You have a purpose. Your Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ know you and love you. You are and important part of Their work, and you can make a great impact on the world.
In January 2020, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is starting its new Children and Youth program. The purpose of this program is to better enable each one of us to develop our faith in Jesus Christ as we continue to improve and grow.
The new children and youth program is, by design, constructed in a way that is very open ended. This allows the program to be adapted to each person’s needs, situation, and culture.
The open ended nature of the new program can also leave you feeling like you don’t know where to start. You may worry about how to implement the program in your own life. The purpose of this article is to share ideas about several “tools” you can use to successfully implement the new children and youth program in your own life, family or ward.
A Brief Story
Before we review the new children and youth program and talk about tools to help you use it successfully, I want to share a brief story.
The Golden Buddha
Somewhere around the 13th or 14th century, in what is now Thailand, Buddist monks made an epic, giant, golden Buddha statue. It stood ten feet tall and weighed over 5.5 tons.
In 1767, Burmese invaders were approaching. They were destroying and looting all the temples so the monks covered the golden Buddha statue in plaster with some colored glass to conceal its true value. The trick worked and the statue was ignored by the invaders.
But the trick worked too well. Once the invaders were kicked out and the king reestablished order, the statue was moved around and always relegated to an insignificant spot in an insignificant temple. It was even placed under a simple tin roof for ten years!
Then, in 1955—nearly 200 years after it was originally covered in stucco—the statue was being moved to a new location when the ropes snapped and the statue fell to the ground. Hard. Some of the plaster chipped off—revealing the golden surface beneath the stucco.
Lo and behold, the 10 foot, 5.5 ton stucco statue is, in fact, nearly pure gold.
It is worth $250 million dollars.
(adapted from Brian Johnson at www.optimize.me)
As we consider the new children and youth program, it is important to understand it for what it is and what it is not.
The new program is not being put in place to burden us. It is also not intended to just keep us and our children and youth busy.
This program is not simply something to replace scouting and the other programs used in the past.
It is not a giant stucco Buddha.
This new program is a powerful tool to allow us to learn and grow individually. As we use it, each one of us will be able to see growth that we may have previously thought was unattainable.
It is the type of program that people around the world often pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to learn. But it is being given to all of us for free.
It is a giant golden Buddha.
The challenge for each of us is to recognize the new program as the blessing it is. When we do so, we can utilize it to the greatest effect in our own lives.
What is the New Youth Program?
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
The central premise of the new youth program is to follow the Savior’s example of growth and learning by creating and working towards goals.
Everyone who follows the program is encouraged to set goals in four key areas of their life: Spiritual, Social, Physical, and Intellectual. These goals should be personal and relevant to the individual or group setting the goal.
Unlike other common types of goals, like New Year’s Resolutions, these goals can be started at any time and can have whatever duration seems appropriate. Some goals may focus on events or challenges that are only weeks away, others may take months or years.
The new program suggests using the following pattern as you create and work towards goals:
- Discover: Determine what goals you want to work toward.
- Plan: Create a plan to achieve your goals.
- Act: Execute on your plan.
- Reflect: Review what you have learned.
You get to decide what goals you want to pursue and how you will evaluate your progress. And therein lies the challenge. How do you decide what goals you want to pursue and how will you track your progress?
For parents and leaders, we should consider how we can encourage and mentor the children and youth in your life? How can we help them see success as they work towards their goals?
The tools outlined in this article will help you gain the clarity you need to determine what goals will be the most valuable. They will also help you track your progress and help you achieve your goals.
Lead Them, Guide Them, Walk Beside Them
I am a child of God, and he has sent me here,
Has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear.
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do to live with him someday.
Before we discuss these tools, I think it is important that those of us who are parents and leaders of youth take a moment to consider how we can best serve the children and youth in our lives. How we can help them be successful.
The program encourages parents and leaders to allow children and youth to lead out in implementing and executing this program. This does not mean that we should stand idly by while our children try to figure things out on their own.
As parents and leaders, we need to teach and mentor our youth individually. We must teach them how to use the tools in this article.
