17. Goal-Setting for Kids. Plus, Dreaming & Goal-Setting in Marriage- a Marriage Moment with Rich and Val

Teach Your Kids Goal-Setting. Plus, Rich & Val on the Value of Dreaming & Goal-Setting in Marriage, Episode 17.
2020 brings 52 opportunities for you and I to get more intentional together every Monday on the Practically Speaking MOM podcast. The podcast for an Intentional Mom to build a Strong Family.
****Val's BLOG POST on GIVING YOUR KIDS THE GIFT OF GOAL-SETTING****
"Our kids need to know that SUCCESS IS IN THE JOURNEY AS MUCH AS IN THE END ACHIEVEMENT." Val Harrison, The Practically Speaking MOM

Three Steps to Teaching Your Kids the Success Habit of Goal Setting - Goal-setting and Goal-mapping Skills.
1. Pray over your goal-setting before, after, and during the process.
We want God to be our partner in life.  He knows us; he knows our circumstances; he knows our future.  He knows all of those things better than we do.  Having Him as our partner in all of these decisions and all o f these plans is so critical.  Ultimately we want His will.  We don't want our will.   He can do this so much better than we can.  I need him to direct my life and I want to teach my children to allow Him to direct their lives also.  We shouldn't expect that for their future behavior if we don't teach them how today. 
"His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. As far as the heavens are above the earth, so far are His thoughts above our thoughts and His ways above our ways."  Isaiah 55:8.
2. Teach them to WRITE DOWN their goals and place them around the house where they can see them regularly.
3. Include a TIMELINE for  achievable little steps as a roadmap to the big goal. If you only have the big end goal, it may stay too unattainable.  You and your kids need some little successes to celebrate along the way!

Quotes from the episode:
"Even if we never reach the end goal, we have succeeded by making progress." Val Harrison 

"It's bonding to set goals together, to map them out together, and to watch God do great things." Val Harris

