Understanding freedom levels
- stephaniegardner1984
- Dec 8, 2025
- 23 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
There is a secret to getting what you want out of life. There is a magnet in your head. Every time you think a thought, things are attracted to that thought like a magnet. This is the secret. So imagine what happens when you focus on what you want rather than what you don't want. That magnet head of yours sends signals out to the universe, and it responds. So yes, you can even attract more freedom in your life...the thing every teenager desires more of! (Yes we are talking to teens in this classroom.) But before you just try and manifest yourself more hang out time with friends, lets chat a little bit about attracting things into your life.
It's recommended that you screenshare this lesson to your TV, and read it together as a family.
If our thoughts are like magnets (and there is plenty of science to confirm that) then we have to remember that they can attract things we don't want in life as well. How can we attract the right things in our life if we don't know what we want five years from now? Being intentional is the secret to this game! We need to be really careful about what we want to attract in our life. We can attract things through our faith and we can attract things with our doubts. That is why we need to stop rehearsing our doubts with other doubters. If you are not self-aware of your desires and the values attached to them, you can attract what you want in life and you can attract what you don't want.
Two boys had the same dad. He was a mean, abusive, and careless father. He abandoned his boys. One brother grew up and made similar decisions to his dad. When asked why he lived his life the way he did he said it was because of his dad. The other brother grew up and had a successful career and a joyful life. When asked how he gained his success he said it was because of his dad. You will attract what you focus on. Who we learn from does not matter, what we focus on will shape our future. If we focus on the values and characters that we want to develop as we get older, we will become that. The focus attracts the result like a magnet! We can excuse others but we cannot excuse ourselves. Our focus on gaining more freedom as a teens, should have the right desires attached to it. The key is to magnetize your thoughts to visualize your future self. Who is that person?
Two brothers moved out of Jerusalem around 600 B.C. Their dad had a feeling prompted by God to leave Jerusalem and he decided to take his family and depart from the city. They possessed a great deal of wealth and many fine possessions that they had to leave behind, as they could only travel with minimal belongings due to the use of camels for transportation in those days. The family had to live in tents in the rugged desert for a very long time. They had to hunt for food. The younger brother, who was the more skilled hunter, managed to align his values with those of his father and chose to collaborate in pursuing the family's future goals. He spent his life building boats, inventing tools, and creating a pathway to achieving the shared family dream. The other brother was so mad about leaving behind the city, his friends, and the comfortable lifestyle he had in Jerusalem, that he spent most of his days getting angrier and angrier. He even beat his younger brother once with a stick, tied him up in the desert and tried to leave him, and tied him up in ropes on a boat during a storm. He got so mad that he even designed a plan to kill his younger brother after the family reached their desired destination. This new life took years to obtain, and the younger brother and the dad saw all the miracles that it took to get there. But once there, the younger brother had to take his family and move away from his brother for safety and build again. The father died of old age with heartache that his sons could not get along, and that his one son would not catch the beauty and the vision of their new adventure.
The older brother did not want his circumstances. He focused on that for the rest of his life until he became consumed with hatred. How do you think it impacted his life to focus on what he didn't want?
Focus on what you want, rather than what you don't want.
There is a man who became a world-wide spiritual leader over millions of people. He started as a heart surgeon who performed the very first open-heart surgery. He was already famous across the world for his work in the medical field, but he left that industry and volunteered his time to serve God and lead across the world. Presidents of countries, spiritual leaders from other faiths, and prominent government officials from across the world would travel to meet him. He was a man who understood that natural laws, when obeyed, bring results. His understanding of the laws of sodium and potassium allowed him to stop a heart just long enough to perform surgery, and then start it working again. He understood the laws of how hearts operate. When natural laws are obeyed, blessings come from obeying that natural law. He also understood the laws of the mind. He said:
"The joy and happiness we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives."
