Keep on Moving

In life there are many setback and obstacles put in our path. Some we can control or see coming, some we can’t. In life there will be so many opportunities and times where you think you can’t go any further and feel like giving up on your quest to fulfilling your dream. Well this week I’m here to encourage you to just keep on moving.

When we get a knock back sometimes it becomes hard to see what we should do next as we may have pinned our hopes on getting that job, that scholarship getting on that course etc. And because we pinned all our hopes on that one thing we didn’t stop to think, “What if I don’t get it?” “What am I going to do next?”

With every success or failure it is important to keep on moving. Failures and successes shouldn’t deter you from the path towards achieving your dream. If you experience a failure its up to you to pick yourself up and look at how you can keep moving. Keep on moving could be a case of finding a different course or a different source of funding and keep on moving can be simply putting in more time working on your talent. Every day is precious and the longer we are stopped for the harder it is going to become to achieve your dream.

Keeping on moving won’t guarantee you success but it will put yourself in a position to grab opportunities that are out there. If you keep on moving it will show prospective employers, agents etc. that you are committed to your dream and that you don’t let any setbacks get in your way.

By committing to keep on moving you may find better opportunities out there than the one you just missed out on. You will also be more aware of all the opportunities that are out there so it will help you make better decisions on what paths to follow.

So if you have just received a knock back remember it isn’t the end of the world, dust yourself off and keep on moving by going out there and finding new opportunities. Never stop!

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Making a Splash

Tom Daley the young cheeky chap from Plymouth has made headlines this week by winning Gold at the World Diving Championship. Tom was tipped for great things before the Olympics last year and when he failed to deliver a medal many people saw this as a let down. Don’t get me wrong there was still a strong contingent backing Daley but some people started to questions his ability after all the hype that had surrounded him but hopefully now he had put some of those criticisms to rest.

Now To may not have a cult like following like some young pop stars or have the paparazzi chasing him wherever he goes but he is a poster child for UK sporting stars. If it had been someone say in there twenties that had won the gold at The World Diving Championships I don’t think they would have got the coverage that Tom has this week and if Tom hadn’t competed in it I don’ think many of us in the UK would have known that it was taking place.

Earlier this year Tom was making headlines for non-sporting reasons when a story of the bullying he was receiving at school made the national press. He was subsequently moved schools because of it but this brought up a whole range of opinions from the general public. Some saying he shouldn’t get special treatment and that it was part of life from some asking why in today’s society do we have to pick on someone just because they are successful. If this had been any Olympic star accept Tom Daley this wouldn’t have made press or if it had been any child on your own street that this was happening to it wouldn’t have made press.

If the pressure that was on him to bring home the Gold in 2012 before wasn’t enough now after winning Gold at the World Diving Championship people will now be expecting him to do it at the Olympics. The fact that the Olympics are three years away and people are already bigging him up shows the pressure that is on. Anything could happen in those three years, Tom could get injured, a new face may come on the seen, Tom may stop diving, who knows. All I know is that I don’t think we have seen the last of the press interest in his life which I think is only going to get worse the closer we get to the Olympics.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Do Young People Care?

One question I know a lot of teachers and people that work with young people is do the young people they are working with actually care about what they are doing whether it be a maths lesson or competing in a sports team. To them it seems at times that they care more about the lesson or the activity than the kids they are trying to enthuse do.

The biggest battle any person working with young people is getting them to care. If they can get a young person to care about what it is they are doing then that young person will reach greater heights and be a lot easier to teach than a young person that doesn’t. As a young person it is so important to be cool, accepted and fit in and for young people the normal way to do this is to not show an interest in anything and to play up. As soon as you show an interest in something it takes you out of that big group and makes you different.

Most of the time young people can’t comprehend the importance of doing something in school as they can’t see how it is going to benefit them later in life or in sports they may not know where their career could take them. I think it is so important with young people to always make them aware of what the end goals could be and what being in a lesson or part of a club can help them achieve.

The people that go on and achieve great things in life are those that are passionate about and care about what they are doing. As a young person you don’t want to look back later in life wishing you had cared more during your younger years to try harder in things you wanted to do and achieve. Don’t be scared to care in something as when you achieve something in that area it will mean so much more and feel so much better.

Do you care about your school work? Do you care about your hobbies and interests? And you care about developing a talent? We would like to know your stories individually and if you think as a generation young people need to start caring more? We want to know and you can share your views by going to:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=678

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Starting the Year off Right

So you are now back at School, College, University or work and already one week of the year has passed us by. Gone are the parties and the fun of the Christmas / New Year period and if your like most you wont have a clue what you are going to do in 2009. You have probably already made new years resolutions with many people already breaking them and you may have put a few pounds on over Christmas but now is not the time to look back now is the time to start the year off right.

A lot of what you do in January can dictate how the rest of your year is going to go. Now is the time we need to get our attitude right for the year, get focused and get that determination going. We need to start setting ourselves goals and go about achieving those goals, forget about what you did or didn’t achieve last year just focus on what you can achieve this year and how you can achieve what it is that you want to achieve. If we can’t get that determination and that focus going now its going to be harder for the rest of the year and if you do manage to find it later on you will have already wasted so much time.

