The hidden truth behind why we are failing as adults

Most people when asked what the opposite of happiness is, might respond with "depression, gloom, sadness, misery, unhappiness or sorrow" In my opinion, when you are not happy, you are empty. You lack direction and purpose. You feel like a boat adrift at sea without a rudder. You move through your days devoid of emotions that inspire you. You are simply living to tick the boxes just to start the day all over again tomorrow. 

So often adults make bad decisions based on belief systems created in their childhood and they form opinions, incorrect assumptions and skewed perceptions because they are unaware of any other way.

Whether living homeless on the streets or in a palatial mansion, purpose can be found. Adults think that they know the recipe but yet how many are walking around as zombies, empty and lacking in meaning? They have all the trappings of wealth but they are slaves to the machine and they have forgotten their inherent need to love and live an inspired life. 

Some of these adults who become parents, do their utmost best to cultivate happiness in their children and sometimes this reflects as a power imbalance of toys, possessions and expensive holidays or experiences and the best schools but very little quality time spent together.

If we look at adult mental health, it is estimated that 50% of adults were diagnosed with mental health problems in childhood. I believe that the problems that are currently overflowing into adulthood can be prevented.

Broken adults come from broken children. Broken society comes from broken adults. Be the change. 

Why wait until children look back on their childhood, and wish some things had been different? Different parents? A better education? More support? Better health? Better friends? Better choices? Why let them blame their childhood experiences for their repetitive patterns of destructive behaviour when they become adults? Why let them turn into grown ups who abandon their dreams and settle for mediocre because life dealt them a set of cards they didn’t know how to play? 

I believe that every single adult has the power within them to coach a child by using their own personal experiences to inspire children to overcome their obstacles. This gives purpose and meaning to life! It does however take commitment to first clearing your own misplaced perceptions about your own life before you can help children clear theirs. I see great benefit in adults being educated in the skills for not only picking up when a child is at risk, but also to prevent things before they start going drastically wrong. 

Did you know that you are already an expert in childhood? I want to reassure you, that you don’t need to be a parent or have a psychology degree or have experience as a teacher, because you were a child once and this perfectly positions you to tap into your own inner child. The hidden truth behind why many adults are failing is because they have lost sight of their purpose. They don't know from day to day what they want from life. Yet, the biggest purpose can be found in carving out a legacy in the children who look up to you! No matter what context that is in.

Rest assured, there is no need to walk around as an adult professing to be the walking, talking billboard for responsibility and making good choices all of the time. If you have built your own life around being perfect, you are setting the children who are in your sphere of influence up for failure. You need to be authentic and true to yourself and the children who are watching. Being human is about being flawed so embrace this with grace and dignity.

Just like any great brand, you will make mistakes. Take Richard Branson’s failed business venture, Virgin Cola that declared a soft drink war on Coke. He said “I consider our cola venture to be one of the biggest mistakes we ever made - but I still wouldn’t change a thing.” We don’t remember him for his failure, but we remember him for his subsequent successes and the fact that he learnt from his mistake and moved along. 

Sugar Coating life for children does more damage than good

Life is about making mistakes, sometimes failing miserably, heartache and sadness. Sugar coating this for children will only set them up for disappointment when life does eventually knock them down. Because it will. Life is made all the richer when we learn from experience and it is often the hardest lessons that give us our biggest personal growth. 

The truth is that wrapping children in cotton wool by protecting them from the hard knocks of life is counterproductive. Not only is this disempowering, but it doesn’t help to build their immunity to future hardships which are inevitable in life and help to build their resilience. 

We all have positive and negative stories from our own personal experiences as children and we need to use those to help children to have the best childhood they can. Rewriting the end of your story, is about taking the best parts of yourself and celebrating them with absolute reckless abandon. 

Rebranding childhood is about channeling your own negative or positive story as an adult to recreate a child's story.

