Kids find all kinds of tricks to do as little as possible in school. If you walk slowly between classrooms you can miss a minute more of the next class. If you’re supposed to finish 10 math problems during a lesson, you make sure that you don’t finish them sooner. Because if you finish them sooner, the teacher might give you more work.
As adults, we continue along those lines. An office worker with a job that is not meeting her needs, can make tasks last twice as long. No need to finish before the deadline, because then the boss might give you more work.
So we hold back. We don’t show our best work. We don’t show what we truly can accomplish.
Except if you’re an artist. An artist doesn’t say that she wants to paint fewer paintings. She paints because she wants to. A composer doesn’t say that she wants to compose fewer songs. She composes music because she wants to.
Even if we’re not painting or composing, we can all become artists. We can become artists at what we do, no matter what we do. Show up at your work, ready to take on today’s challenges the best you can. Motivate your kids to do the same at school. Stop holding back.
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