Now is the time to get your diary out and plan your year. Start putting in all the things you have planned and if you don’t have enough things planned start planning things. To succeed in 2009 you are going to have manage your time and make the most out of every minute you have.

As we start the year it is time to cast off all those things about us which are stopping us from achieving and making those changes in our lives and in our attitude that will help us become more successful. This is the year to make the changes in your own life that make a big impact.

What are your plans for the year? We want to know what goals you have set yourself and you can let us know by joining in our topic of the week which can found by going to:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=631

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Accomplishments and recognition

We all like winning awards, trophies and recognition. Whether it’s winning the cup with your football team or being top of the class we all like to see a reward for our hard work. In a world which if you believe the press has an increasing amount of youth related crime happening it seems that more organisations are creating awards to reward young people doing great things in society whilst trying to get some good publicity for young people.

My question this week is this: Should we be rewarding young people for everything that they do? And if we do this are we just creating a culture of young people who will just expect to get an award for everything they do and then only do things if they get an award for it.

For me young people need to be empowered to achieve great things for their own personal satisfaction and not for an award. Young people should want to achieve in what they are doing first then if an award comes up it is a bonus. Someone shouldn’t be judged by how many awards they have won they should be judged by how good they are at something.

For me I want to win awards so I can show others what can be achieved through hard work as if you keep working hard at something and always want to get better at it somewhere down the line you will get the recognition for it.

So to sum up I am all for awards and recognising the efforts of young people as long as it doesn’t breed a culture of award hungry young people who lose focus on the long term goals they are trying to achieve in life.

What do you think? Do you like getting awards? Is that what motivates you? We want to know and you can share your views by joining in our topic of the week:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=605


Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"
”Shaking up the Youth of Today”

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Is Second Best?

I was at home the other day and for the first time in ages turned on daytime TV for some background noise and happened upon a chat show that was discussing: Is Second Best? The argument put forward was whether having to deal with defeat or finishing in second at an early stage of your career more helpful in the long term than instant success? This got me thinking so I wanted to share my thoughts with you on this subject.

Personally I feel instant success can be detrimental to long term success. There are exceptions to this rule but on the whole the quicker success is achieved the shorter the success lasts. Finishing in second place or losing out to others in things like competitions, job interviews and auditions is a test of character. It is at this time where we find out if the thing we are pursuing is truly what we want to do with our life. When this happens we can either accept it and say that we aren’t good at something or we can actually be proactive and tell ourselves we want to be the best and work even harder to become better than the competition. The one thing we can’t do is keep going in to competitions, job interviews and auditions thinking we are the best when we are getting knock back after knock back just hoping that one day we will win something, you have to earn the right to call yourself the best and you do that by working hard and delivering the good when it matters.

Having to go through a period of finishing second makes us appreciate it more when we finally win as we know what it has taken to get there and we know the experience of finishing second all to well. It is also good to start by finishing second and then finishing first as it shows your development and progress whereas if you have finished first from the start it has harder to see how you have improved. To succeed in this world it’s not just your talent that will get you to the top as you also need a strong character to make it happen.

Without a strong work ethic and support success can be taken away as quickly as it is gained. Take TV talent contest winners like Hearsay, David Sneddon, Steve Brookstein etc All these guys were thrust in to the limelight after winning singing competitions just for them to have short term success followed by a fall from fame within a very short space of time. If you compare Hearsay to Liberty X who finished second in the Popstars series who went on to have more chart success or David Sneddon who finished first in Fame Academy and Lemar who finished third who again went on to achieve more chart success. Its not about the position you finish in it is what you do after the result that counts.

If you ask most successful people they will tell you tales of times where they didn’t get the part or win the competition. Just because you only see someone on the telly when they are famous don’t assume that happened over night and they won everything on the way to getting there.

So in summing up to me finishing second is best when you are developing your talent as it can teach you much more than winning ever can and when you are developing your talent it’s not success that is important, its learning which is the important part.

What do you think? Do you agree? Have you experienced finishing second? And has finishing second motivated you on to better things? Let us know by joining in our topic of the week by going to:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=479

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

The Global Credit Crunch

The credit crunch is hitting the world hard. Prices of everyday items are going up, prices for petrol are rising and so on and so on. I don’t want to look at this from the affect this has on the economy or the general public, I want to look at this from the affect that it has on young people achieving their dreams.

When there is a global credit crunch the government have less money to invest in youth related projects. A big source of income for the government is based on the spending of the general public and when they aren’t spending it hurts the economy which the government have to support. Unfortunately funding and spending on youth projects is way down the list of priorities when governments do budgets so this means that youth projects supported by the government or by other funding bodies disappear or run a smaller service due to the lack of money. These youth services could be anything from art to sport projects.

