Hi everyone,

One of the greatest privileges I have is being able to teach kids in our karate classes and community. Helping them develop socially, emotionally, physically, and challenging them intellectually.

COVID-19 has brought many disruptions and opportunities to our lives. One of life’s key skills is that if self-discipline. What are you going to do with all your time to make sure you are not wasting it but making the most of it?

A great lesson to learn is one of “Easy choices lead to a hard life, but hard choices lead to an easy life.” In essence, some of the choices are easy and sound great but do not really lead to a successful mindset being developed. Things like “I don’t have school tomorrow so I will stay up late tonight.” “I don’t have to get up early as I don’t have school in the morning.”

And look sometimes the easy choice is the right choice. But the key is to create habits that are good habits that will last a lifetime. If you take the easy choice too often then it will be the habit which will lead to a hard life when you HAVE to get up and go to school or work.

Developing a good habit of going to bed at your normal time and having a good routine means that it is easy to continue this habit when times are challenging.

I hear you though, “Hey it is my choice and not everyone thinks it is a bad choice to stay up late and sleep in late.” Yes, that is true. But is it the right choice for you? Would you get more done and keep the boss happier leading to a pay rise or better work-life balance if you got up every day refreshed and ready to work hard? The goal you should look at is to develop good habits that lead to an easy life, not a hard life where you are late for work or too tired to work and the boss is always hassling you and you end up losing your job.

Another example is when your child wants the latest video game. We all know these items can be expensive. So a typical parent answer to this request is “no it costs too much. Maybe later.” A negative response and not one that fosters the creation of good habits. Look at this request as an opportunity to build a habit of discipline and delayed gratification. Teach your child the lessons of work and reward, of value. Develop a plan with them doing household chores, mowing lawns, washing cars etc to earn money.

They don’t need the video game they could just go out and play and not have to mow the lawns etc. But that is an easy choice. Taking this easy road, again and again, creates a habit that leads to a harder life in the long run.

Being able to understand and make hard choices in life is an extremely valuable life skill to have. There will always be bumps in the road of life. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody has the perfect lifestyle irrespective of social media presence. Making challenging and hard choices throughout your life will make life easier long term.

So what decisions are you making or putting in front of your children? Are you challenging them to make the harder choice now to live an easier life later?