In my recent article on teaching psychological resilience to children I showed you how many celebrities like Will Smith and Richard Branson had a certain type of experience early in their lives that I call, an “Impossible Project” that seemed to have played a large role in building self confidence as children.
What is an impossible project?
Impossible Projects are projects or experiences that a parent or adult authority figure puts a child into intentionally that the child thinks is impossible to complete. Interestingly enough, most of these stories as retold by celebrities looking back on their childhood are seen as cruel, dangerous or sometimes even abusive; and they very often are.
Take for example the story that Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin records, tells of the Impossible project given to him by his mother. As the story goes, young Richard who was living in London at the time, was driven across London at the age of four and told to get out of the car. His mother turned to him and asked him if he thought he could find his way home, to which he replied, “I think so”. His mother then left him there and told him she’d see him for supper and drove off! Yet sure enough, 10 hours later young Richard made it home for supper — at 4 years of age!
Hell, I know some parents who don’t let their kids turn on the stove at 4, let alone walk across London!
And no, she wasn’t peeking around the corner to make sure her son wasn’t being mugged (although I think now days that would be a good idea).
What an experience for building confidence and Independence!
This got me to thinking…
What are some good Impossible Projects for building confidence in children that you might consider providing your children?
But before I give you my list, I think a heavy disclaimer is in order.
*My please do not send your child to an early grave Disclaimer — Seriously*
While some of the dramatic stories like walking across London are inspirational, that does not mean it was a good idea… in fact it was probably a REALLY stupid idea that today could get you thrown in jail, or have your child kidnapped. So please do NOT consider this list of following “Impossible Projects” as anything more than ideas to get YOU thinking. Your child may not be ready for any of the activities on this list, and I can in NO way endorse most of these projects as safe or as good ideas for your child.
I am simply giving them to you as a way to get you to think.
So please treat this list as an exercise in creativity and as a starting point for designing your child’s Impossible Project, with the job of making it safe up to YOU.
The Untold Truth of Impossible Projects
One other thing I feel necessary to comment on before sharing this list with you is that when you hear a celebrity talk about how their parents gave them an impossible project as a child that somehow they miraculously completed… what is never shared in the story is how much work the celebrities parent put into their child to prepare them for the impossible project.
Obviously in the case of Richard Branson, there was some work that had been done on him by his mother that made him ready for the challenge. I don’t know what that was, but I know it must have been something.
Most likely this preparation was done with “Mini Impossible Projects”. These are projects that younger children can practice on that are not as overwhelming, and that build up a child’s ability to persevere and not give into fear and failure. If you’d like a list of small projects for very young children to work on that help them develop persistence, my Imprinting Children For Success Program is full of them.
15 Impossible Projects To Consider Giving Your Child
- Building a Wall - This is the project Will Smith had to do that took him a year and a half to complete. You can see him talking about this story here, it’s at the 3:03 minute mark in the video.
- Building Staircase Up A Hill – Should be very challenging, and require child to learn wood cutting, cement pouring, how to treat the stairs etc. (it should also be a steep hill
- Finding Your Way Home Across London or other large city (should require several hours to complete) – This is one of those projects that I admire Richard Branson’s mother having the balls to do without supervision, but one I would be unwilling to let go unsupervised. However, I do like the idea of hiring someone that my child doesn’t know to “tail him”, making sure nobody nabs him, following him on the buses he boards etc. But would not offer any help and would only intervene in emergencies.
- Spend the night in the woods and find your way home – This would obviously take a few lessons on how to read a map and compass, as well as a few other camping basics, but would make a great challenge, especially if you blindfold the child on the way in so he can only find his way out via maps and compass.
- Building Their First Car – I don’t know anyone personally who’s been forced to build their first car, but it seems to me that there would be no better way to motivate a child to overcome an impossible project than having them build their own car from scratch, or at least fix up a beater. This would take some funding on your part, and maybe pointing them in the right direction of a few good car mechanic books, but I think this is something every child should do. Can you imagine if we all made this a required project for our children to complete before we ever gave them their license?
- Rebuilding a house – Not many projects require learning more skills than rebuilding a house. My uncle, the same one who’s father made him rebuild the flight of 57 steps up the side of a mountain to their small cottage, made his son and daughter rebuild a house that had been burned down by a fire and flooded. I forget how long it took them, but they had to rebuild the WHOLE thing, wiring, plumbing, walls, paint, and the whole nine yards. But here’s my favorite part… he made them buy the house with their own money so they were on the hook, then let them keep the profits of the renters that moved in. Think that’s a skill those kids are glad they now know?