Then we have youth charities which rely on donations to keep running. During a global credit crunch the public have less money so their income from donations dwindles and again affects the way in which they can operate. Similar to this we have youth organisations which require their members or the families of their members to pay a fee or a subscription to keep the organisation going. Because these organisations rely so heavily on subscriptions the inability of just a couple of families to pay fees could make a huge difference to the service they provide. The costs of running youth organisations are going up but because of the situation of their members many youth organisations can’t raise their fees.

We also have to look closer to home. If the family budget is tighter with more money spent on everyday things it means there is less money for parents to spend to help their children reach their dreams. This could be anything like buying a new pair of football boots, taking a child to an audition or paying for a child to attend a club.

In these times it is stories like that of George Sampson who won ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ become more common place. George performed dance routines on the streets of Manchester to raise money to put petrol in his parents car to get to shows and auditions because his family couldn’t afford to take him otherwise. Then in one night his life changed as he won £100,000 to help his mum pay her mortgage.

George wasn’t the first person to fight through financial adversity to achieve their dreams and won’t be the last. Young people and their families need to now be more creative with their thoughts and ideas and need to do more research on how they can help their young child to achieve their dreams on a shoestring budget as believe you me there are ways and it can be easily done. Buying someone the best guitar doesn’t make them the best guitarist. If you have talent and can find a way of showcasing it then you have a great chance of achieving greatness no matter what your financial situation is.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

NAGC Awards

This Friday (23/11) I will be making my way to Ironmongers Hall in London to represent Talented Young People at the NAGC (National Association for Gifted Children) Awards as part of their 40th Birthday Celebrations. We are so proud to be nominated to receive an award at this brilliant event.

After just celebrating our first birthday it is very hard to fathom 40 years but it is a great achievement and milestone for the NAGC. I will be so glad when Talented Young People make it to that milestone. Just think about the difference you can make in 40 years and the difference the NAGC have made.

In a world which is changing by the day for charities and organisations for a charity to exist and thrive over 40 years is an amazing feet. Not only have they seen radical changes in the charity world but radical changes in the educational world which they as an organisation have had to change with. These days a lot of charities and organisations are set up to help with problems or issues in areas where charities and organisations already exist so it is great to be invited to an event for an organisation who have been a frontrunner which was probably set up where there was little or no help or recognition and gone and blazed a trail in that area for others to follow.

The awards are such a good way to mark their 40th Birthday as it really sums up what the NAGC are about recognising, championing and helping young people with gifts and talents. I think their need to be more award ceremonies and recognition for deserving young people and for organisations and individuals who work with young people.

With so many organisations focusing on the small minority of unruly out of control young people and with these young people getting all the news and media attention it’s great to see an organisation which focuses on the many gifted and talented young people of this country. As people need to recognise that some of the so called unruly young people causing trouble are very gifted and talented young people but because they weren’t looked after properly at school and not challenged they fell in to bad ways. Like I have said on many occasions youth work needs to be the prevention business and not the cure if we want to change this world for the better. The achievers need our attention and our help as much as the non achievers if we are going to live in a balanced, fair and just world.

So in closing congratulations to the NAGC and from everyone here at Talented Young People here’s to another 40.

For more information on the NAGC go to:

http://www.nagcbritain.org.uk/

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com

Pride of Britain Awards

Tonight (10/10) sees the annual screening of the ‘Pride of Britain Awards’ on ITV.

The Pride of Britain Awards are my favourite award ceremony of the year. With so many programmes on TV being about celebrity and so many pointless award ceremonies screened each year it is good to have one night year on national TV which recognises the true champions of our country.

Each year there are more and more award ceremonies on our screens especially for music and film which are so unneeded and devalue other established award ceremonies. These days award ceremonies are just seen as ways to get millions of viewers to tune in to the TV, to promote celebrities and to make money through sponsorship. It’s like these award ceremonies are just set up to give celebrities somewhere to go in the evenings and hang out with other celebrities whilst getting their photo in the tabloids.

I’m all for recognising talent and award shows are great ways of doing that but do the whole point of an award is that it is suppose to mean something and be important. The more awards that there are for each industry the less important each award becomes. This is why I’m glad that we only have one big national awards like this a year.

With many award shows looking very staged and in some ways fixed for certain celebrities to win I think the general public are growing weary of awards shows but I hope that this is one they tune in for. One where celebrities aren’t promised awards for turning up or one where organisations are choosing winners because of their own political agenda and not because they deserve to win.

On the show tonight we are going to see people who are more deserving than any Pop star of Film star will ever be win awards that they richly deserve. Tonight is about recognising the people who don’t get the column inches in the newspapers but who are more newsworthy or have done more newsworthy things than actually get in to today’s newspapers.

Tonight is about doing exactly what the title says honouring the pride of Britain. Those people who have battled through adversity we couldn’t even imagine or those than have done heroic things that have truly saved or changed people’s lives. Those people who have truly made a difference to the world and those people that keep my faith in humanity.

It’s about everyday people like you or me doing extraordinary things and showing you what difference one person like you can make to this world.

To share your thoughts on the awards join in our topic of the week:

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=253#253


Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com/