Life is not about constant praise and recognition. Life is not about being the best at everything. You need to do things because they are the right thing to do or because you enjoy them. A life lesson is that there is always someone out there that is better than you at something. The opposite is that there is always someone worse, also. There are things you have to do. There are things that are right to do. There are things that are fun to do. The trick is to balance them. At age 9, Sunshine is well ahead of the curve on this one.
There was a point where Sunshine asked what her "thing" was. She listed friends and their "things". She was upset because she felt like she didn't have a "thing". I let her know that passion was her "thing" . She is passionate about everything she does. She puts her heart and soul into everything. She doesn't focus on just one thing and has a huge range of interests. This kid does everything. She is in soccer, softball, dance, science olympiad, girl scouts, safety patrol, glee, and more things I can't think of at the moment. She does these things because she enjoys them. She doesn't expect praise or special recognition. She just does them because she enjoys them.
She also doesn't make excuses when she doesn't want to do something. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard excuse after excuse about why someone isn't doing something. When Sunshine doesn't want to do something, it's because she doesn't enjoy it and she's upfront about it.