Our focus and our intentions truly matter. What we focus on can determine our outcome. We will draw in the positive aspects of what we desire, or, if we concentrate on what we don't want, we can also attract the negative. If you are a teenage boy and you don't want strict parents, for example, and you become frustrated with your strict parents, the reality is your brain will start looking for everything that you believe is strict. You will always be focused on what you lack, rather than the opportunities your parents do give you. You will be so focused on what you don't want, you won't even be able to think about what you really do want in life. Your focus determines your happiness. Your focus is based off your beliefs. Your beliefs create thoughts, those thoughts can put you in a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset. Since we are talking about gaining freedom, yes...you want to have an abundance mindset.
Here at Character Skool we call a scarcity mindset, "red-brain" and an abundance mindset, "green-brain." Learn more about that in this classroom here. When you go into red brain, you are in a fight, flight, or freeze state. When you are in green brain, you are able to access your true power... the power of deciding what to focus on and what is really true about your beliefs.
The truth is, you have no magnets in your brain. But your internal world shapes your external world, not by magnetism, but by alignment with eternal law. Everything we do in life has a positive or a negative consequence. Some times the consequences come after a few seconds, sometimes years. A positive consequence is really what we call a "blessing." When it comes to gaining more freedom in life:
Choose long-term gain over short-term pleasure.
The Definition of consequence means a result or effect of an action or condition. It helps to study those laws that bring the most "positive consequences" or "blessings" with your family. Positive consequences bring more freedom in your life. Negative consequences bring less freedom into your life. One of the ultimate goals here at Character Skool is to find the habits that bring the most blessings, so we hope you follow along.
There is a law, irrevocable (unchangeably) decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. DC 130:20-21
Responsibility always comes before freedom.
Is there a blessing that comes when you focus on the future? One blessing of envisioning your future self is that you gain access to more faith, hope, and discipline. We need to visualize who we want to be in 5 years, 10 years, even 20 years and understand what natural laws (of God) we need to follow to get to that level of freedom. Here is the idea:
All three layers of change work together:
Identity: Know who your future self is.
Process: Know what your future self believes and what he or she does everyday.
Outcome: As you come to identify as your future self, and adopt those beliefs and habits and nurture them consistently, you become your future self.
The seed grows into the tree.
In life, we have the ability to make choices. Everyone can decide their own path. But we also must remember we have been placed in families and our path begins with them. It may end with families of our own, but it begins with the families we were born into. We can let this define our life in a positive or negative way. Remember our thoughts are like magnets. What you choose to think or believe about your circumstances contributes to your path in life. The time to establish those beliefs is when you are growing up in families. A lot of beliefs are adopted when you are young.
Many teenagers believe they should have full or increased freedom from their parents' rules before turning 18. But like the angry brother who did not want to leave Jerusalem, kids can not just go be on their own away from their families. Laws for one thing prevent that, but so does the connection we feel deep inside to stay connected to our families. Freedom comes slow for kids because they are still learning natural laws and consequences. Children who consider wanting to distance themselves from their parents are among the most vulnerable individuals in society. You can read about the outcomes in societies that fail to uphold the fundamental unit of families. The law of living in a family unit provides abundant blessings. History has demonstrated that cultures that do not safeguard families face negative consequences.
Become dependable before becoming powerful.
