How Committed Are You? The Chicken or The Pig
Hey parents, we just got done with a really awesome kid’s karate class. And I wanted to share a story. It is by one of my favorite authors and speakers, Zig Ziglar, and it is called, “The Chicken or The Pig”. The question that you always ask yourself is “Which are you, are you the chicken or are you the pig?” and here’s how it works. When you get up for breakfast in the morning and you go down to the table and sit down, you’ve got eggs and you’ve got bacon. So is the chicken, or is the pig more committed to breakfast? Well, naturally the pig is because the pig is a hundred percent in, The chicken lays the eggs and it’s off doing its thing, do it is only involved.
Where does this tie into helping our kids? What we are talking about is, are you interested or are you committed to doing whatever it is that you are doing right now? Let’s talk about karate. There is nothing wrong with just being interested in karate class, and there’s nothing wrong with being fully committed to karate class. Where the problem comes in is the gap in between and when people are switched. What I mean by that is somebody will say, you know what, I’m committed to karate, but then everything they do only shows interest. So are they really committed?
Parents can wonder sometimes if their child is committed to a particular goal. If the child is not showing that commitment, ask them, “Are you the chicken or the pig?” It’s a great, short way to program your child’s brain. They begin to ask themselves, “Am I truly doing my best right now?” And very often the answer is no.
We have a Black Belt Camp coming up, and this one is going to be unique becuase of the COVID19 situation. There are only 10 spots available and there are 15 candidates for camp. So, are you interested in Black Belt Camp or are you committed to Black Belt Camp? That thinking starts to make a big difference because, if you’re not one of the top 10, you’re not going to be invited to camp. I don’t have a spot for you because we have limited spots here in the karate school.
We want to make sure that we’re teaching the kids how to be committed to whatever it is they’re doing if they want committed results from that activity.
Now, the best thing is to start applying this outside of karate as time goes on. I would absolutely expect somebody on a trial membership, a white belt, and maybe even a yellow belt to only be interested in martial arts. But by the time you start getting up around red belt, it’s time to start being committed because you’ve done a lot of the work and we want to make sure you continue to be successful.
Now let’s think about that with other things. Are you interested in school or are you committed to school? Are you interested in being healthy or are you committed to being healthy? Tell your child the story about the chicken and the pig and decide.
There is nothing wrong with saying, “You know what? I’m only interested in this. So I’m just checking it out. I’m going to tryit”. Or saying, ” Guess what? I’m committed to this, so I need to give everything I’ve got to make sure I get the result that I want.”
Another version of this story is, imagine that you decide that you want to get stronger. So to do that, you are going to do a total of a hundred pushups, but you’re going to do those pushups over the next hundred days. Are you really committed to getting stronger? If you decide tht you are going to do a hundred pushups and get those done this week or in the next three days, or get them done today. That’s somebody that’s really going to be committed and you’re going to see the results.
Ultimately what I’m trying to get you to understand is don’t just be interested and then be frustrated when you’re not getting committed results. Teach your child to be committed if they want committed results.
If they’re just interested, then you’re going to have different expectations and less frustration because you are just trying the activity.