As my kids get older, I love making them more and more a part of the process of deciding what we do and what we are about as a family.  So this year, I decided that we were going to make family goals together in addition to me making my own personal goals for myself and my family.  

I was curious about what other families were doing when it came to setting family goals.  So I decided to do a little research.  I found some really helpful tips for having family meetings and for working on goals together as a family.  In this post, I  highlight some of the tips and posts I found.  I share my thoughts on them.  Then my next post will share how we did our own planning.

The Research:

Family Meetings

Chad Hayenga, from Connected Families, gives a list of important elements to consider when having a family meeting.  The ones that especially resonated with me were making it light-hearted, letting everyone talk, and keeping the meeting short.  He also makes a point of saying that even small children can be a part of and really enjoy a family meeting and it’s outcomes.

Time Frame

Mom blogger, Sammy, talks about the importance of breaking down family goals for different time frames.  She recommends having daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals as a family.  She has a great printable too that shares some possible family goals for each of those time frames.  She shares that her family is working on one big goal for the year of not doing regular fun family outings and instead saving the money for a Disney Cruise.  What a great way to bring the kids in on the fun of planning a trip like this and helping the kids see that spending money on something really big and fun also takes compromise and sacrifice in a other ways.

Content

For us, it was important just to have open discussion as a family, but I also really wanted to have good questions that would help us to get at what each family members desires.  Each of the resources that I found did a combination of reflecting on last year and looking forward to this new year.  Blogger, Joyce, had some great questions.  I will just share a couple of them.  Go to the link to find more of them.  “What is your favorite memory from this past year? What is your favorite family activity?  What makes you feel happy and loved? What is one thing you would like to try as a family in the new year?”

Another blogger, Heather, talks about breaking up the content for a family meeting and goal setting into categories like: “things I did this year that I am proud of, things I am looking forward to, new things I want to try, and things I am grateful for.”  She also has a great printable worksheet.

Ayanna, has a fun printable for breaking down your year into specific kinds of goals.

Heather, on Mom It Forward, tells how she and her family make a mission statement.  She states  the importance of defining a family’s values and purpose.  She has several questions and topics to cover including: when the family is at it’s worst and best, how to better help each other, how to help others outside of the family, and what principles the family should be based on.  She has a great printable for covering these things.  This would be especially good to go through with older kids or just a husband and wife.  Then she has some tips for putting it into action like: establishing goals, posting and sharing it with others so it is memorable, and talking about it often.

Families I Know:

I was curious what friends and family do when it comes to making goals and intentions with their families.  My friend, Esther, said that they focus on goals during the summer, when there is a lot of time.  She has her kids think about a personal goal for each category of Spiritual, Fitness, and Academic.  What a great way to use the summer to focus on fun achievements when there is more time.  I think I am going to use that this summer.

A family member, Carla, shared that her daughter was inspired after seeing a vision board on the Gabby Douglas movie so, they decided to make a vision board as a family.  They started by choosing a family Bible verse.  Family vision boards are so visually appealing and grab your attention.  This is a great way for family members to quickly see what their intentions are.  I am going to steal that idea and have us pick a family verse, too.

Another friend, Barbara, said that when her kids were young she had them make S.M.A.R.T goals.  This is a way of planning out our desires and goals and making sure that they are S=Specific, M=Measureable, A=Achieveable, R=Realistic, and T=Timely.  Her family also had a family verse.  Using the tool, SMART, makes a goal workable and setting yourself up for success.

I loved the chance to investigate what people do when it comes to being intentional about their time and actions.  I was inspired and used much of what I found when we did our own goal planning.  I will share what and how we did that in my next post on Thursday.  Take action, use these ideas for your family or work with me as a coach to help you plan a year that reflects your desires.