- Urban survival class – I gotta admit, this one is crazy. It’s a several day class where the final test has your child (probably only for 18 year old children and up) locked in the back of a car and handcuffed. It’s simulating a kidnapping and how to escape, and then how to evade your kidnappers. Pretty intense and I’m not sure if it’s practical or not. But a damn hard challenge that’s set up in an environment that won’t put your kids life at risk. Click here to learn how to sign up for Urban Escape and Survival Classes.
- Rappelling course – This isn’t one of the most intense projects you could give a child, but they are great for helping a child learn to take on more risk in a safe environment and are guaranteed to teach them how to step out of their comfort zone. Depending on the age of your child, you might consider the rappelling training classes offered by frontsight where they have 2 and 4 day classes.
- Selling Amway – This is how I got started. Selling network marketing products to people in a group setting. I was so overwhelmed when I first started that I literally vomited. Selling seemed impossible to me, but looking back, learning how to sell completely changed my life and taught me how to face fears.
- Being forced to complete the Insanity Workout Program - There is almost nothing more effective at teaching children that they are capable of WAY more than they imagined than being pushed to their physical limits, and there is no harder workout DVD than Beach Body’s Insanity workout series. I have my 3 year old do them with me every day. He can’t do the whole thing as he’s not coordinated enough yet, but I’m already starting the Imprinting and he get’s to see Daddy working really hard, even though I’m in agony. So even if you’re kids aren’t old enough to do the work themselves, let them see you overcoming your own limits. There’s just something about knowing you can keep going after vomiting that’s empowering… seriously.
- Paying for their hobby with cold call sales (selling cutlery) – There are some cold call, direct sales cutlery companies like Cutco that really help teach a teenager to sell things. You might consider having them do this to fund something they really want to get. ie. prom dress, cars, gas money.
- Selling Door to Door – Same thing as above. I know most people are annoyed when Mormon’s invade the street you live on going door to door trying to get you to go to church, but guess what, Mormon’s as a whole are one of the most successful group of people. Maybe it has something to do with the “door knocking projects” they force their youth to do.Not into selling religion?Have you kid sign up with a company like Rainbow or Kerby and learn how to sell knocking on doors… I promise you they’ll get an education they can’t get anywhere else.As a side note, if you ever want a great way to get rid of a Kerby salesman, just tell them you used to sell Rainbow Vacuums (they’re competitors) and out of loyalty can’t buy a Kerby. They don’t have a line for this one and it get’s them to leave you alone
- Nearly Drowning (this is how the military does it) – Ok, obviously I don’t want you to go dunk your kid under water, but I do think it’s an instructive example. I learned about it hearing my good friend tell me about how a swimming exercise turned him into a better man. As he described it to me, it was during a swimming exercise, dressed in full gear, boots etc. where he had to swim across a pool with his fellow marines. He distinctively remembers not being able to make it all the way to the other side of the pool and reaching up to the instructor for help as he sunk… only to have the instructor look at him sink. At that moment my friend realized that he needed to stop relying on other people to save him, dug down and managed to find the strength within himself to get his head back above water. Not saying you should do it with your child, but it’s a good example of what pushing someone to their limits can do to them.
- Beating a bully in a fist fight – This is another one that won’t make me popular but that my parents taught to me. They taught me that if I’m getting picked on at school, and the teachers aren’t solving the problem, the best solution is to lay the guy out. This happened to me three times growing up where the system would not discipline kids for picking on me, and every time I took matters into my own hands the kids never picked on me again. I did not turn into a bully, I did not send anyone to the hospital and I have yet to be arrested. I simply caused enough pain to stop the bullying. There’s something about learning how to solve your own problems, and not always waiting for somebody to come to your rescue that’s freeing. If you’re afraid of your kid getting kicked out of school, then I wouldn’t want to be your kid. Maybe think about homeschooling. Personal dignity is more important.>ADD Thought: How is that for the most politically incorrect statement you’ll hear all day?
- Planning a Family Vacation – I’ve seen a few families do this, where they give the child a budget and the kids have to do the whole thing. They have to book the hotels, & flights. They research where they want to go, they hire the guides, pay for tours and the whole nine yards. I also like to add in the job of making the child lead the family through the airports. Navigating an airport is a challenge in and of itself. For extra credit you could send your kid not only book the whole trip, but go on it all by himself too. I remember my family letting me go on my first flight, it was an empowering experience.
Got any better ideas?
If so, please share, I’d like this list to be an ever improving and growing list of Impossible Projects, and the best way to do that is with your input.
