The Top Reasons Why You Need To Set Family Goals Each Year
Inside: How often do you stop and just pause together as a family? Find out why you not only should but need to make it a priority to set family goals each year.
Setting family goals is one of my favorite things to do at the beginning of the year! It’s become something of a family tradition in our home.
January is fast approaching, and this post-holiday time of year is when most people look to making their new year’s resolutions.
I’ve never really been a fan of making huge, life-changing declarations on January 1st, but I do enjoy setting realistic and manageable goals that I’m confident I can achieve. And that’s precisely the philosophy behind my family goal setting.
Our goals need to be achievable, measurable, and at the same time, celebrate-able!
This post may contain affiliate links. We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. You can see my full disclosure policy here.Â
You Really Do Need Family Goals
Setting goals each year helps us move forward. If you can’t look ahead, you stay stuck in the messy middle.
With the hustle and bustle of everyday life moving us from one day to the next, we forget to stop to appreciate or consider what’s important to us.
When we take time to pause and reflect on how we want to grow as a family, we are investing in our family’s success. We are investing in growing closer and building our family relationship.
You are setting an excellent example for your children by focusing on what matters in life. Plus, when you take the time to create family goals, you are teaching your kids valuable life skills such as communication, discipline, commitment, and perseverance.
How Family Goals Make Things Easier
Setting goals makes a lot of things in family life easier. It’ll come as no surprise that you’re more likely to reach your goals when the people around you are helping to keep you motivated.
When you work towards family goals, everyone can keep each other motivated and on track.
Having family goals also makes bonding as a family a lot easier. I’m sure you know all too well how busy life can get. Between school, playdates, work, and chores, where does family time fit in?
By working together towards family goals, you’ll build more family time into your schedule without even realizing it!
Establishing family goals can improve everyone’s overall health. I’m a big fan of setting goals around my family’s health and wellness, from cooking together, eating better, moving more, and being kinder to one another.
These types of goals will help everyone in the family to have a happier and healthier year!
Staying Flexible When Setting Family Goals
You must remember to stay flexible when setting family goals. By being flexible, you increase your family’s chance of success, and that’s ultimately what you want – for your family to achieve their goals and celebrate together!
For example, if one of your family goals is for everyone to eat their five-a-day, don’t beat yourself up if one day, you only get four of your five a day. You could make this family goal more flexible by aiming to eat your five-a-day a certain number of times a week.
It’s better than not getting your five-a-day at all, and everyone will still be healthier for it!
Don’t Let Setting Family Goals Overwhelm You
Remember not to let setting family goals overwhelm you and your family. You don’t have to set enormous goals for your family, such as running a marathon together.
In fact, I’d argue that smaller goals are better. If you want to be more active as a family, you could set a goal of going for family walks or doing family yoga. Set small, achievable goals that will make everyone in the family happy.
Family goal setting should be fun and exciting, not stressful, and overwhelming.
Family Goals Examples
If you’ve never done family goal-setting before, knowing what kind of goals to set can be tricky. First of all, you want to make sure that your goals meet three very important criteria – are they achievable, measurable, and celebrate-able?
You want your family to have success with their goals, so make sure it’s something that can realistically be achieved. You also need a way to measure your goals, so you know if they’ve been achieved or not.
And finally, it needs to be a goal that you’re going to want to celebrate when your family achieves it!
Here are some examples of family goals:
- Eat our 5-a-day
- Cook one meal a week together
- Eat dinner together as a family five nights a week
- Go for a family walk twice a week
- Once a month, volunteer together
- Start a garden
- Have a device-free evening once a week
- Start a family book club
- Have a family game night once a week
- Plan a family vacation together each year
- Try a new hobby once a month
- Cut down on your family carbon footprint
Encourage The Whole Family to Get Involved
When setting family goals, make sure that the whole family is involved, not just the parents. Your kids might have some great ideas for family goals, and it also gives them a chance to express what they think is essential.
They might value reading together as a family over playing board-games, but you won’t know unless you involve them in the family goal-setting.
By getting everyone involved in family goal setting and allowing your kids to have their say, you’re more likely to create goals that they’ll want to achieve and be excited by. Family is the keyword here.
You’ll be achieving these goals together, so why not set them together and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Create A Family Vision Board
Creating a family vision board to compliment your family goals is a great way to motivate everyone and help younger ones to visualize the goals. The great thing about making a family vision board is that it’s a FAMILY activity.
If one of your goals is to do more together as a family, then this goal setting is a fantastic activity to do!
The vision board can revolve around the goals. For example, if some of your goals are to be healthier and more active, you can include magazine cuttings of some favorite family recipes. Or maybe flyers from local fitness centers to remind you of the opening times and activities on offer.
Don’t forget to sprinkle in those motivational quotes and add lots of color to your family vision board!
Family Goal Setting 2020
The new year is fast approaching, and the festive season will be over before you know it… That means it’s time to start thinking about setting some family goals!
To make this a fun experience for everyone, have the discussion beforehand so everyone has time to think about what goals they’d like to work on as a family. Sometime in the new year, sit down together and pick a handful of family goals to work on in 2020.
Don’t pick too many as not to get overwhelmed and make sure they’re achievable, measurable, and celebrate-able!
And don’t forget to come up with something exciting and fun for the whole family as a reward when you do reach your family goals!
Your Turn
Does your family set goals each year? I would love to hear in the comments below some of the goals your family has set and achieved!