It is easy to forget that we have each had to learn all of the skills that we may now take for granted. We are teaching and guiding children who likely do not understand the nuts and bolts of how to set and achieve goals. For some younger children, they might not even fully understand what the word “goal” means.
We need to model goal setting skills and help the youth around us practice and use those skills as well.
Lastly, I believe that this program was not only created for our children and youth, but is something that will greatly benefit everyone who follows it. Because of this we should all seek to follow this new program.
The best way for us to help our children and youth be successful is to show them a personal example of how to follow the new program by setting and working towards goals in our own lives.
Leading and teaching our children by example will allow all of us to see many more miracles in our individual lives. It will allow all of us to learn and grow together.
Tools for Success
A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.
As with most endeavors, using the proper tools will greatly increase your ability to find success with the new children and youth program.
No tool can guarantee success, but the right tools can make all the difference. But first, you must learn how to use the tools effectively. The rest of this article will outline several tools that can help you see success as you work towards your own personal goals and guide your children and youth as they work towards their goals.
We will review tools in the context of the Discover, Plan, Act, and Reflect pattern.
DISCOVER
But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.
The first step in any self-improvement process is to discover what you want to improve. In order for us to work to be better, we must first know what improvements we want to make.
These improvements might be the removal of bad habits, the development of new skills and knowledge, finding opportunities to serve, or whatever else we want to see in our future.
The tools in this section will help you discover what it is you want and clarify your vision for your future.
1. Prayer
Therefore ye must always pray unto the Father in my name; and whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be given unto you. Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.
As we work to improve and develop our skills and habits, it is important to remember that Our Heavenly Father wants what is best for us and will help us as we strive to improve.
Prayer allows us to call upon our Heavenly Father and ask for His help as we work to learn and grow.
Take the time to seek the help of your Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ through prayer. Pray every morning and night, and at other times as necessary and ask for guidance. Ask for clarity as you show your faith in following the council of the prophet by implementing the new children and youth program in your life.
Help the children and youth you work with to understand not only how to pray, but how to look for answers to prayers. Answers may come through impressions or thoughts that are given to us. They may come through the scriptures or the words of living prophets and gospel teachers. Answers may also come as new opportunities appear in our lives.
However the answers come, they usually come as the result of us asking our Father in Heaven for help through sincere prayer.
As you pray in faith, you will receive help in your life.
2. Journaling
If you should visit a ship in port and ask the captain for his port-of-call, he’ll tell you in a single sentence. Even though the captain cannot see his port, his destination, for full 99% of the voyage, he knows it’s there, and barring an unforeseen and highly unlikely catastrophe, he’ll reach it. All he has to do is keep doing certain things every day.
If someone asked you for your next port-of-call, your goal, could you tell him? Is your goal clear and concise in your mind? Do you have it written down? It’s a good idea. We need reminding, reinforcement.
I like this quote about knowing where you are going. It is important that we determine what we want out of life. Despite what movies try to teach us, life will rarely just deliver your dreams on your doorstep. More than that, knowing what your dreams are is rarely something that just happens. It takes effort and work.
If we are to find what we truly want in life, we are going to have to search and do some mental digging to find it. Journaling is one of the best ways to do this searching.
We have all heard about the importance of keeping a journal or a diary and of recording our personal history. That kind of journaling is important, but it is not the type of journaling I am referring to here.
Journaling is a powerful tool we can use to sort through our thoughts and feelings and gain clarity into what we want in life.
Your journal should be used to have a conversation with yourself. Write down your thoughts and hopes for the future. Take time to think through and answer questions like:
- What aspects of your life now do you wish were different?
- Which things in your life are you most grateful for?
- What do you want out of life?
- Which things are most important to you?
- What kind of person do you want to be?
- Who in your life can you help and serve and what can you do to serve them?
- What kind of legacy do you want to leave?
Use your journal to write about these and any other questions you feel are important. Have a conversation with yourself. Don’t worry about what others may think about what you are writing. This is not being done as a way to record your history, it is being done as a method for you to gain clarity.
