From Chuck Taylor, Owner of Sage Garden Care Center

The close of summer is the second time in the year people tend to make resolutions. As students begin school, they and parents re-think about their lives and goals.

As parents watch their kids wrestle with growing older, embracing new challenges, and finding their identities, they too remember this process and consider what changes they could make.

Throw in the mix the possibility of starting over at a new school or in a community, and the anxieties can skyrocket. Each year more families move to new regions of the country. These moves bring their own set of challenges and stress. And, while it is easy to say that starting over can be a good thing, to a child the fears can outweigh the benefits.

Some Practical Steps

Therefore, here are 3 practical steps to help children, especially teens (this is good for adults also) focus on the good they want to get out of a new experience, with new relationships, in a new community.

1.     Eulogy exercise: This morbid concept is a brilliant tool introduced by Steven Covey. It simply asks, “When you die, what would you like people to say about you?” Once you have mapped out your funeral speeches, you must then ask, “Am I living in such a way that people would think to say these things about me?”  The teen who wants to be remembered as a thoughtful and caring person, may need to put down their phone and start engaging people more.

2.     Live Intentionally: I have little issue with social media.  It is a tool that serves a purpose, and when used as a tool, it can be quite helpful. However, the danger of social media is that it can pre-occupy the time we would otherwise spend living our lives with purpose.  If you want to advance in your career, go talk to the people who are doing what you want to do. If you want to “be successful” consider how much time you devote to the soap operas played out on social media, then actively and intentionally pursue your dreams.

3.     Work Hard: A recent study showed that when students were praised for how well they performed a task or how intelligent they were on a project their anxiety levels shot up. They feared they may have tapped out the limits of their knowledge and must now become even “smarter” to continue receiving praise.  However, students who were praised for how hard they worked keep pushing themselves to succeed more and more. This holds true for adults.  Praise yourself and your children for working hard, NOT academic success.  Employers rarely asks about the grades you got in school, they want to know about your work ethic.  I’ll take the “C” student that never gives up over the “A” student that will only work as long as they are winning any day of the week.

Contact Sage Garden Care Center  

This is a great time to leverage success in your life.  Go be you and have fun with it.  Work hard and if you need a little help getting over some of life’s humps, I know some great coaches at Sage Garden Care Center who would be honored to help (wink and a smile)!  You can contact Chuck and his team at 336-734-9476.

About Chuck

Chuck has over 20 years of experience in communication training and development. Using his vast history in ministry work, he pulls in stories, examples, resources, and knowledge to equip people to leverage their strengths for the success they aspire to achieve.

Chuck has worked in many stressful and difficult situations and understands how to help people navigate the waters of uncertainty to finds healthy solutions to their struggles. Chuck has served in almost every area of church ministry, been elected to and served on a local town board, served as the campaign chair for the United Way, and served on other boards within his community.