Dr. Jim Taylor's blog

One of your most important goals as a parent is to raise children who become independent and self-reliant people. Certainly, in early development, your children count on you. As infants, they rely on you for nourishment, cleaning, and mobility. As your children grow, they become more self-reliant in these basic areas of living, but still depend on you for love, protection, guidance, and support. As your children reach adolescence and move toward adulthood, they become less reliant on you and gain greater independence in all aspects of their lives. This process of separation prepares your children for the demands of adulthood. But this progression toward adulthood is not inevitable and is often stymied by well-intentioned, but misguided, parents

Contingent Children

Contingent children are dependent on others for how they feel about themselves. Some parents want to foster this dependence. These parents act on their own needs for power and use control and coercion to ensure that they remain the dominant forces in their child’s life. Contingent children can be recognized in the following ways:

• Depend on others to provide them with incentive to achieve.
• Depend on others for their happiness because they have no ownership of their lives and little responsibility for their own thoughts, emotions, and actions.
• Reinforced without appropriate rewards and limits, and regardless of their behavior.
• Poor decision makers because their parents hold the belief that they always know what is best and make decisions without soliciting their children’s.

Independent Children

Independent children differ from contingent children in several essential ways. If your children are independent, you have provided them with the belief that they are competent and capable of taking care of themselves. You offered them the guidance to find activities that are meaningful and satisfying. You gave your children the freedom to experience life fully and learn its many important lessons. Independent children can be recognized in the following ways:

• Intrinsically motivated because they are allowed to find their own reasons to achieve.
• Were given the opportunity and guidance to explore achievement activities of their own choosing.
• Parents who use extrinsic rewards appropriately and sparingly.
• Collaborative rather than a controlled relationship with their parents in which the children’s ideas and wishes are solicited and considered.
• Good decision makers because they were allowed to consider various options and, with the support and guidance of their parents, make their own decisions.

Parent and Children Responsibilities

At the heart of whether you will be raising a contingent or independent child is that you understand the essential responsibilities that you and your child need to accept. Taylor’s Law of Family Responsibilities states that if family members fulfill their own responsibilities and do not assume others’, then children develop into independent people and everyone is happy.

Your Responsibilities

Your responsibilities revolve primarily around providing your children with the opportunity, means, and support to pursue their goals. The psychological means include providing love, guidance, and encouragement in her efforts. The practical means include ensuring that your child has the materials needed, proper instruction, and transportation, among other logistical concerns.

Your Children’s Responsibilities

Your child’s responsibilities relate to doing what is necessary to maximize the opportunities that you give them. These responsibilities include giving their best effort, being responsible and disciplined, staying committed, and giving an achievement opportunity a realistic try, as well as, completing all tasks and exercises, getting the most out of instruction, being cooperative, and expressing appreciation and gratitude for others’ efforts.

Types of Contingent Children

I have been identified five types of contingent children. All of the them are created in similar ways. Children develop a particular contingent style depending on their temperament and that of their parents.

Pleasers

Pleasers will do everything they can to get the love and attention they crave. Pleasers may often be perceived as model children who are successful and exceptionally giving to others. Yet in pleasing others, they often neglect their own needs and, as a result, are unfulfilled and unhappy.

Disappointers

Disappointers are nonachievers who never live up to expectations. They are usually bright and demonstrate promise in a number of areas, for example, they often score highly on IQ and achievement tests, yet they rarely accomplish anything. Disappointers relieve the pressure they feel from their parents by simply not trying. Disappointers avoid their parents’ expectations by sabotaging themselves, for example, with lack of effort or avoidance of the achievement activity, or significant problem behavior such as drug use or criminal misconduct.

Reactors

Reactors do the exact opposite of whatever their parents want them to do. Parents often interpret this behavior as independence, but in actuality, Reactors are highly dependent on their parents, in a paradoxical way. Reactors feel controlled by their parents and feel powerless to directly assert themselves against their constraints. Reactors wait to see what their parents want them to do and then they choose the course that is in direct opposition to it. This reactive behavior usually emerges in the form of nonconformist dress, poor grades, “unacceptable” peer relations, and, possibly, alcohol and drug use.

Frustrators

Frustrators cause tremendous frustration in their parents. Frustrators are not “bad kids” and they rarely getting into trouble. They do fairly well in school and in other achievement settings, yet they are often viewed as underachievers who don’t perform up to their ability. For example, a Frustrator might get a B+ rather than putting in a little extra effort to get an A in a class, or be named as an alternate to perform in a musical recital, or lose a tightly contested sports competition.

Rejecters

Rejecters refuse their parents’ expectations, choosing a course of his own in spite of their parents’ objections. Rejecters do not simply react by choosing the opposite, but rather thoroughly discard whatever their parents have to offer. Rejecters may be viewed as the most healthy and adaptive of the five kinds of contingent children because they have separated from their parents and become autonomous and self-directed people. But Rejecters pay a price for their extreme disengagement by discarding even the positive contributions their parents made.

