I would suggest that when you look at yourself or any other person, one of the best ways to gauge the chances for success and achievement of potential in the future is to assess how much time that person spends on passive leisure.

It’s important that I be very clear here about what I mean by passive leisure and how we should categorise different types of leisure pursuit between ‘active’ and ‘passive’. It’s vitally important that we invest time in our social relationships with relatives and friends, so time spent in that pursuit is not what I’m calling ‘passive’ leisure.

However, if I spend a couple of hours with friends lounging around, gossiping and generally frittering time, then that is passive leisure. This applies just as much whether that time is spent face-to-face with friends or online through social networking.

Passive vs. active leisure

Active leisure: If I’m part of a sports team and we train or travel for matches against other teams, that’s active leisure.

Passive lesisure: If my friends and I just get together for a few hours knocking a ball around amongst ourselves whilst larking about – that’s passive leisure.

Most people would consider watching television as one of the most passive leisure pursuits in existence. However, again I think we need to differentiate. If I sit down for a fixed period of time to watch a programme that I had planned to watch, I believe that’s active leisure. Of course, for most people TV watching is a much more passive habit – sit down, switch it on, surf the channels to find the best available option and then continue to surf around channels until finally switching off.

Young people today are growing up in a world where there are infinite opportunities for how to spend one’s time. Also, pressures to perform and achieve have probably never been higher. It’s all too easy in such circumstances to see life like a standard light switch – having two positions – on and off. In the on position, I’m busy rushing to do everything I’m supposed to do, pushing myself or being pushed by others with all the shoulds, have-tos and musts. The off position then becomes what I try to maximise, not so much activities as an absence of activity – a state of inertia in between the periods of frenetic activity.

Rarely do we see the contrast more starkly than in a year when students have important examinations that will determine their future path.

Should sports be sacrificed during exams?

I remember a few years ago when I was heading a large group of schools. Each year, we had a soccer league running at weekends. Students from our schools and others would eagerly jump out of bed in chilly, sometimes foggy conditions to play for their teams. Nearly 500 pupils, boys and girls, used to participate. However, when the lists were drawn up the head of sports came and informed me that the league for the highest classes was cancelled for lack of interest. I knew many of those pupils and, therefore, also knew how much they loved football. However, I also knew that for most of them it was ‘exam year’ and this had played a part. When I quizzed them, many indicated they would have wanted to play but their parents were not giving permission. They were clearly unhappy, though begrudgingly seemed to accept that their absence from the leagues was inevitable.

I asked some of the parents to come and meet me. Most wouldn’t come, saying it was a very busy time, what with their child’s exams around the corner (5-6 months away!). Those who did come adopted belligerent body language – plainly they were not very ready to hear what I might say. Some acknowledged their child’s love for football. Some were even willing to admit that at this crucial time it was vitally important that their child be in good physical fitness. But, they shrugged, it’s exam year and we can’t take chances or waste time with that.

I calmly pointed out that these oldest students would play their matches first. I stressed that with a 7.30am kick-off the children would be home by 9am, refreshed after good exercise. They could then shower, freshen up and eat breakfast and be at their desks by 10am, ready to put in a good, productive morning’s work. This wasn’t what they wanted to hear and as they headed out of the door mumbling that they would ‘think about it’, I knew that they weren’t to be swayed.

Make time for your goals

I consider myself to have been quite unfortunate to have only really learned these lessons in my mid-20s. That I got to learn them at all was my good fortune. At that time, I met a management trainer/consultant who told me something very simple, but profound. “Mark, if you want to be successful, if you really choose it, then it’s easy, regardless of whatever profession you are in.” He went on to tell me to read one book (we’re talking a bit pre-internet in those days) that was directly or indirectly related to my goals and ambitions every two weeks. He went on, “if you do that, after one year you will have read 26, after two years 52. I promise you, if you’ve read and properly digested the content of 52 books related to your profession, you’ll have placed yourself in the top 1 per cent — guaranteed. Because, the reality is the other 99 per cent don’t have the discipline to do that.”

As I digested what he’d told me, over the next few days, I realised just how powerful it was, yet so simple. I also started to doubt whether I could really manage it. Wasn’t I already so busy? Wasn’t my time already full? Where would I find the time for all that reading?

And then, the penny dropped – it amounted to no more than about 25 pages each day. If that took me half an hour, then if I eliminated even an hour a day of passive leisure activities, I could read double that. Ever since, one of my commitments to myself was to only watch TV according to pre-planned duration, to watch specific programmes. That alone released so much time in my life for more productive habits.

I really don’t want to go on seeing children doing themselves real harm in the supposed pursuit of exam results. Worse, I believe that if they remained engaged in the active leisure pursuits they love, they would actually do better in those exams. As parents, we have to trust our children, show them the merits of active over passive leisure, including practising what we preach and support them in smart ways to be at their best. Especially when those active leisure pursuits are physical. There is also now so much evidence that being physically active and fit helps the brain work more effectively.

And, students – get clear about your own active and passive leisure activities. Be ready to significantly reduce the passive, especially if you want the trust and endorsement of your parents and teachers to remain engaged in your favourite active leisure pursuits. In this way, you can be assured of far greater success long in to the future.

The writer is the Executive Director & Head of Schools, G. D. Goenka Private School, Sharjah, an initiative of Gulf Petrochem. mark.parkinson@gdgoenka-me.com