Goal-Oriented

That's a picture of Braden's AWANA badge. In early December he completed Book 2 for AWANA. That's over 70 verses memorized and recited in 3 1/2 months. It was a real milestone for him, because this was the first year he's set goals for himself and worked to achieve them.

This year, he decided early on that he wanted to memorize 5 sections each week. Some weeks he made it, some weeks he didn't. But he always worked toward that goal.

He's never been a goal-setter or a self-started. He's always been pretty content to just kind of roll with things, and if it happens, it happens. This switch toward working for something is a nice change.

His AWANA sections was one goal. His two others were:
a) learning to dive from the starting blocks, and
b) learning to do flip-turns when he's swimming.

He's learned how to do the dive. Now he just has to figure out those turns. He'll get it eventually. For now, we enjoy watching him work at it.

Trying. Failing. But not giving up.