As you consistently use journaling in this way, you will gain a greater understanding of yourself. Journaling will help you know what you want in your life. It will also improve your ability to identify impressions and guidance you receive from the Spirit along the way.
You will start to know what is truly important to you and how you want to build your life.
Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.
If you feel overwhelmed with how to start journaling in this way, there are many resources and journaling practices out there that may help you build momentum. Some of these include bullet journaling, gratitude journals, morning pages, and many others.
Which journaling practice you choose is not as important as finding one that works for you and then consistently using it to have that conversation with yourself.
3. What Lack I Yet?
The journey of discipleship is not an easy one. It has been called a “course of steady improvement.” As we travel along that strait and narrow path, the Spirit continually challenges us to be better and to climb higher. The Holy Ghost makes an ideal traveling companion. If we are humble and teachable, He will take us by the hand and lead us home.
In the Bible, we are told the story of a young man who was living an exemplary life. He was doing all the things that he had been taught to do. He came to Jesus Christ to ask the question, “What lack I yet?” and was told what he needed to do to improve.
Regardless of what your goals for the future might be, it is important to regularly ask this question of ourselves.
As you seek guidance through prayer and use journaling to have a conversation with yourself, your vision of that future will clarify. Take the time to review your progress and evaluate what you need to do next. Taking the time to ask “What lack I yet?”—and then listening to the guidance of the Holy Ghost—will help you to determine changes you need to make as you work to build the future you desire.
PLAN
Feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.
As our goals for the future begin to clarify, the next step is to create a plan that will not only allow us to achieve our goals, but will make the realization of our goals inevitable.
A goal without a plan is merely a wish, but a goal with a plan is a reality you can work to bring into existence.
The tools in this section will help you create a plan that will guide your day-to-day decision making and can give you the motivation to continue working towards your goals.
4. Vision
The type of person you want to become—what the purpose of your life is—is too important to leave to chance. It needs to be deliberately conceived, chosen, and managed. The opportunities and challenges in your life that allow you to become that person will, by their very nature, be emergent.
Having a clear vision of your desired future is one of the best ways to maintain your motivation as you work on your goals. The clearer your vision of the future, the more motivated you will be to work at making your vision a reality.
There are many ways you can create a clear vision of your future. One popular way is to use a vision board. To create a vision board start with a poster board. Next, find pictures, quotes, or words that remind you of the future you want to create and put them on a poster board. The vision board should then be placed where you will see it often. This will provide you with visual reminder of your goals.
For some people, a written reminder of their vision may be more effective than a vision board. In the book, Vivid Vision by Cameron Herold, he presents a method of writing out a 3-5 page vision document that describes your life 3 years in the future. The power of this method for clarifying your vision is that three years is far enough away to allow you time to make big changes, but close enough to feel like the actions you take daily are important.
To create a Vivid Vision document, write out descriptions of your life in various key categories. For the children and youth program, these could be the categories of spiritual, social, physical, and intellectual. Depending on your situation in life you can also add other categories that are important to you. Write a paragraph or two for each category describing your life from the perspective of your future self in three years. This will help you create a clear mental image of your future.
Once you have created your vision—whether a vision board or a vivid vision document—take time to review it regularly, daily if possible. Reviewing your vision often will help you stay on track with your goals.
5. Scheduling & Priorities
As we consider various choices, we should remember that it is not enough that something is good. Other choices are better, and still others are best. Even though a particular choice is more costly, its far greater value may make it the best choice of all.
Consider how we use our time in the choices we make in viewing television, playing video games, surfing the Internet, or reading books or magazines. Of course it is good to view wholesome entertainment or to obtain interesting information. But not everything of that sort is worth the portion of our life we give to obtain it. Some things are better, and others are best. When the Lord told us to seek learning, He said, “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom” (D&C 88:118; emphasis added).
After you have created your vision, the next step is review how you use your time and schedule time to work on your vision. As suggested by Elder Oakes, we all have activities in our lives that despite being good are not the best use of our time.
If you want to build your future into something better than today, you need to spend time on the activities that will create that future.