Raise Independent Children

Independence is not something that your children can gain on their own. They have neither the perspective, experience, or skills to develop independence separately from you. Rather, it is a gift you give your children that they will cherish and benefit from their entire lives. You can provide your child with several essential ingredients for gaining independence:

• Give your children love and respect.
• Show confidence in your child’s capabilities.
• Teach them that they have control over their lives.
• Provide guidance and then the freedom to make their own decisions.

Teach Responsibility

One of your tasks as the parent is to teach your children about responsibility. The best way to ensure that you and your children assume the appropriate responsibilities is for each of you to know what your responsibilities are. If you and your children have a clear understanding of what is expected of each of you, then it will be easier to stay within the confines of those responsibilities.

Make a list of what you as a parent will be doing to help your children succeed. Then, make a list of what your children’s responsibilities should be in their own efforts. Next, identify other individuals who will have responsibilities (and what they are) in your children’s achievement activity, such as teachers, instructors, or coaches.

There should also be consequences for not fulfilling responsibilities. The best consequences are those that remove something of importance to your children and give them the control to get it back by acting appropriately. This process provides absolute clarity to both you and your children about what your “jobs” are. It also allows for no confusion at a later point when either of you step over the line and assume the other’s responsibilities or neglects their own.

Demand Accountability

Many parts of our culture send a message to children that nothing is their fault. Whether rationalizing bad behavior, looking for scapegoats on which to blame misfortune, or faulting others for their failures, children are constantly told that they do not need to be responsible for their actions. Yet, the ability of children to hold themselves accountable for their actions is a critical part of becoming independent.

The reluctance of children to take responsibility for their actions is based on their desire to protect themselves from failure. By blaming outside factors, such as other people, bad luck, or unfairness, children can safeguard their egos from harm.

Encourage Exploration

Early in your children’s lives, you need to keep them on a fairly short “leash” to ensure their safety. This care builds your child’s sense of security by teaching them that they have a safe place to return to if they venture too far and that you are there to protect them when needed.

There is, however, a fine line between security and dependence. When your children have established their sense of security, you must then encourage them to explore the world beyond the safety net that you provide. This “push out of the nest” allows your children to test their own capabilities in the “real world” and to find a sense of security and independence within themselves.

Now that you have an understanding of Prime Sport from my previous issues of Prime Sport Alert! (if you missed them, click here), you can begin the process of achieving it. The first step involves gaining a better understanding of yourself as an athlete. This self-understanding then results in greater improvement and better performance. Becoming the best athlete you can is complicated. You probably have a busy life filled with sports, school, work, family, social life, and other activities. It’s difficult to find time to do everything. By understanding yourself, you’ll know what you need to work on to be efficient and focused in your efforts.

In developing greater self-understanding, you must recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Most athletes love to focus on their strengths, but don’t like to admit that they have weaknesses. This attitude will limit your development. Most athletes think that they’re as good as their greatest strengths. For example, a tennis player believes that his power and height advantage will enable him to win and that his lack of quickness and consistency won’t hurt him. The truth is, however, that you are only as good as your biggest weakness. Returning to that example, if the player’s opponent is fast and a good counterpuncher, his power and height can be neutralized and his lack of speed and consistency may determine the outcome of the match-up.

Think of athletic strengths and weaknesses as a mathematical equation. On a scale of 1-10 where a 1 is very poor and 10 is the best, if a basketball player is a good shooter (8), but a poor defender (2), her over-all performance would be moderate (8+2=10). If she focused on and improved her shooting (from 8 to 9), she wouldn’t improve that much over all because, already a capable shooter, there isn’t much room for improvement (9+2=11). But if she improved your defense (from 2 to 7), then her overall performance would rise significantly (8+7=15). Of course, you want to continue to build your strengths, but the more you improve your weaknesses, the higher your over-all performances and the more successful you will be.

Why Prime Sport Profiling?

A difficulty with dealing with the mental aspects of sport is that they’re not tangible or easily measured. If you want to learn what are your physical strengths and weaknesses, you can go through a physical-testing program that gives you objective data about your physical condition. Think of Prime Sport profiling as physical testing for the mind. It makes mental issues related to your sport more concrete.

It’s important for you to have an open mind with Prime Sport profiling. Rather than being uncomfortable with facing your weaknesses, you should be willing to consider the information in a positive and constructive way. When weaknesses are identified, it doesn’t mean that you’re incapable of performing well. It may be that you haven’t had to use these skills at your current level or you’ve been able to hide them with the strengths you have. But the information you gain from Prime Sport profiling will enable you to improve and you’ll have a better chance of achieving your goals.

