Some people don’t really know what it is they want. Many define what they want by stating what they don’t want. The result, they get exactly what they don’t want. Why because instead of focusing on what they do want they are focused on what they don’t want. I recently discovered this while having a disciplinary discussion with our eleven year old daughter. The discussion was about her behavior and why it is wrong. What’s funny about this is we had this exact same discussion less than sixty days prior.
During this discussion I realized that my daughter did not think she was doing anything wrong, she believed she was acting according to what was acceptable for an eleven year old. I had to think about this for a bit because she did not understand that it is not ok to misbehave. I got the idea to use an example and ask her what she thought about it.
I said, “A person robs a bank, is caught and goes to jail. As soon as that person gets out they rob another bank is caught and goes to jail again. Gets out robs yet another bank and goes to jail. What do you think about this?” “There’s a problem,” was her answer....