Goal Setting Time

My husband and I decided on the weekend that we should set some goals for 2021. This isn’t something we have done consistently year after year. However, on the years in which we did set goals in the past it was really interesting to look back and see that – without thinking heaps about them – we actually achieved quite a few! Somehow the very act of thinking through and writing goals down seemed to cause them to seep into our subconscious and become a reality, to a surprising extent.

So this year we came up with some family goals as well as individual goals. Not just for us either – for each member of the family! Even Isabella (nearly 2) has been given a goal of learning to obey Mum and Dad.

We didn’t want to overcomplicate things or overwhelm ourselves, so for each child we chose just 1 skill goal and 1 character goal – which the older children provided input on. E.g. the skill goal for our 11-year-old is to learn to cook one meal mostly by herself, while the 4 1/2-year-old will focus on learning to read. We added a spiritual goal for ourselves and Scott gave himself a reading goal too.

We decided on 4 different goal types for the family as a whole:

• A spiritual goal
• An interpersonal skills goal – we plan to teach the kids to use SBI (Situation, Behaviour, Impact) when dealing with conflict
• A financial goal
• A ministry goal

I was always pretty skeptical about goal-setting as a kid when we were made to do it at school, but the results (as an adult) have convinced me of their worth! Hopefully this will inspire others to give it a try too, before we get too far into 2021. Remember to keep them simple and achievable!