.
I’m here. I want to go over there. My strategy and plan is this. The are 20 control points. The habits or machines I have to develop are ….. And you list the control points. But what if you don’t really set goals or set objectives, how do you know what habits to develop? Just all of them, sort of good like the English teacher or very specific ones like the medical student?
WOW! Sounds like a lot of work. My niece’s daughter was applying to a school and the whole family was nervous and praying for a good outcome. The tension was high and the my niece had the question: What character do you want your child to have when she graduates from 8th grade. She was applying for kindergarten and they wanted to know what character they wanted when she graduated by 8th grade? YIKES!
Me, I know would have been flabbergasted by the question. I’m just going to raise my son the best I can and we’ll see what happens. …. The best I can. …… see what happens! There are no control points in goals like that. Control points pop out when a goal is set. What habit machines are important to develop? Me, I seemed to be saying, “I guess the ones that rub off off from me, my family, culture, society should be good enough.”
We have these goals of being as good as us or better. We are counting on our automatic to just rub off from us as parents. Yes, those habit machines most likely will rub off and are probably good,,, but will they take our children to their dreams, … or some certain destination, … NEVER! … that machinery or control points only show up when the dream or goal is clarified.
. Remember we went: “WOW, that’s a lot of work!” That just means we don’t have that machinery clarify a dream or goal. We may also not have good research, analyzing, strategizing or planning machinery. That’s why we say “WOW”. We are just stuck with hope and be jolly, until we develop this strategy, plan, control point, train and develop machinery into a real system that is automated.
It’s just practice, like getting a driver's license. In this case it would be a “you can be whatever you want to be!” license. That not only sounds good, it works! I didn’t have that license and I felt stuck, not bad stuck, just stuck without being able to get in control. I couldn’t find any control points, because I wasn’t brave enough to clarify and set a goal.
I didn’t feel capable. I didn’t realize when you first start anything you aren’t capable. You are setting the goals to let the control points pop up. You might not have any machinery for them. You just have to develop them. You have to train and practice. You become capable by training and practice, but you now have “control points” to guide you. It’s just natural with time and practice you get good at things. You become capable! Set the goal, create the strategy and plan, find the control points, practice and train, get to your destination.
This is a whole set of machinery: Set the goal, create the strategy and plan, find the control points, practice and train, get to your destination. Start building this system of machines early. Start training this when they are young children. By 8th grade let them be a person who is in charge of many aspects of their life. They have goals, plan and strategize, see control points, train and develop themselves and take them selves where they want to go. Let them be the person in control of their lives, a person with a “you can be whatever you want to be” license.
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