Some parents enforce fewer rules than others. Each family has its own set of values and its own culture, and it is common for teenagers to compare their family to others. This can be good and it can be bad if our focus is negative. If you are going to go in a comparison mindset, please consider the dangerous possibility that your brain will start to focus on what you don’t want. This is red-brain. The “don’t wants” are often based off desires that are premature or not thinking about your future self. You saw this in the story of the two brothers in Jerusalem. Both envisioned having families someday, but one brother sought the joys, wealth, and friendships of the past, while the other chose to concentrate on the aspirations he wished to achieve in the future. They each had the same circumstances, but completely different focuses. They each had the option to choose how they responded to their circumstance. One stayed in red-brain and the other accessed his green-brain. One had a scarcity mindset and the other had an abundant mindset.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. — Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Even the great spiritual leader, Jesus, learned from the Old Testament. He said, “Remember Lot’s wife.” She was turned into a pillar of salt when she "looked back" when her city went up in destruction probably from volcano, dust blaze, and fire. She was warned that her comfortable home was going to be destroyed. God had warned their family through their brother. The story says she "looked back". A wise man explained it this way, “With less than immediate obedience and more than a little negotiation, Lot and his family ultimately did leave town, but just in the nick of time. The scriptures tell us what happened at daybreak the morning following their escape: The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities… Apparently what was wrong with Lot’s wife was that she wasn’t just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before they were past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her…It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind...her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future…The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought—fatally, as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments she was leaving behind.” I love the way Jeff Holland puts this. We must trust that the future is going to be better as we learn from our pasts. We must be future-focused, faith-filled, and optimistic. All of these characteristics are something we can control in our thoughts no matter what family we live in. Check out our resilience classroom here.
It is beneficial for families to recognize that freedom and agency are distinct concepts. Each family has dreams and goals and each has to sacrifice for each other and the combined family unit. Before deciding on our own life's direction we incubate in a home with parents who are in charge of the family direction. We can choose to accept our circumstances and learn from them, as no family is perfect, and we can take anything we learn and use it to charge forward to a future that we desire. Our desires depend on certain levels of freedom. We are going to learn how that freedom is obtained. It's important to understand the difference between agency and freedom.
Agency is the God-given ability to choose between good and evil, to act for yourself, and to be accountable for your choices.
Freedom is a condition, not a gift. It can be taken away or built upon. We like to call this “freedom levels.”
Governments sometimes take away freedom levels, even if the government is wrong or right. (Which is why living in a free country is often desired but comes with great
responsibility for consequences.)
Families establish freedom levels, and often are established based on trust with each child. Laws even require parents to be the final say of parenting decisions until age 18 & to be in charge of all financial decisions made before that age.
Schools offer different freedom levels, and are totally established based on each school or classroom.
Often age naturally allows freedom levels to grow. Even Jesus who wanted to spend all of his time in the temple as a young boy, was required to leave what he was doing and travel home with his parents. He did not start his ministry until he was 30.
Everybody has different freedom levels in their homes, countries, and schools. But as kids, often they are focused on the freedom levels they can obtain from their parents, based off of comparison to other families around them.
Remember, the more freedom you obtain as you get older, the more natural consequences will show up for the actions you choose. You need to think about what you want your future consequences to be! More athletic? More disciplined? When you imagine your future self addicted to a bad habit, it probably makes you want rules to stop you from the bad habit today. Parents often need to feel that you are ready for more freedoms. They will notice your priorities, your desires, your actions, and your habits.
A noble and godlike character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking...Men think in secret, and their character takes shape; they act in public, and their circumstances are revealed...A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts. -Victor Frankyl
Your agency (your internal view of right and wrong) should be a big focus in your life no matter what your freedom levels are. Are you going to choose good over bad choices? What are the long-term effects of each of your choices? As you access your "green-brain", you will start to understand the consequences you do want in life. There are some powerful consequences that are fun to experience from focused, positive beliefs in our "green-brain." You form those beliefs by studying the scriptures, studying the law, and studying values. When you begin with the end in mind, you can start to see which consequences you desire in life. When you envision your future, you probably see freedom. But please remember:
The better you use your agency, the more freedom levels you will obtain.
Even in a home with strict rules and fewer freedoms, you have the agency to choose how you spend your time at home and show your parents what you value. This often builds trust between parents and kids. A home with fewer rules and higher freedom levels will be a home where agency could potentially be used for desires that will create negative consequences that the parents or kids cannot see until down the road. The chances of this are much higher today with online technology. If you want a chance to prove to your parents that you are ready for higher freedom levels, you want to get on the same page about what your desires are, and it has to be a family discussion. Sometimes parents don't fully trust that their teenagers' desires are aligned with the values that they try to teach in the home and worry that higher freedom levels will allow their teens to fulfill unhealthy desires with dangerous consequences. Learning to build trust is a topic for another day, but if families discuss and agree on values, there will be high trust. Think of the son who wanted to go back and live in Jerusalem because his fancy house and fun friends were there. Comfortable homes and lots of friends are righteous desires, but there are consequences for leaving your family, and spending too much time away with friends that don’t always align with your families’ values. He lacked trust in the future outcome, he lacked faith in his father’s intuition. He never could agree with the family and it hardened his heart to the point he became a murderer in his heart.