Transcript

Val Harrison: 0:01

Happy new year everybody. I am so looking forward to an entire year of intentional growth along with you every Monday. Today we're going to look at goal setting. We're going to look at two different things. One, helping our kids develop the ability to set goals and map them out and achieve them is one of the greatest things we can teach our kids. So giving the gift of goal setting to our kids is the first section of today. And then my husband rich will join me and we will talk marriage and what a valuable role goal setting has played in our marriage. Honestly, just been a lifeline at times. So I am excited about today's episode with you all, but I'm also excited about this entire year with you. We'll have 52 opportunities to get more intentional about all the different areas of our life and we'll do it together. So this is very exciting to spend 2020 with you, my intentional mom, friends, let's get started Let's talk about teaching your kids the success habit of goal setting. You know, I've got plenty of habits I'm trying to break, but I've had a habit for a long time that's actually a good habit goal setting with my kids. I learned how to really set goals and achieve them as a director in Mary Kay. I've been in Mary Kay for 20 plus years and have enjoyed it. I am no longer a director. It just was not the right fit a nymore for me a couple of years ago, but for many years I was and I actually earned the use of f our free cars while being a stay at home mom, homeschooling my seven kiddos. And the only way to achieve things like that is by really having some good goal setting and goal mapping abilities in place. And I'm just thankful for all that I learned really mostly from Mary Kay in doing that. But I want to share with you how I have learned to set goals with my kids and achieve those or work on them because our kids need to know that success is in the journey as much as it's in the end achievement. Even if we never reach the end goal, we have succeeded by making progress. And so it's fun to, you know, it's more than fun. It is really, it is bonding to set goals together, to map them out together and to watch God do great things. So there's three important steps to setting goals. The first one is pray over your goals before you set them, while you're setting them and after you set them. We want God to be our partner in life. He knows us, he knows our circumstances, he knows our future. He knows all of those things better than we do. So having him as our partner in all of these decisions and all of these plans are just so critical. Ultimately we want his will. We don't want our will. The scripture says that his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So far as the heavens are from the earth. So are his thoughts above our thoughts and his ways above our ways. Isaiah 55:8. He can do this so much better than we can. I need him to direct my life. So I pray before, during and after goal setting sessions and then as I go through the process of working towards these different goals as well. So definitely that's the first thing in teaching our kids some good habits and goal setting. The second thing is to write it down, get it in front of your face regularly, your goal in front of your face regularly. Maybe your kids can put them on their bathroom mirror or on their nightstand or both or on the fridge or whatever they're going to look at regularly, maybe on their corner of their computer screen, if they've got schoolwork that they do on there. Or on front of their day planner, on the door of their room, just wherever th ey t hink will be effective for them. And probably switching up the locations wi ll b e he lpful a lso. But this is a great thing to do at the beginning of every year, getting your kids in the habit of really being more intentional. That's what this is. It's just, it's sort of mega intentional in t hat we're thinking it through and we're getting a good focus for our life, but we're doing it on paper and we're really mapping it out with small steps along the way, which comes to step three. Include a timeline of achievable little steps along the way. If you only have the big end goal, it may stay too unattainable. You and your kids need some little successes to celebrate along the way toward the big goal. Most of these goals that pertain to the four categories that I showed you, it wasn't last time, but a few podcast episodes ago. We did raising a Luke two 52 kid and I talked to you about you as a mom taking time to pray over the verse. Luke two 52 Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God, favor with man, those four areas of life and evaluating your child and figuring out what is the number one goal that you want to work on with them in their life over the next six months. And sometimes I share those goals with them and sometimes I don't. It just depends on the child and it depends on whether it would help or hinder the growth in that area if they know about it, if it's something that they would do great with and they can partner together with you on them growing in that area, awesome. But sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes they need to not know what you have evaluated. You know, God's like that with us. He knows so many more areas of our life that we need to work on. Then when he talks to us about, because we can't handle that many, he gives us little bite size amounts of growth to do at a time because that's what we can handle without getting discouraged. So it's the same way with setting goals. So as you guys are figuring out what are some goals that you want to work on for the next year, you want to have big dream big, a little bit too far out to be achieved without God. It's great to have goals that big, but have little steps along the way that are achievable. For example, let's say you set a goal for your child to become more compassionate and empathetic with other people's feelings as their favor with me and goal. Well, compassion and empathy can definitely be improved in life, but we don't really reach full achievement of totally compassionate and empathetic. We can always get better at it, but never finish the task completely. That's why it's important to have attainable little steps along the way, such as if I want my child to be more compassionate and empathetic, I might provide some opportunities for my child to help at a food bank or watch a documentary about a child who grew up in a difficult situation or read some books that illustrate what obstacles some people face. So there are many great books that would help them grow in empathy. I'll just mention too that our family has enjoyed. One is Johnny, spelled J. O. N I. This is about Johnny Erickson Tada, a woman who when she was 16 years old, had a diving accident and it left her a quadriplegic. She could not move from the neck down and she has become a famous artist. She paints singer, she writes music. She, um, she was making podcasts before podcasts were a thing. Um, she's very inspiring and there's several books by her, but her biography or autobiography is called Johnny J. O. N. I. Another good one is called a man called Norman, the unforgettable story of an uncommon friendship by Mike Atkins. So that would be another thing that you guys could read as a family or your child could read depending on their age for helping them grow in compassion and empathy towards others. So those are some examples of little steps along the way toward achieving a goal. Now, my example that I gave to you is probably not one that kids are going to be, you know, rushed towards. Oh yes, I want to be more compassionate and empathetic. Well, so it might apply better to the four goals that you set for your kids every six months. The four different areas that I mentioned from raising a Luke two 52 kid, that podcast and a blog post on that topic is available on my website. I just wanted to give you those examples of little steps, but it could be that you, the goals that your child goes for might be they want to learn how to play soccer, so you know, what are some steps that they need to take to be able to do that. That'd be an example. I'm going to give you another example of something from our lives. My son, Nathan wanted to go on a church youth group trip to Chicago and it was going to be quite costly and