A way to reignite the love inside of you

My daughter is good at playing musical instruments, especially piano and guitar. But she didn’t want to play them anymore. As parents, we have been trying our best to ignite that love for her without success. Did we get frustrated? Yes. Were we upset? Yes. But upset and frustration would not help bringing her passion back. We knew that so we needed to find out something else to offer.

Let’s start by knowing why we are losing interest in something we once loved. It is a complex and multifaceted process and is influenced by various psychological, emotional, and situational factors. Familiarity can be one. When we do something over and over, the novelty and interest then wear off, making it feel less exciting, and a lot less engaging. A good friend of familiarity is routine, and, in this case, it just adds another layer to our boredom, eventually decreasing our enthusiasm. Lack of progress plays a role here too. When people don’t see any sign of improvement in what they are doing, they get frustrated, which soon leads to a loss of enthusiasm. Lack of challenge is another cause. Doing something too easy, or too predictable might lose its appeal. The influence from people in your circle also has a significant impact on our interests and it shapes how we find love in doing something and hate something else. Time causes us to change and the older we are, interests can shift. We didn’t know that burnout is another major in such situation too. When someone is no longer finding joy in something he or she once loved, it could be a sign of mental or emotional exhaustion.

So, as parents, being upset or being frustrated will not help us to understand and support our daughter. We chose to share stories. We chose to involve her in the process of creating her own stories. And here’s how. About eighteen months ago, I got a chance to interview a gentleman who is a wonderful leader, successful entrepreneur, and bestselling author of the book “Ten Year Plan: How the Founders of Tender Greens Scaled Their Heart-Centered Brand”. His name is David Dressler. He and his two best friends built their ten-year plan to bring the business to a hundred-million-dollar company. And they did it. That was a great example of how beautiful stories and long-term vision work. During lunch today, we shared with her about our conversation with David, and asked her to think of her own family ten years from now. We asked her to build that family up from scratch. Where will she live? How is she as a wife? Will she have children by then? And how is she as a mother? How would she want her children to spend their spare time? What will she teach them to enlighten their lives? How teaching her children will bring more joy and laughter to home? We asked many questions we could think off, and she kept on answering. That’s when her eureka moment appeared.

Our daughter realized that she could teach her children to play piano. She knew she could outsource that teaching to someone else, but the feeling would not be the same between her being the teacher and someone else is. Later in the day, we heard piano playing downstairs again after a few weeks. Mission accomplished!