Desires based off today, may look different than desires based off your future self. Begin with the end in mind, & you may find your desires change.
Remember,
Agency is internal; freedom is external.
Agency describes your inherent power to choose.
Freedom describes your environment or condition that allows you to act on those choices.
You can have agency even without freedom
A big truth about agency is that you can choose your path, but you cannot choose your consequences.
When you are younger, and your freedom levels are not where you want them to be, are you going to use your agency to choose your reaction to that limited freedom level? What will your reactions be? If your mom tells you to turn off the TV, for example, are you going to storm off with anger, or are you going to pick up a book and start reading it? Are you willing to be curious? Mom may have a value that you don't understand behind the action that she is trying to help you live for the future.
If you become curious about rules in your family, you are going to gain freedom levels much faster than if you storm off with anger.
If you feel a negative thought come in your mind when mom and dad say no, think about your future self. Get curious and visualize what you want your habits to lead you to in the future. One of the core values here at Character Skool is curiosity. Learn about being curious and having a growth mindset together here. Curiosity helps you get out of red-brain. What things close off your desire to be curious about what your parents are trying to teach you?
Christian McCaffrey, a standout player for the San Francisco 49ers, revealed that his parents, particularly his father Ed McCaffrey, were very strict about sleep and family routines. He mentioned that their bedtime was set at 7:30 until they reached eighth grade. The family maintained a healthy diet, avoided soda, and were regularly educated on the significance of diet and sleep. McCaffrey also noted that he didn't receive a phone until his freshman year of high school, and his parents would confiscate their phones at 9 p.m. every night to prevent them from staying up late.
Photo from allposters.com
It seems that between the strict freedom levels set by his dad, he chose the response of curiosity and a growth mindset, using his agency, which carried him to become a famous athlete using the values set behind the strict freedom levels he had as a kid.
Do you think his dad's freedom levels helped him gain really amazing future consequences?
Do you think he saw his future self?
Sometimes parents do not see your goals, habits, and desires matching what they think will make you happy in the future. They often set freedom levels based on how well you use your time, and how well you prioritize your desires based on their own values. Remember, no parent is perfect, and no child is either, we must ALL learn this together. We really need to look inward at our desires and see if they align with our family's values. It is so important to get on the same page as your family with your values. Remember, desires can control our habits, and our habits dictate the natural consequences that come later in life.
What are the natural consequences your parents are trying to protect you from and the ones they are trying to help you gain in life?
As families, it's crucial to look at freedom levels and decide which ones you are each ready for. Your whole life has the same shape of a single day. Good habits verses bad habits are really important to establish to build your future. Here is our classroom on building tiny but mighty habits. As the intentional, creative families that you are, you should establish your value systems together. We provide resources to do that here.
I know we started off with telling you an ancient story, but we do not live in the age of riding camels and hunting in the desert for food. In our day, the biggest hurdle you will have to jump as families could be how you manage technology. Your future is completely tied to how you build habits around technology. Beginning with the end in mind, and envisioning your future self, has never been more crucial when you look at your habits around technology. In our day, tech companies know how to make money from you by understanding the psychology of addiction and what makes all of us addicted to the tech they provide. They want you to scroll as long as you can on their apps, videos, and media because it makes them wealthy.
As your freedom expands, you might face consequences imposed by your parents rather than external forces. However, in the realm of technology, if parents fail to set consistent boundaries, the world will inevitably impose its own consequences. In life, consequences can arise from legal punishments or occur naturally. A significant and growing problem today, which is diminishing people's freedom, is the addiction to things on your phone that are so fun that you lose your sense of time, and lose good habits in other areas of your life.
