3 Easy Steps for Setting Goals with your Children

The Struggle with Goal Achievement

It’s been reported that more than 90% of people never achieve their goals. That had me wondering … why? Why are people struggling to achieve the goals they have for their lives? Whether it is financial or physical, if it’s a simple task or a complex undertaking, why do we struggle with doing what we set out to do?

Parental Guidance in Goal Achievement

My husband and I decided early that we would help our daughters to not only be goal setters, but goal achievers. We knew it was not enough just to have a dream but learning to plan is what brings the dreams to fruition.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

We knew that goal setting wasn’t the most important lesson, it would be more important to learn how to develop a plan, make progress, adjust your course, and celebrate success.

Starting Small and Working Together

1. Start small and work together: Setting goals is kind of addictive, when you start making goals, developing plans, and getting things done you want to do it again and again. Kids catch onto that excitement quickly!

   Because it’s exciting, I encourage you to let your child choose their own goals. Avoid setting the goals for them or even really leading them into the objective. For example, it might be a worthwhile and very practical goal to aim for honor roll or to get a grade and a half ahead in your second year of homeschooling, if it is not a goal your young one is passionate about it will fail.

   And it won’t really hit the mark when it comes to teaching THEM how to set goals.

   "If parents find they're nagging or getting angry that their child isn't working hard enough to meet a goal, that's a signal they need to back off," warns Edward L. Coyle, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

   So, start small and let them choose the direction. Set achievable goals with simple steps and build on the momentum of getting things done.

   Obviously, there are going to be goals that cannot be achieved, or goals where they will need you to assist them to a greater degree, and that is OK. This is the POINT. They need to dream, and then they need to learn how to achieve that dream by using the resources they have or by learning (or acquiring) new skills. You, mom, are a part of those resources.

Brainstorming a Plan

2. Brainstorm a plan: Wishes and goals are two similar but vastly different things. This is where I think many people call short when it comes to actually accomplishing their goals. They fail to plan. And you’ve likely heard it before but, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

   Without an idea of how to accomplish our goals it is very unlikely that we will truly accomplish them and if we do it will likely take a lot longer than if we had taken some time to plan.

   So, how do you teach your children to create a plan?

   Ask questions!

   • Ask them how they think they can achieve their goals.

   • Ask them if they need anything to achieve their goals.

   • Ask them if they think there might be things that make it difficult to achieve their goals. Explore what obstacles may present themselves.

   • Ask them what it might feel like to be successful.

   Asking questions helps your little one not only to answer and think in the moment, but it also builds their inner dialogue in how to set goals by outlining a plan. The more you work on this skill the more innate it will become and the more obvious these considerations will seem as they grow in their goal setting.

Celebrating the Milestones

3. Celebrate the milestones: I think, as adults, we understand that just because we set goals, doesn’t mean that we will achieve them. Many times, as we are working toward our goals we realize we need to change course, adjust our sails, and even nix the idea all together.

   Sometimes, because we are human, we can forget that children are ALSO human and they will have times when their best laid plans are not fruitful, or even they get blown off course. Sometimes that can create frustration for us, as parents, and certainly for them, as the goal setters.

   That’s why it is important that we celebrate milestones, that we champion revisions, and that, ultimately, we aren’t necessarily focused on the outcome and success of the goal, but that we are building lifelong skills with our children.

   So get in the habit of recognizing their efforts, encouraging their flexibility, and championing their successes (whether they are goal accomplishment or the ability to manage “failure” well). The more we focus on the process over the result, the safer we make it for our children to set bigger and more challenging goals, thus building not only goal setters but goal achievers.

Handling Failure in Goal Setting

What do we do when they fail? If you just gasped because I implied there would be failure, I want to let you in on something, they WILL fail. We all fail. We all set goals and fall short. That’s human nature, that’s life. There are so many things outside of our control that we can’t guarantee success even with the best laid plans.

How we handle failure and how we equip our children to handle failure is a HUGE part of building confidence in goal setting.

Allowing our children to feel safe failing will give them the confidence to try again.

When failure happens here are some things to help your child fail well:

• Recognize the effort put in.

• Evaluate the plan. Was there something that wasn’t readily achievable? Was it overly vague? Was there a step that was missed?

• Revise the plan.

Ultimately, building a habit of setting goals is more about teaching your children how to plan for goals and how to handle hiccups and challenges than it is about seeing success right away. The better you can equip them to handle the swells of best laid plans, the more successful they will be in the long run, in their ability to accomplish goals.