Why is it that adults are still so scared of failing and why is it that we judge each other so heavily? All of us actually have one thing in common and that is to find happiness, yet we shy away from asking for help when we need it because we are scared of appearing weak. 

Just like children who are over exposed to adversity, those that are sheltered miss out on the opportunity to learn. We need to be telling them the truth behind the ugly truth and then some more truth. The same goes for you as an adult. To truly live your purpose, you need to surround yourself with supportive people who encourage you and uplift you. Ditch those who pull you down or who discourage you from living your dreams. You wouldn't want that for children, so why allow others to steer your ship?

As adults, we need to help children to ignite the fire inside them so that they can find their path to success by building their own personal brand from a young age. Think of any great brand that has become a household name - McDonald’s, Disney, Nike. 

How did they become famous? They had a strategy. Success in life is much the same. It is about managing our future aspirations and the only way to do this is to think, act and plan like a leader from the outset. It is never to late though and if you don't yet have a strategy, start today by sitting down and really reflecting on what you want for yourself in life.

The earlier we can get children thinking about who they are and what they want to be known for, the quicker they will succeed. Although success can be defined in broad brush strokes, ultimately it means to wake up each day feeling inspired to live life to the fullest. This can be perfectly true for both the billionaire with multiple companies lavishing in his yacht on the Med or the penniless surfer having the beach as his front yard and living a stress free life. Both are a success by their own definition as long as they are happy. 

Coaching children is about helping them to define themselves based on what they want and not other peoples expectations or demands. This starts with you as an adult, becoming the leader of your own life first based on creating a checklist of your core strengths and maximising them. Have you done this already? Or do you need to work on it? Remember children are watching and if you want them to be inspired, then you need to show them how!

Don’t make your bad choices, disappointments or regrets the catalyst for forcing children to walk a path that you had always wished for, but that may not be suitable for them.

So many young university students feel coerced into studying for a degree that they didn’t want to pursue in the first place. They were not given the luxury of making choices based on their hearts desire and this is often the deep seated cause of their eventual burn out resulting in them changing careers anyway. 

Building our life is not a one off thing. It is a lifelong process based on putting a solid foundation in place in childhood and extending, modifying and adapting that into adulthood. This is made up of spending time working out how to define yourself, without compromising your core values.

Rather than letting children blend into their discouraging mass of peers making bad choices just to be accepted, they need to create their own unique advantage for getting attention by coming up with their own value proposition for their life. I say this in the context of children because I am a Kids Life Coach, but you also deserve to have your own inner child encouraged and coached to live those dreams you have been keeping hidden for so long!

I am on a mission to change the way we look at the way childhood and adulthood are linked.

Rather than focus on what can go wrong, what has gone wrong or what is going wrong, and trying to fix it, we need to be focusing forward as adults and giving children a toolkit to build their own life of purpose. We were all put on this earth to leave a legacy by serving humanity and it doesn’t matter how young or how old, it starts with taking responsibility for our own life first.

I encourage you to banish the hidden truth and live your own life with purpose. Take the time to rebrand your own childhood by questioning your own belief systems if you need to so that you can show children how to actively do the same.

Let's face it there is no such thing as a perfect childhood and that is okay. My mantra is about ‘progress over perfection.’ Children need you to be the shining beacon of light that guides them to accountability for their own happiness by actively being a participant in life yourself. 

Changing our world doesn't mean we all have to be doing big things. Changing our world means us all doing small things consistently in our own lives.

Changing our world starts with one child at a time because that child could be our next:  Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley or Oprah Winfrey. 

We don't yet know the extent and reach of our influence, so every child no matter their circumstances, deserves to be uplifted in the same way. They need mentorship, guidance, unconditional love and acceptance to become the leaders of their own life. It all starts with you as an adult. You deserve your own mentorship, guidance, unconditional love and acceptance...but most of all you deserve to be living your purpose as the leader of your own life!

Regards with Zeal,

Zelna Lauwrens

Inspired Contributor to Children Globally Kids Life Studio? & Kids Life Coach Academy Founder