he also was hoping to purchase a guitar. So we mapped out the costs of these goals and we brainstormed a list of all the things that we could think of that he could do to make money. But he was only 12 so the list was not exactly, you know, super long, but I told him now, Nathan, if God wants your goals to be reached, he will provide some opportunities for you. But you need to know that. He will expect you to follow through with those income opportunities, even if they're not exactly, enjoy double options. So I think you should tell God ahead of time that you're willing to do the unpleasant if it's things he wants you to do. So let's really commit to that. So that's what we did first. His prayer was something like this, God, whatever opportunities you bring my way, I will do them even if I don't want to. And I only want these goals. If you want these goals for me, please have your will and I will praise you either way. So that was basically his prayer. So would you believe that for the next five days in a row, God had someone call us? You know, this was before texting and was a thing that he, God had five days in a row. He had people call us with income opportunities for Nathan. And we had not told anyone about these goals and it was not normal for him to get phone calls for things that needed to be done. One was helping out on someone's farm, another was watching their boys a few days a week for some several months. Another was mowing lawns. And some other opportunities came up as well. It was so faith building to see God at work in miraculous ways in Nathan's life through this goal setting. If we don't set goals that are a little out of reach, we won't recognize God at work and bringing opportunities. So teach your kids to set big goals, but to do so with attainable steps. So really that's the three steps for helping your kids learn to set goals. I'll Sam again for you. Number one is pray over the goals before, during, and after your goal setting session and to write it all down. I mean, we go through the brainstorming process where we just, you know, let's just write everything down that comes to mind of, you know, just wild, crazy, amazing things. If those could happen. And remember, we're doing this perfectly because we truly want God's will. We don't just want to, you know what, I just want an amazing X-Box, you know, system. Now that's okay sometimes of course, but really our life is about so much more great and impactful things than that. Clearly a mission trip to Chicago and a guitar are going to be more edifying to a person's life than an X box system. So encourage your kids to really step out of the, um, consumerism things that might be the first things on their wishlist, so to speak. It's awesome if a wishlist is really more like a bucket list that is about life experiences and growth and development rather than just stuff. So I do remember one year, it was new year's day and we went around the room, all of the kids that were born at that time and rich and I, and we were just each sharing, if anything could happen in the next year, what would you want it to be? What would you just be blown away if this happened? And my daughter, Becca said that she would love a horse. And my, my daughter Tori said that she would love a trip to a particular pace. I don't remember where it was. It might've been Colorado, but I'm not sure. And then one of my kids has always been into Marine biology things and so he said he'd love to own a shark. And my husband said he would love to live in the country and I don't remember the other kid's goals. But anyway, so we all just shared an amazing, you know, out of the box, way too big dream. And so we prayed that day about those goals and about those dreams. And then we just started writing down, okay, what steps would have to happen to make that dream come true, to make that come to pass. And so we broke some things down in bite sized pieces. Also putting deadlines on little bite size steps, little steps that are attainable towards the big goal that seems way out of reach. Um, so we put some steps down. Anyway, the end of the story is that that year we bought a place in the country. And do you know what came with that place? Oh horse. We didn't even know when we went to look at the property that a horse would be included, but it was, and also that year, because the other things had been happening that the other, the rest of the family had been asking for. I wanted our son who wanted a shark. I wanted that to really happen. So I, you know, just did some looking and found that there was an aquarium that had some sharks and formaldehyde in a jar. And so I ordered that for him.(it had died of natural causes.) And anyway, so he got to have his goal to some extent, which was still neat because he was able to really study the different aspects of that f ine creature up close and personal. U m, but anyway, you know, I just imagine how bonding and amazing of a year we had to see God work through our efforts and our mapping out of goals to see them happen. And it hasn't been like that every year. We didn't buy a property every year, get our first horse every year. But we did have milestones in our life where God said, Hey, let's do this together. Let's work on life together. I think that it can be more than you could ever ask or imagine. So anyway, I just wanted to share with you today setting goals with your kids. I hope that you will not just make this a onetime deal, but really help them develop the habit of goal setting on every obstacle that comes up. Well, not every obstacle, some obstacles don't really need goals to be set, they just need to, let's dig in there and do it or let's figure out how to overcome this obstacle. But there are some things to achieve them. Really will require mapping it out, putting it in little steps, putting deadlines on these little steps. Man, I use this almost daily. I will set goals, um, and then set deadlines on the small goals along the way. And it is so exciting. It's such an exciting way to live life. All right, now we're just going to move on to the second half of today's podcast and it is about dreaming together on goal setting together with your spouse.[inaudible] let's take time for a marriage minute. So you all don't know it, but we've, we've been arguing about how it's going to start time for a marriage minute. Hey, how about a marriage minute, yo, marriage minute time. Anyway, we have a few things we want to say about marriage as soon as we get along. Okay. Today we're talking about one of the elements that we think is beneficial in marriage does something that has really just lightened the load when things have gotten very mundane or very heavy. What is it? It is learning how to dream together, how to goal set together and how both of those things brings hope, hope for your marriage, and just hope for your future. It does. You know, moms, I'm sure many of you can relate to how life just really comes at you hard and fast. Sometimes there's plenty of times where, uh, we are, uh, bombarded with the unexpected, unexpected bills, unexpected expenses, unexpected issues with kids or you know what this reminds me of? Okay. So our favorite movie is the princess bride and there's this scene in the princess bride where princess buttercup and Wesley are in the fire swamp and they are trying to get away from other things and that's why they're in there, but they're trying to make it through the fire swamp and all of these bad things are happening like, like the lightning sand princess buttercup of course falls down into lightning sand and just disappears underground. What's lightening Sandy. They might not know. It's like quicksand. It's just there's a big fire explosion first, right? Well, okay, there's the flame spurts and the ROUSes and all of that. There's[inaudible]. That's the rodents of unusual size that are coming after them. You'll have to see it if you haven't seen it. It's similar to a lot of my dreams at night because I'm always fighting giant things in my sleep anyway. So I'm thinking of the, that scene in the princess b ride where they're trying to make it through the fire swamp and all of this stuff is coming at them. And that's how, okay, not always b ecause family and marriage is great, but sometimes that is how life looks w hen y ou g ot, when y our parents.