Completing the Prime Sport Profile

The Prime Sport profile is comprised of 12 mental, emotional, and competitive factors that impact sports performance. To complete the Prime Sport profile, read the description of each factor and rate yourself on a 1-10 scale, then follow the instructions for evaluating your score and developing an action plan to build your strengths and alleviate your weaknesses.

Motivation – How determined you are to train and compete to achieve your athletic goals. (1-not at all; 10-very)

Confidence – How strongly you believe in your ability to achieve your athletic goals. (1-not at all confident; 10-totally confident)

Intensity – Whether your physical intensity helps or hurts your competitive performances. (1-hurts, too anxious or too relaxed; 10-helps, just right)

Focus – How well you’re able to stay focused on performing your best and avoid distractions. (1-distracted; 10-focused)

Emotions – Whether you have control over your emotions and they help you perform well or you lose control of your emotions and they hurt your competitive performances. (1-lose control, hurt; 10-have control, help)

Consistency – How well you’re able to consistently maintain a high level of performance during competitions.  (1-not at all inconsistent; 10-very consistent)

Routines – How much you use routines in your preparations including in training, and before and during competitions. (1-never; 10-often)

Competitor – How you perform in competitions as compared to training. (1-much worse; 10-much better)

Adversity – How you respond to difficult conditions you’re faced with during competitions. (1-poorly; 10-well)

Pressure – How you perform in difficult competitive situations, such as when you are behind. (1-poorly; 10-well)

Ally – Whether you are your best ally or your worst enemy during a competitions. (1-enemy; 10-ally)

Prime Sport - How often you achieve and maintain your highest level of competitive performance.  (1-never; 1- often)

Using Your Prime Sport Profile

Having completed the Prime Sport profile, you now have a clear picture of what you believe to be the mental strengths and weaknesses in your sport. Typically, a score below a 8 indicates an area on which you need to work. Place a ? next to each factor that you scored as less than a 8. These are the factors that you’ll want to consider working on in your Prime Sport program.

From those checked factors, select three to focus on in the immediate future. It doesn’t make sense to deal with every one that you need to strengthen. You’ll just become overloaded and won’t give adequate attention to any of them. It’s best to focus on a few, strengthen them, then move on to others.

The question is, if you have more than three factors on which you need to work, which ones should you choose? The decision should be based on several concerns. First, you should look at which ones are most important for your long-term development. Just like working on the physical and technical aspects of your sport, you should focus on the factors that will help you in the long run. Second, some weaknesses are symptoms of other weaknesses. By dealing with one factor, another one can be relieved without having to work on it directly. For example, you may not handle pressure well because you lack confidence. By building your confidence, you also improve your ability to handle pressure. Third, you need to balance your immediate training and competitive needs with your long-term development. You may have an important competition coming up for which you need to be ready. For example, you may decide that you need to improve your focus and intensity immediately even though working on your motivation and confidence will be more important in the future.

On a blank sheet of paper, indicate the three mental factors you want to focus on in the near future. By reading one of my Prime Sport book series (general sport, tennis, golf, ski racing, learn more), another of the many excellent sport-psychology books that are available, or the articles you can read free of charge on my Web site (learn more), you can learn about techniques and exercises that will help you strengthen the areas you’ve selected. By setting goals for the areas you want to improve on and developing an action plan of how to achieve those goals, you can systematically develop the areas you’ve identified in your Prime Sport profile.

You can also use Prime Sport Profiling to measure progress in your training. Periodically, perhaps every few months, complete the profile and compare it with your past profiles. You should see improvement in the areas on which you’ve worked. Also, ask your coaches about positive changes they’ve seen in those areas. When your ratings move to an 8 or above, select other factors to work on and follow the same procedure.

I assume you’re reading Prime Business Alert! because you’re looking for every edge to get ahead and you have learned that the psychological aspects of business are essential to your success.  I’m going to assume that you already work hard and you believe that you’re doing everything you can to achieve your goals.  Yet is there more to be done? I say, absolutely! So I want to present to you the Prime Business Challenge to see if you can take your efforts to a new and higher level.

Why Prime Business Challenge?

The Prime Business Challenge, in its most basic form, is to RAISE THE BAR! Why the need for the Prime Business Challenge, you may ask.

In the last decade, there has a been a tectonic shift in the business world. With the emergence of international competition and the advent of new technologies, we live in a truly global marketplace where not only do companies have more competition from more places than ever before, but individual businesspeople do as well. As the best-seller author, Thomas Friedman, suggests, “the world is flat.”

In this highly competitive and demanding environment, there is no room for less than maximum effort and stratospheric goals. Ask yourself what your competition is doing right now. Because if you’re not doing everything you can to succeed, the chances are that there is someone out there, either in the U.S., China, India, or another country, who is willing to do what it takes.