Look at how you use your time and schedule time to devote to working on your goals. This will require you to reduce the time you spend on less valuable activities. Remember, the rewards will definitely be worth the sacrifice.
Scheduling and prioritizing time to work on your goals will allow you to consistently make progress on your goals.
6. Habits vs Outcomes
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. That means developing great habits. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments, and that bridge must be crossed every day. Over time that daily crossing becomes a habit. And ultimately, people do not decide their future; they decide their habits and their habits decide their future.
Just as a house is built brick by brick, you build your future day by day. The key to building a great future is to build great days.
We need to ask ourselves daily what we can do to take a step closer to the future we want? What big or small thing can we do that will not only bring us closer to our desired future, but will make that future inevitable?
These actions typically do not happen on their own, especially when we are trying to change the course of our lives.
It is important to remember that you are an expert on living the life you are currently living. You probably don’t even have to hardly try any more to be the person you are right now. As you make an effort take daily actions your desired future self would take, you will gradually start to live the life you want to live.
As you consistently take the actions that will build your desired future you will create new habits and a new normal for your life. You will, in a very real sense, become a new person.
It is important to remember that while you are trying to make changes in your life, you will occasionally fall short. Be patient with yourself when you hit these inevitable obstacles. Change takes time and effort and will not always go as planned.
As you make plans for achieving your goals, remember that you will almost certainly encounter obstacles. We often set goals that are framed in the context of some achievement you wish to complete. While this may be inspiring, it can lead to frustration if the achievement of the goal is not something you have the power to deliver on your own. In these situations, it can be helpful to describe goals as habits you want to establish instead of outcomes you want to achieve.
For example, if you had a goal to become an author you might set a goal to have a published book by the end of the year. Reaching such a goal would require not only writing a book but having it picked up by a publisher, which is most likely out of your control. When we create this kind of goal it can become frustrating if we have difficulty finding a publisher.
In this example, it may be better to set a goal of writing a book or writing for a specific amount of time every day or week. As you goals centered on foundational habits, it will make your larger goals more attainable and equip you with the skills to reach them.
ACT
Verily I say, [you] should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of [your] own free will.
When we have set our goals and made a plan to achieve them, we must act on our plans. The entire purpose of journals, goals, vision boards, and the other tools outlined so far is to give us direction on how we can best spend our time. We each need to know what actions and activities are the best use of our time today? And then we must follow through on taking those actions.
We all have the exact same 24 hours given to us each day. It is up to us to determine how we will spend our time. And our decisions on how we spend our time determine what our future will be.
7. Faith
Faith knows it has received and acts accordingly.
Faith is a principle of action. To truly have faith is not strictly to believe, but it is to believe to the point that we act.
When we have faith we show that we believe our desired future will be a reality if we follow our plans and put in the effort.
One of the surest ways to achieve a goal is to live as though it were already a reality. When we do the things we have faith that our desired future self would do, we become our desired future self.
If you want to be a better cook, practice cooking like a chef would.
If you want to be a better parent, spouse, friend or neighbor, do the things you believe a better parent, spouse, friend or neighbor would do.
If you want to serve others as Jesus would, find ways to reach out and serve others as Jesus would.
By living with faith from the perspective of your desired future, that future will become your present reality. This will be challenging because you still have your current habits and tendencies. Exercising faith will help you make the small decisions each day that will bring that reality closer.
8. Courage
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
As we have mentioned earlier, you are an expert at living your current life. It is easy to stay in your current rut. It is familiar and comfortable. Making changes will always push you out of your comfort zone. This can be scary.
Just as a ship risks many dangers when it goes to sea, we take risks when we seek to learn something new.
And just as a ship was not made to sit in harbor, we were not sent to this life to be comfortable. We came to this life to gain experience and to learn and grow.
Despite the fear that can come when we step outside our comfort zone, it is important to remember that our fears are usually unfounded. The real challenges of learning something new are rarely as bad as fear they will be.
Remember that the Lord has given us our skills and talents and will bless us as we work to develop them. He will help you overcome your fears as you trust in Him.
9. Service
God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs.