Addiction means that you can't stop doing something, even if it's not good for you. Just like some people can get addicted to scrolling through their phones all day, others might get hooked on watching inappropriate content. These kinds of addictions can change how you act, what you want in life, and even how you see your future. If you spend too much time on these activities, you might miss out on things that really matter, like spending time with friends, studying, or pursuing your career goals. The science behind too much dopamine is alarming, and you can discover more about that science in our self-restraint classroom here.
Think About Your Future
Imagine the person you want to be in the future. If you let distractions take over now, that future self might not be someone you would be proud of. It's important to find a balance and make choices that help you grow into the person you want to be and that is gaining freedom !
If you are feeling more convinced on studying natural consequences, here is some tools to help you:
Study brain & health science in depth
Study history, especially from places like the Bible
If you're looking for examples of harmful natural consequences, consider ignoring the Ten Commandments. Actions like murder or lying will inevitably lead to repercussions, and they won't be pleasant. Dust off those scriptures on your desk and learn from the past! Studying history can guide you in deciding how you want to live and shape your future self. We have a classroom that shares evidence for many laws that bring blessings from the scriptures in our classroom here. Of course we all have desires, we all have dreams for the future, but do we let our current desires ruin our future if they do not align with good values? This applies to adults too. We recently heard of a football coach who had three kids and a wife, who had a 5 million dollar contract, but he had to be fired from his job and was charged with three crimes, including felony home invasion and stalking.
You can choose your actions, but you cannot choose the consequences. Not all parents have the same freedom levels or rules that they teach their children. You may find your friend's mom gives more freedom to their child. Some parents don't see the world the same as others. Cultures, religion, wealth, and health all impact how a parent sets freedom levels and boundaries. If you have strict parents, maybe consider that your parents have high standards and values and hopes for your positive future realities. Work with them to get on the same page as to what values you are trying to learn as a family and how you can do it together.
Two teenage friends decided to go to a party. One teenage boy had decided ahead of time to drink alcohol that night because his best friend had the weekend before. This was in the day of phones being “land-line” phones attached to the walls, not cell phones. When they arrived, the home phone rang. The owner of the home told the boy it was for him. He thought that was odd someone was calling him at a party. It was his mom and she said, “bud I am sorry, I know you are with your friends but I really need your help with something." He said okay, worried about his mom and frustrated to leave at the same time. When she picked him up, he asked what she needed help with so bad. She said, "bud, I am sorry I didn't tell you this before, but I just knew you were in trouble for some reason, and so I came to get you, I can not explain it, but I just knew." He had not told a single person what he had planned to do that night. Sometimes moms just have that instinct. Sometimes, God just knows how to reach us. He knows.
Parents themselves, may struggle with their own internal boundaries and self-discipline. So this world is going to look drastically different for every teenager or child. Both parents and children need to begin with the end in mind when setting freedom levels. Sometimes, parents have so much high trust, they don't see the temptations that can come on snap chat for example. We have a story:
A teenage boy joined snap chat when he moved to his new home in Texas because that is how teens like to communicate in his new town. The texting on snap chat he claimed was his only reason for joining snap chat. He told his parents he would not use it for anything except texting his friends. It was just to build connections. Friends are important, but texting in a group chat on snap chat has a hidden consequence that many parents do not realize. This boy is on a group thread with all of his favorite friends. They use this group chat all the time. One of the friends posted, or "pinned" a picture of an undressed lady. This picture can only be "unpinned" by the boy who originally pinned it to the thread. So the other boys can not delete that picture off the text thread. The only way these boys can stop viewing this picture is if they delete this group thread, and start another one. Do you think that anybody in the group chat was willing to take the initiative to do this? The teenage boy who joined snap chat to text friends, could scroll up any day he wants on his friends group chat, and see a porn picture. He tried to ignore that it was there. Who can honestly say this won't be a temptation every time they enter this snap chat thread? Unfortunately, mom saw the group chat, and trust went down with snap chat use. And who here is sad for that girl who made that decision to objectify her body? Ladies, learn one of Character Skool's secret recipes for feeling worthy, beautiful, and confident without lowering your standards here.
