Personal goals are nothing new, and they tend to get all the attention. If companies have team goals, then why can't you have a family goal? There is no reason why you can't do it. Family goals can help families focus on what is essential. To have family goals, you need to know how to set them, and then how to attack them.
When you think of team goals with a company, The goals often come from the CEO or the lead of that team. Depending on the company, some team members may have a say. When it comes to a family though it's essential that there is buy-in from everyone in the family. The clear difference between family and an employer is we choose one and the other we don't. We have to stop making excuses and treat family like it matters.
Habit Stacker will allow you to keep all your family goals on the same page. Not only can you track your goals and your habits, but you can also add in accountability. When you are following your habits as a family, you can all add each other as accountability partners.
Family Goals - The Initial Meeting
Bring the family together to announce the setting of family goals. For this, to work, everyone needs to agree on the goals. This will be harder to do the older your kids are. Make setting family goals a habit while your children are young; they will grow up to love them.
The point of the initial meeting is to put everyone on notice about the family goals. It's vital that everyone understands why they matter. Everyone has different reasons for wanting to set a collective family goal. You need to make sure you express your reasoning.
The second reason for the initial meeting is to give everyone a bit of homework. Get everyone thinking about something they would like to do as a family. You will be setting a follow-up meeting within the next few days to have a further discussion about it.
Family Goals - Follow Up Discussions
You will conduct a second meeting with the family to discuss the ideas that everyone has had. There is a good chance that someone in the family will not have plans. Do not let them off the hook. Make them aware that if they do not voice their opinion, the family could have a goal that they don't like.
Whoever in the family is leading this discussion should make sure to get all involved. The more involved you can get everyone to be the more fun it will be to achieve the goals you set. You don't have to set one goal. You can make it more fun by allowing everyone to set one goal for the whole family. The goals should be something that everyone in the family wants to do to some degree. Don't leave this meeting with any final decisions.
Family Goals - Checks and Balances
You want to make sure that the adults get together and do some due diligence before making any choices. The worst thing you can do is get them excited, and then let them down. Don't set goals that are not workable for the pockets.
Here is your last chance to avoid disappointment or to set yourself up for failure. Here is where you get hyper-realistic and think about what makes the most sense. If you are going to disappoint it should come out of this meeting — not half way through accomplishing a goal. Stop making excuses to stay quiet in order to avoid any tension.
Family Goals - Goal announcements
You gather the family one last time to announce the chosen goals. Do everything you can to make this as funny as possible. Make it a game or a more extravagant event than it should be. This will be your third meeting about this. You don't want to bore your kids so the more fun you can make this the better.
Family Goals - Make Them Easy to See
Once you have set goals for the family, it's essential that you keep them front and center. Everyone in the family needs to see what the goals are and what the current progress is. If you can put a whiteboard or a chalkboard up, it would be a huge help.
You don't want anyone in the family to forget about these goals that have been set. The more you weave these goals into your lives, the more chance you will have of seeing them through to the end.
Family Goals - Set The Right Habits
Once you have decided on the goals that you shift focus to the process. The process is the habit changes needed to get the family to these goals. This can also serve as a great teaching opportunity for your kids. Most people set goals and then wish on them until they come alive. Intentions do not guarantee an outcome, but an excellent process does.
If as a family you decide that you are all going to lose five pounds each. Setting the goal will not make you lose weight alone. Action will make the weight come off. The key then is figuring out which actions will do that best. Some may want to dance it off, while others wish to lift weights. The key is attacking the items that create the process daily.
Habit is the core of any success. The student who gets As learns better than the kid who gets Ds because they have a better process. The basketball player that can make jumpers knows that the habit of shooting 400 shots a day will pay off.
Mold The Environment
Once you know what habits you are going to focus on, you need to build your environment to succeed at this. If you are trying to cut out sugar, for example, you need to do two things. Remove all sugar from the environment and then replace them with healthy alternatives. This gets the bad habit out of sight and puts the excellent habit right in your face.
Every habit has a way to mold your environment. If you want to play basketball to lose weight, buy a brand new basketball and put it in a place where you can see it daily. You want to learn a new language, delete all music out of your life so you can listen to those Spanish tapes.
Start Small
Never forget the biggest trick to any habit change. You must start small. If the family wants to read a certain amount of books by years end, the habit would be reading daily. Now the end goal is to read a lot of books, but you start by going small.
Don't look to read ten pages a day. Start by reading a few paragraphs every day. After seven days when you have built up some confidence, you can look to do more. Keep progressing until you get to a pace that will ensure that you will reach your goal. The easiest way to quit on a goal is to do too much too early.
Habit Stacker - Add Each Other As Accountability Partners
Habit Stacker will allow you to keep all your family goals on the same page. Not only can you track your goals and your habits, but you can also add in accountability. What does this all mean? When you are following your habits as a family, you can all add each other as accountability partners.
If you don't execute on your habit that day, your family will get a notification. It helps to add that extra motivation to meet your goals.
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