As we all work together to use the children and youth program it is important to look for opportunities to serve and support others. Serving others allows everyone to grow and improve together.
The central goal of the new program is to help the children and youth in our lives build strong testimonies of Jesus Christ. True Christlike service is one of the best ways to strengthen your testimony of Jesus Christ.
Take the time to ask the Lord in prayer about who you can serve and what you can do to help them. As you do this sincerely He will guide you to those you can bless.
REFLECT
Ponder the path of thy feet.
As we work on our goals and plans, it is important to take time to reflect on our progress. If we are working on big goals, we should expect to encounter challenges and setbacks.
Taking time to reflect on our progress will allow us to adjust and update our plans as necessary.
10. Accountability
When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.
For anyone who has ever tried to work on a goal on their own, you know that it is often challenging to follow through on your plans. Life is chaotic and busy and change is difficult. If you are tackling goals by yourself, there will be times when your willpower is not enough to push you forward.
One tool that can greatly increase progress when working on a goal is to have an accountability partner. An accountability partner is a person or group that you share progress on your goals with. They are there to give encouragement, provide feedback and help you increase commitment.
As parents and leaders, we are perfectly positioned to work as accountability partners for the children and youth in our lives. Take time to discuss their progress on their goals with them. Invite them to make specific commitments and then follow-up with them on their successes and failures. Encourage them when they struggle and give advice when they encounter obstacles.
As an accountability partner, resist the tendency to impose goals or timelines on those you are helping. While there may be times we need to encourage others to set timelines or make plans for their goals, we must remember that the greatest growth is attained as an individual becomes self-motivated to work towards something they believe in. The job of an accountability partner is to provide encouragement and reinforcement as the person works towards their goal.
Your role as an accountability partner will give you many opportunities to teach, lift and instruct the children and youth as they build their testimonies.
11. Gain vs Gap
Measure the GAIN, not the GAP.
When reviewing your progress towards a goal, it can often be discouraging if we don’t achieve the exact end we originally started working toward.
Maybe your goal to befriend someone didn’t lead to them coming back to church.
Perhaps your goal to get on a school sport team didn’t end in success.
Maybe you didn’t finish reading the Book of Mormon by the date you had selected.
Whatever your goal might be, there is always a chance that you won’t achieve it 100%. In these situations, resist the temptation to focus on the gap between where you are and where you had planned to be on your goal. Rather, take time to acknowledge the gains and growth you have achieved as you have worked towards your goal.
If your friend didn’t come back to church, acknowledge how your friendship has been strengthened.
If you didn’t make the team, recognize the growth of your skills as you have practiced.
If you didn’t finish the Book of Mormon as quickly as you had wanted, reflect on how your testimony has been strengthened and what you have learned as you have read.
Whenever we put in the work to try and achieve a goal we will see growth. By taking the time to recognize our growth we can find the value in our goals regardless of the final outcome.
12. Gratitude
Life is so subtle that sometimes you barely notice yourself walking through the doors you once prayed would open.
As you reflect on your progress and growth you achieve, take time to express your gratitude to your Heavenly Father and to those who have helped you along the way.
No one is completely independent. All of us have gotten to where we are in life through the help and support of countless people. As we acknowledge the help we receive, it will strengthen our relationships with others and bring additional blessings into our lives.
Conclusion
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
I know that as you work to apply the Church’s new children and youth program you will see great growth and improvement in your life and in your testimony, regardless of your age.
It is my hope and prayer that the tools discussed in this article will help you see great success as you follow the new program in your own life and help those around you do the same.
Remember, this new program is a Golden Buddha.
As you follow the new program, you will see growth.
You will see opportunities open to you that you could have never imagined.
You will become a better person.
You will draw closer to your Savior.
You will learn how to better understand the influence of the Spirit.
You will develop your talents at an accelerated rate.
You will lift and help others along the way.
And you will have a great impact on the world.
What a great blessing.
Ready To Be Better?
If you want to overcome your weaknesses and draw closer to Jesus Christ, check out my free guide called: “Daily Closer to Jesus Christ Checklist”