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Parenting Fundamentals - Part 2: Self-Esteem and Resilience

Welcome to Part 2 of a 3 Part Series on Parenting. My hope in writing about these fundamentals is to help set you up for more self-trust and confidence and enjoy your motherhood journey more.

I've been intrigued by the concept of Motivation ever since I was a little girl with my piano practicing and later with my music teaching studio.

A personal story

I was told my whole life I am 'talented, gifted at music,' etc., and while it felt good to be told those things, it also built some anxiety inside of me if I didn't perform well.

I started competing in piano competitions in the fifth grade. At first, it was fun because I won all the time. It was easy. I was praised a lot by my teacher and my parents and my grandmother. I loved all the attention, and I loved those ribbons and special certificates. One of my piano judges wrote the words, "I can tell you mean business when you sit down to play the piano..." and I took those words to heart. I loved getting praise.

But somewhere in the...

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Motivation : It Doesn't Work the Way You Think

 

 The Quest for Motivation - story of Ghengis Khan

 

I want to start with a quick story: Do you remember learning about Ghengis Khan in school? Yeah, me neither. I actually learned about him when I taught my kids in our homeschool, and I was intrigued by him. 

 

I would consider him a human with high motivation. In Mongolia, they have a word that describes creative passion. The word is Temul, and it comes from the root of the name, Temujin - who is also known as Ghenghis Khan. Temujin and Ghengis Khan are the same person. The word Temul has a poetic translation in Mongolian culture, they describe it as “the look in the eye of a horse that is racing where it wants to go, no matter what the rider wants.”

 

I love that description. I’ve seen that look in a horse’s eye before. It’s a little scary, honestly. Because there is NOTHING that is going to deter that horse from its path. Sometimes a fear will spook the horse into...

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Generating Motivation on Purpose

My music students have asked me over the course of years I’ve taught music lessons how to cultivate motivation to practice when they don’t feel like it. I love it when they ask me this because it means they’re ready to ‘level up’ in their musical abilities.

 

Many of you know I'm a classically trained pianist. I used to practice for three to four and sometimes upwards of six hours a day while studying piano performance in college on scholarship.

I didn't want to practice, but did it anyway out of sheer grit.

And then I burned out. And I burned out hard.

 

When my students ask me about motivation, I usually ask them some form of the question, “how do you want to feel about your music?” They almost always say, “I don’t know,” which to me is never a suitable answer.

 

I then follow up and say, “Don’t you want to be really good? Isn’t that what you’re going for by taking lessons from...

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