We like what we're good at

Choose anything you want and take it where you want to go. (NASA photo)

I have good news!

Parents, you can stop overthinking your kids’ activities.

Teachers, you can feel free to stop bending over backwards to make your subject kid-friendly. 

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter that much what you put in front of kids: The activities, the school subjects, and so on. 

What we have repeated exposure to becomes familiar. We like what’s familiar. 

Furthermore, we like what we’re good at. So it doesn’t matter much whether it’s fencing, chess, or bassoon, as long as we have a chance to get familiar with it and the support to learn it well.

So many parents I speak to are hunting for their child’s passion. They’re looking for that something that their child will spark to and invest many happy hours in. 

This is backward. The passion comes from successful investment of effort. Theoretically, it’s possible to become passionate about anything that we have enough exposure to and early success with.

We have a bizarre cultural myth, explored and debunked thoughtfully by people like Cal Newport and Malcolm Gladwell, that that we each have a calling (or perhaps a God-given gift) that we are here to discover. It’s a load of crap. In real life, there is no Ollivander’s Wand Shop or Hogwarts’ sorting hat that will tell us what our destiny is or give us the tools we need to make it happen. It’s up to us what we invest in.

Virtually anyone can become competent (maybe not the best, but competent) at virtually any skill. When I taught piano lessons, I wasn’t looking for talent or even interest. I simply worked to create some early successes with each person and sought to build upon that foundation. Everyone was able to grow, to the extent that they put forth the effort.

Not only can we find success in any skill, any discipline will reward lifelong effort. There is no ceiling or endpoint in most fields of study — a person can spend their entire life doing research on banana slugs and still find more to discover.

The array of infinite possibilities before us does not hamper our ability to find the one thing we are meant to do. On the contrary, it means that we have infinite opportunities to develop and pursue a passion — any passion. We have so many ways to be successful and joyful.

For kids, it’s critical to foster early success; without this, an activity is too difficult to be enjoyable. We have to make sure that the early experiences with an activity are designed to build a positive association with it. As we repeat this process with various activities, kids will actually develop a positive association with learning itself — they become passionate about gaining knowledge and skills, creating a virtuous cycle.

Unfortunately, too many people have not had these early positive experiences with learning. To them, trying something new is a source of emotional pain that brings up a sense of failure and defeat. This leads them to dabble in activities without much investment of effort, which leads to a lack of success and reinforces their sense of incompetence. Correcting this problem is not easy, and it should be prevented by making sure that the person sticks with an activity long enough to benefit from it, ideally under the guidance of a trusted teacher or coach who knows exactly how to generate success.

So pick a sport, a musical instrument, a craft, and a cause. You (and your kids) can find satisfaction, challenge, and meaning with any of them. Don’t like it at first? Stick with it long enough to be good at it, and eventually you will be.