Here’s a simple axiom: If you keep doing the same thing, you will continue to stay where you are. The Prime Business Challenge will stimulate growth by creating greater commitment, energy, and focus in your efforts. The Prime Business Challenge will motivate you to get to the next level and, to get to that next level, you can’t just do more of the same harder and longer, you must do something different.

New Performance Mindset

A performance mindset is the attitude and expectations you hold about your performance and productivity. In my work with businesspeople and companies, I have often seen a performance mindset that was self-referenced (meaning you compare yourself only with your own past performance) and that could be bet characterized as having a focus on “reasonable” progress. For example, one company I worked with was content with annual growth of 5-15 percent in a global industry that was growing at a much faster rate. The goal of reasonable progress is, of course, reasonable success. Perfectly reasonable, wouldn’t you agree? The benefits to reasonable growth is that it is safely attainable with little risk. If you aim for reasonable growth, you have a very high probability of success. But the costs can include progress that is too slow to keep up with your competitors.

The Prime Business Challenge dares you to change your performance mindset. I want you to raise the bar in your performance mindset by striving for “unreasonable” progress, which means higher standards, more aggressiveness in pursuit of your goals, and generally getting out of your performance comfort zone. Also, if possible, create a competitor point of reference in your performance mindset, which means identifying your biggest competitors and working to surpass them. The goal of unreasonable progress is “spectacular success.” The benefits of attempting unreasonable progress are a sense of purpose and excitement, as well as the possibility of spectacular success. The costs include more effort and stress, higher risk of failure, and the possibility of disappointment in not achieving such success.

The thought of unreasonable progress and spectacular success can be, at the same time, energizing and intimidating. Great success is, I’m sure, what you want, yet you also don’t want to fail. But to mitigate whatever anxiety you may feel about striving for something that is unreasonable, I can state with great confidence that if you commit fully to such a lofty goal, though you may not achieve spectacular success, you will far exceed your reasonable progress and success.

Obstacles to the Prime Business Challenge

The Prime Business Challenge wouldn’t be a challenge if it were easy or free of obstacles. There are three obstacles that I find more prevalent in my work with businesspeople and companies.

• Comfort and complacency. When you’ve done something the same way for many years, it’s easy to get comfortable and settled in your ways. And your current  approach may have worked pretty well (i.e., reasonable success), so it’s also easy to get complacent.

• Fear of change. Few people like change; it’s unpredictable and you can never be sure how you will change or what the result will be. So it’s safer and easier to just keep doing what you’re doing rather than face the uncertainty of change.

• Inertia. Newton’s First Law of Motion, inertia is defined as “a body in motion tends to remain in motion and a body at rest tends to remain at rest unless a force is exerted on it.” People are also subject to inertia, such that you will stay in your current state of performance and productivity unless some force—a change— is exerted on you.

Needs For the Prime Business Challenge

To meet the Prime Business Challenge, you must understand and fully develop every area that impacts your work performance.

• Knowledge. From education and experience, you will gain an understanding of all of the relevant knowledge areas in your work. Typical business knowledge areas include finance, products, services, sales, marketing, and competitors.

• Skill sets. Regardless of your specific professional focus, it’s likely that you need some combination of goal setting, preparation, time management, organizational skills, communication, and teamwork.

• Psychology. Spectacular success in business begins and ends inside your head. Developing mental areas, such as motivation, confidence, focus, and emotions, are essential for maximizing your performance and productivity.

• Support. Success in the business world rarely comes without help. Important support areas include collegial relationships, mentoring, coaching, training, encouragement, problem solving, and feedback.

Meet the Prime Business Challenge

Meeting the Prime Business Challenge is a deliberate process that involves understanding what you need to do to take your performances to the next level and then taking active steps to get there.

• Be “unreasonable.” To achieve spectacular success, you have to be a little unreasonable, which means setting expectations and goals that are a bit out of reach.

• Understand what you are selling. What—or who—you are selling is yourself! To best position yourself for spectacular success, know what your capabilities are and what added value you bring to your work.
• Understand your competitors. If you’re in a competitive marketplace—and who isn’t!—then you need to know your competitors, their knowledge, skill sets, and capabilities. With this data, you can develop strategies to set yourself apart from them.

• Identify obstacles. If, despite what appear to be your best efforts, you are not achieving your goals, you need to understand why. By identifying the obstacles that are holding you back, you can remove them to clear your path to spectacular success.

• Best practices. The best way to achieve spectacular success is to study and emulate those who have already attained such a lofty level. Just like young athletes studying elite athletes, you can identify the best people in your line of work, study what has made them successful, and develop those areas in yourself.

• “Gotta want it bad!” Of all the qualities I have seen in the many top performers with whom I have worked over the past 23 years in business, sports, medicine, and performing arts, the one absolutely essential attribute was an attitude in which they wanted it more than anyone else and they were willing to do anything necessary to achieve their goals.