I’m even willing to bribe you for it
Here’s the deal, if you can leave a comment with a better idea than the one above, I’ll give the person who submits the best idea a free Flip video camera, sound fair?
You can submit your Impossible Project in the comments section below, I’ll pick the winner on Friday, April 8th… so make sure you get in your response before then.
Very creative and indeed nerve-wrecking
. But , I would definitely steal some of your ideas particularly the sales and airport ones. Thank you for sharing!
Some of the suggestions here are a little scary, I can’t imagine someone trying them with their kids. I can see doing numbers 1-6 (though unlike the case of Richard Branson I wouldn’t do it with my 4 year old). A rappelling course is a definite- my two oldest girls, ages 6 and 4 have already been climbing several times and love it. It gives them a chance to push themselves beyond their limits without an undo amount of actual danger.
I think nearly drowning needs to be pulled from the list. It is so different from everything else on the list because of the danger involved and because it is not a practical way for parents to build confidence in their kids. In fact it would clearly be abuse if a parent attempted it.
Yeah JD, I thought about pulling drowning from the list, but when I hear my buddy who nearly drowned re-tell that story about the instant change that near drowning experience had on him, I feel it would be a disservice to take it off the list. I for sure agree with you that nobody should do it, and I say that in the post. But I want to leave it in, because it’s the best example of what these impossible projects are supposed to actually do. They are supposed to make a profound change to the psyche of a person in a way where they have their way of thinking forever altered. Where they have their limiting beliefs of what they “think” they can do instantly crushed. It’s powerful! So I want to leave it in, as an example of just how powerful these things can be to a person.
By the time your Marine friend got in that pool, he’d already been at boot camp long enough to become incredibly physically fit. He’d also gone through a psychological boot training of intense focus of attention and progressively challenging “impossible” situations. And you can bet you bottom dollar the drill instructor or someone nearby was ready to dive in an save your friend’s life if he blacked out. Most parents could not possibly provide the level of rigor as well as intense attention to ensuring survival as Marine Corps drill instructors. To suggest this as an option to parents who might just think that their child would not drown and who might not be prepared to handle an emergency is, in my respectful opinion, irresponsible, your opening disclaimer notwithstanding.
Dave,
I agree with so much of what you say… (besides the last part about being irresponsible). I suspect, maybe what we disagree on is merely the way I phrased things, versus my intent. What you bring up about the preparation that went into creating a marine that could survive is accurate, and a great point… which is why I brought it up in the post when I was talking about how obviously Richard Branson’s mom had done some development work in Richard before just dumping her son off on the other side of London. Maybe if I’d simply said, “enlist your child in the marines” you’d have been ok with that? But that would have just been a watered down version of saying the same thing, because that’s exactly what the Marines were going to do anyways.
To your point about parents not possibly being able to provide the level of rigor as well as safety I agree and disagree.
True, and untrained parent should not attempt to push their kids passed limits they don’t understand and aren’t prepared to handle (that’s why I said NOT to do it yourself). The pushing of a child to such extreme limits should be done by a trained professional. That’s why I listed so many training programs of professionals in my post that could ensure a child’s safety and development in dangerous situations. Heck, climbing a cliff without knowledge is more dangerous than jumping in a pool with full fatigues. You can’t just jump in to save someone who’s fallen off a wall.
Maybe it would have been ok with you if I just put a link to enroll in the marines
But at the same time, while a parent might not be legally able to beat up on their kid like we do to our Marines, I think there are plenty of programs (especially survival based programs) where a parent can go pay for those experiences to be given to their children (usually older children). I didn’t list it in the list, but one you can actually take from the Armed Forces simulates a helicopter crash and dumps you upside down in a pool, locked inside a helicopter with your seat belt on. If you can’t make it to the surface, they have divers right there to give you air to breathe out of. So you CAN pay for these experiences if you put the effort in, and in my opinion it is something to be strongly considered.
I might be down with the planning a family vacation one. I think I’m going to start small here (which I fully recognize is not what you are going for). My oldest cannot, CANNOT hang up her towel on a little knob without it falling off. I do it for her every. Single. Time. This is not building her self confidence. It’s allowing her to accept her inability to do it. She’s a perfectionist and this type of success is very hard for her because she thinks it should come easily, so when it doesn’t she gives up. I am not helping by “rescuing her.” I think I’m going to tell her she needs to hang it up tonight and can come out of the bathroom when it’s done, without help. I’ll let you know how it goes. Sometimes, small successes pave the way for larger ones.