You set goals for your personal achievements, for your work, and for fixing up your home so why wouldn’t you set objectives for your family? Goal setting is a great practice that keeps you aiming higher and achieving more. It is hard to get somewhere if you don’t know where you are going. Family goals are worth setting because they help unite everyone under a mission and provide a roadmap for how to get there. Here, I share information about why goal setting with families is important and provide family goal examples as well as a free printable for a goal setting worksheet.
Family life can be stressful and overwhelming if the whole family isn’t being supportive of one another. Everybody is moving in different directions, doing their own thing, making their own plans; when do you find time to take care of what matters most, quality time with your family? That’s were family goal setting can come in. To help make sure everyone is playing for the same team in an effort to reach a common goal. Or if you are a young couple just starting a family, goals can help you get used to the tremendous changes and stay in unison with your partner.
What are Family Goals?
There are two types of goals you can set as a family. You can set goals for things you want to do together like how to spend family nights and vacation time. Or, you can set goals for how you want to work together as a family. For instance, you can create a goal to give everyone the same amount of screen time so there’s no more arguing over whose turn it is at the computer. You can even help older children with individual targets that the family can help support them in reaching.
Setting family goals requires the cooperation of the entire family to be successful. I will share a few family goals examples below and then talk more about how to set goals.
Family Goals Examples
What are family goals examples? Well, here are 10 family goal examples to get you thinking about what specific goals might be right to make with the important people in your life. These family goals examples may inspire you in creating your own lists of intentions for the upcoming year. Use these examples to get you started thinking about things that you want to achieve as a family.
1. Be Active in Your Church
Attend weekly services and participate in church events or a community service project.
2. Deal with Conflict
Set a goal that will help your kids work through conflict resolution in a mature and responsible manner.
3. Create a Family Financial Plan
Financial goals may include savings, investments, education, travel, etc. You might like to use this family financial plan workbook to help you.
4. Generate Sufficient Income
Fights over money can lead to family stress and divorce so this is an important goal. Come up with ways that you can easily increase your household income and reduce spending.
5. Maintain Open Communication
When your kids feel safe telling you anything, they’ll be more truthful and open with you.
6. Work/Life Balance
Set a goal of the maximum hours you’ll work in a day or a week to give you work/life balance.
7. Family Health and Fitness
How will you work together as a family to eat healthy and stay fit. What health objectives would you like to reach?
8. Family Night
Set a goal to make sure you have at least one family night a week where you do something fun together like watch a movie or play board games. Let younger kids help with picking everyday activities they would like to do for quality family time.
9. Family Meals
Set a goal to enjoy a certain number of meals together as a family without any distractions. Family dinners are a great way to deepen your family bond and create a fun routine.
10. Extended Family Time
Decide what works best for your immediate family according to where extended family members live. Maybe a monthly get together would be a nice goal or a yearly family vacation if they are far away.
What examples of family goals would you add to this list? Make sure to include both short term and long term intentions so you are able to achieve things without getting discourage and so that you have things to stretch for.
Why Is A Family Goal Important?
Why is goal setting with families important? Happy families don’t just happen by chance, they take work, focus, healthy habits, and decision making. As the parent, it is your job to guide your family and create a loving and supportive home. While everyone participates in reaching the goals, the goals originate with your decisions about what you want for your family.
Once goals are created and everyone’s on board with working together, it creates a family bond that builds trust, love, and respect. When should you start? Now’s a good time! Getting started is always the hardest part so go ahead use this as your starting point. Get it over with so you can get that much closer to a happy family!
How to Set Goals For Family
Setting goals doesn’t need to be difficult, but it does require some decision making about what’s important to you. Your goal ideas should reflect your family values. Here is how to set new short-term goals and long-term goals.
1. Decide What You Want for Your Family
This is a time to come together as parents and decide what you want for your family. What do you want to achieve together over the next several months, the next year, the next few years? These goals can have an end result like “we want to take a cross country road trip” or be ongoing goals like “we want our children to show each other respect.”
2. What Would You Like to Copy or Avoid
Think about other families you know, or even families you watch on TV, what do they do that you want your family to do as well. What do they do that you want to avoid? Look for examples of things you like or don’t like in other families and set your objectives accordingly.
3. What are Your Challenges as a Family
Where do you see your family struggling? What do you wish your family did better? The answers to these questions will help you define goals that you want to set.
4. Don’t Forget the Most Important Goals
Keeping your family bonded, healthy, and happy should be at the top of your family goal setting. Be sure to set goals that include fitness, healthy habits, encouragement, appreciation, gratitude, and being social together.
Printable Family Goal Setting Worksheet Template
You may also find this Family Goal Setting worksheet helpful to plan family objectives as a team. You can print the pdf here or pin the image above for later. These printable worksheets are perfect for bringing to your next family meeting. They are the best way to teach your kids about personal goals and objectives that can be accomplished only as a family unit. Starting a family tradition of goal setting may be hard at first but it gets easier as you all know what to expect and become better working as a team. The goal setting template helps everyone get on the same page.
Conclusion
Do you plan family achievements? Family goals are a great way to create a solid foundation. Working together will build mutual respect and trust as well as a strong family bond. As your kids get older and they can participate more in helping to reach goals, the specific goals will evolve and change. Be sure to gather family members on a regular basis for goal setting so you all know what to expect. It is a wonderful part of the process to watch the growth as you move from accomplishing small goals together to taking on larger challenges. What fun family activities will you add to your list of goals?
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Pranshul Mittal says
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