"All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them."

- Walt Disney

Have you ever set goals for yourself, only to feel like you never quite achieve them? We set goals, get caught in the day-to-day churn and wonder why we didn’t quite get there. But this year, it's time to change that narrative. By diving a bit deeper into setting goals in the right way, we can elevate our aspirations, turn them into something more attainable and even involve our families along the journey.

In this blog post, we'll explore four key elements that may be missing from your goal setting process. There are enough resources out there teaching you how to write a goal, so we’re going a little beyond that. These may be the elements that will help you actually achieve your goals. Let's dive in!

1. Connect Your Goals to a Shared Family Vision

How often have you written a goal, then get to the end of the year and wondered what that goal was all about anyway? To help elevate a goal, connecting it to a shared vision for yourself or your family will give it a super dose of oomph. Because now, it’s not just something that’s important to you, but it’s something that the whole family can aspire to and stand behind. It doesn’t mean it can’t be a personal goal – personal goals can be part of a shared vision too.

Consider what you want your family's future to look like and how your goals can contribute to that vision. For example, if your shared vision is to have a healthy and active family, that means everybody’s health goals is a priority for the family and you can implement both family and individual activities that contribute towards this vision.

By connecting your goals to a bigger shared vision, you’re also helping yourselves work towards the family life you’re dreaming of. So it’s an all around win-win!

Example:

Let’s stay with the healthy and active family example – that’s a shared vision that the family holds. You may have personal goals in this space, whether it is to learn a new sport, swim more regularly, break some personal bests, or try a new exercise routine, but it’s all connected to the vision. The vision also encourages everyone to have their own personal goals as well as shared goals, eg. More active outdoor time every month as a family. This way, everyone is aligned towards something that works for the family.

2. Find your 10/10 WHY

By now, we’ve all probably heard about the importance of establishing the why behind your goals. When you know why a goal is important to you, you’re more likely to be motivated internally instead of grasping at straws.

Take a moment to reflect on the WHY behind each of your goals. Ask yourself what value or benefit you hope to gain by achieving them. Then ask yourself how much that WHY motivates you. If your answer is not 10/10, ask yourself WHY again. And again. And again. Until you find your 10/10 WHY.

When you have it, hold it close. Even when you lose way, that WHY will bring you back.

Example:

Let’s stay with the same example as before but you have a personal goal to lose weight. Why do you want to lose weight? Is it to fit into your old clothes? Is it to look better for summer? Those often won’t cut a 10/10 motivation. Maybe you want to lose weight so that you are healthy enough to bring your kids for new adventures. That might get you a step closer. Or maybe you want to break generational cycles of unhealthy weight gain so that your children can live a longer life. That might hit the mark. Whatever it is, find your 10/10 WHY.

3. Set Smaller Milestones - Just Like Your Baby Does!

Setting big goals can be overwhelming, especially when you have a busy life as a parent. To make your goals more manageable and attainable, break them down into smaller chunks. This allows you to focus on one step at a time, making progress and building momentum along the way.

Look at the way little babies learn to walk. They didn’t get go from being a little jelly bean (how cute were those days?) to walking the next day. They had to learn to roll, then sit, then crawl, then pull up, stand, then walk. They hit milestones and practised little steps along the way.

You can do the same. Start by identifying the key milestones or steps required to reach your larger goal. Then, break each milestone down into smaller tasks or actions. By tackling these smaller chunks, you'll build confidence and make steady progress towards your ultimate goal.

Example:

If your goal is to lose 10kgs by the end of the year, what is achievable each quarter? How will you achieve it? How will you surround yourself with the right people, tools and support to achieve it? What are the different aspects of this goal that you need to master, eg. Understanding nutrition, exercise, meal plans, accountability partner/coach, how do family activities fit into this?

4. Keep it REAL, not just SMART

Writing SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) often stresses people out. Even after they've written it, looking at a goal that is SO time-bound can be worrying for parents who need to take about 5000 left turns in a year. If SMART goals work for you, soldier on! But if it doesn't, then keep your goals REAL.

R - Realistic for you, which means it's not some ambitious goal that seems attainable to someone else, but something that you feel is attainable for you.

E - Embrace your season. Does your goal reflect the season that you are in? Does it align with your time of life?

A - Anticipate the left turns. You likely can see the pressure points across the year for your family. When will it likely be tougher? How will that impact your goals?

L - Loosen it up. It's pretty crazy to suggest that a goal needs to be looser, not tighter, but hey, rules that don't work for you needs to be broken. Along with the left turns come a lot of unpredictable scenarios when little ones are concerned. So don't be too tied up with deadlines and decimals. One step forward is still forward.

Example:

If you have 2 children under 5 and little ones in childcare, you might set a fitness goal to be able to do a 5km hike with the both of them by the end of the year, which may be more realistic than say cycling across the country with them (not that this isn't possible, it's just an example!) . Hiking with them can be fun and is better aligned with their ages and where you are in life. You know winter will be tough for practise with all the winter viruses, so you set different goals for each quarter of the year. And maybe the bugs linger for 2 seasons and that's totally ok because you're making progress and you're still going to hike. I bet even if you don't hit those 5kms, you will still be plenty proud and will have a lot of memories to cherish.

5. Plan for FAILURE

Yep, I said it. You might veer off track at some point. You might think you’ve failed. You might feel like it’s completely pointless because you have set yet another goal that just didn’t work.

There’s a saying that goes “nobody plans to fail, but people fail to plan.” So let’s do it – lets plan. Not only for the actionable steps and chunks that will get you towards your goal (per #3), but also the plan for when it looks like it’s going south. This is why points 1-3 above are crucial, because if your personal goal starts to look like it’s going off track, you have already built a support system that will break that fall and put you back into place.

But there’s a few more things you can do by setting some boundaries and expectations for yourself should those situation happen. Sometimes people get into ventures and write an exit plan, this is more like a “re-entry” plan. You can write a plan ahead of time that specifies how much “grace time” you will give yourself to veer off, what kind things you will say to yourself, what your family will say to you, and what mechanisms you will use to pull yourself back.

Example:

For a weight lost goal, you might set a grace period of 2 weeks when you hit a down period. You can write a list of reasons why a goal like this is so tough and why it’s totally ok that you just want to give up. You can write about your limiting beliefs and issues and how they tend to hold you back. You can write a list of reasons that will remind you why you ARE strong, resilient, and have the ability to do what you set out to do. At the heart of self-care really is self-compassion, so be kind to yourself first. You can share these lists with your family, so that they know how to be kind to you too. You can write yourself a letter that you will open at the end of those 2 weeks that reminds you of your 10/10 WHY and 3 easiest steps you can take to get yourself back on track.

"It's not about the goal. It's about growing to become the person that can accomplish that goal."

- Tony Robbins

As parents, it's easy to get caught up in the chaos of everyday life. But by digging a little deeper into your goals, you can shift your life from surviving to thriving. These 4 elements don’t always feature when we set goals for ourselves, so I hope it’s something that will help you this year - connect your goals to a shared vision, find your 10/10 WHY, break them down into smaller achievable chunks, and plan for failure.

Now, it's your turn to take action.

What are some of your family’s shared visions? What personal and family goals can you aspire to from them?