Can you see your future self? What do you want to be a master at? What do you want to be good at doing? What type of person do you want to be married too? Is scrolling on a phone going to help or hurt you in that process? Can you lose your fear of missing out by focusing on your future self? What skillsets are you trying to grow personally in life? Which activity each day will get you to that priority? Your whole life has the same shape of a single day!
It actually becomes fun to understand natural laws to follow, and natural commandments to keep, when you realize they create happier freedoms later in your life. If you do the hard things first, life eventually becomes easier. It becomes even more fun when you reach the freedom level that allows you to live your higher purpose in life. And if you are like us, even more when you think about the next life.
It is especially fun to think about what you want your future self to be because your powerful agency inside you loves to focus on your future dreams. You just have to know the “freedom routes” that get you there. Sometimes freedom routes are not the main busy road that most people take. Sometimes your path will take more disciplined freedoms and choices to get there!
The future of your life, is dependent on the freedom levels you reach, either from your parents, or government laws, or natural consequences. The more freedom you obtain, the more important it is to use your agency to make good choices to direct your life. Freedom is lost, if your agency is used to choose the wrong habits, desires, and priorities.
Part 2: (may want to split this classroom up in two days)
Before we envision our future selves, it may be useful to remember that private decisions have public consequences. It is valuable to remember the responsibility we have for our future families.
Your private choices produce public consequences.
Not only is your agency something that can change your life, but it can change the world. Have you ever learned about the butterfly effect? Watch this video to understand how much YOU and YOUR agency matters:
We can change the world, as we change our private choices we make with our agency. Our internal world affects the external world more than you could ever imagine. Think about your future posterity. Every habit you form today affects your great, great, great granddaughter. We highly recommend that you read this short, quick and fun book as a family:
"Do you want to change the shape of your life? Change the shape of your day. Do you want to change your day? Change this hour. Change what you think, feel, and do at this very moment. A small rudder can steer a large ship. Small bricks can become magnificient mansions. Small seeds can become towering sequoias. Minutes and hours well spent are the building blocks of a life well lived."
- Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Begin with the end in mind as you create your habits & routines.
Look at your future self and decide what you need to do right now to build block by block, minute by minute, and hour by hour to build your lives. Each day well spent, is a block on your tower.
To start with the end in mind, let's discuss the conclusion. Can you think beyond ten years? What about after your lifetime? You may have a different perspective or religious belief, but regardless, I hope you aim for extraordinary dreams of beauty, peace, and joy, despite the challenges of life on earth by beginning with the end in mind. We believe in a loving Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and we hold that they love each of us completely and perfectly. This belief is deeply embedded in our values. We hope you envision a bright future with strong character. These aspirations are achieved when boundaries are respected, and you have a sense of right and wrong in your decision-making. Begin by truly understanding consequences.
Wherever you find yourselves on this journey through life, whatever trials you may face, there is always a point of safe return; there is always hope. You are the captain of your life, and God has prepared a plan to bring you safely back to Him, to your divine destination. -Dieter Uchtdorf
What are your values?
So now that you are focusing on your future selves, and hopefully your values from our value classroom here, we invite you to look under the microscope at your daily habits in this classroom here! What are your tiny, personal habits that will change everything? Good or bad? We have to be aware of the good habits we have and the bad habits we have in order to grow.
Tools For Younger Kids:
Teaching consequences to younger kids is easy. Read this story with your younger kids:
This consequence chart was a fun easy way for our family to stay consistent on teaching natural consequences to younger kids without it requiring too much brain work for mom and dad. Fill out as a family and have some fun with it!
It looks like this:
We included consequences like cold plunging, blowing off the leaves, doing the dishes, sweeping the kitchen floor, etc. Have fun with it.