Rich Harrison: 20:42

life is life. If life gets messy, life happens, you know. So there's, there's things that u h, weigh on us and sometimes they're the routine and e very d ay and sometimes they're unexpect.

Val Harrison: 20:53

I can remember this one time where we were having major plumbing issues and you were digging outside trying to dig down to the pipes and it was pouring rain and it was late at night and you had been doing this for hours and you were exhausted. Work hadn't been going well at the time, so you were exhausted from work besides that and like your job work. Uh, and then you'd been doing this and you got in your truck, um, to, I dunno, you were trying to pull something and you didn't realize it, but you ran over a tree stump. So now your truck is stuck in the mud, in the dark at all. This is literally like midnight or later. And so then at that point life was really rough. And you know, that's one thing when it's one night, but there are seasons of life where it feels like the fire swamp or a night like that for a very long time. Sometimes it is a marathon of difficulty that we have to go through and we want to stay strong as a married couple and there's a lot of things that can help that in those times. But oddly enough, something as simple as dreaming together and goal setting together have really been able to pull us mentally out of the difficult situation we're at. And maybe we can't take ourselves out of the situation entirely and we have to just make our way through it. But just being able to change our perspective by goal setting and dreaming. That's been a wonderful, refreshing team building activity for us. It really is. So, uh, maybe we talk about what are some of, what does that look like for us when we do that? Well, usually it starts with taking a date afternoon or evening where we literally are driving around town, just looking at neighborhoods, looking at houses. We really enjoy real estate. We really enjoy looking at how they landscaped or what kind of door they have or what their fences are like. It's just fun. It's kind of a fun get out of your own life for a little bit.

Rich Harrison: 23:11

It is, and I'm, I'm chuckling because this is great for fitting into the category of dreaming because most of the time, a lot of the stuff we see, we, we'd love to be able to duplicate some of those cool things we see at our home. But many of them just w are likely to never happen. I know it, yes, we have goals and we set goals. But honey, let's be realistic. We can't do all of those things.

Val Harrison: 23:38

But I really want a double door, even though our home completely does not designed to be able to the door anyway. So sometimes it starts to get to the goal setting session. Sometimes you just got to start with some, get out of your situation. Lighthearted dreaming. So when we set goals, what kind of categories are we talking about with our goals?

Rich Harrison: 24:06

Well, uh, one of the big ones of course is our kids eternity. That is pretty much at the top of the list of things that are important to us as parents,

Val Harrison: 24:18

right? I mean it's at the top of the list. It is the top of the list.

Rich Harrison: 24:24

Strong family, strong family relationships, a philosophy that we're going to have in our home of that no matter what, we're going to be a team. We're a family and we support each other and we, we lift each other up and we, we defend each other and things like that. And how are we going to, um, find new ways of doing that?

Val Harrison: 24:46

Another way that we dream or category is for debt-free and helping our kids live a debt free life as they are adults. How can we instill in them that, how can we prepare them for that adulthood time where they, they would also live that pre also excellence for God's glory is another important thing to us. Um, now I could tell you some lighthearted ones like we want to have a manicured property. You know, that's part of, to us, that's part of representing Christ well is just having a home that is inviting to guests. And that represents excellence. Not, not excellence as in better than other people in some way, but just in doing our best to be good stewards of the property, the property that we have. And so those kinds of things are fun for us to dream about and think about. Also, even just this, practically speaking, mom ministry is big time. One of the dreams that we have worked on for all of these years as we, as we really dream about all of you guys and how we can better help you, motivate you, encourage you in your very worthy journey of Parenthood.

Rich Harrison: 26:06

Uh, that's one of the categories you mentioned earlier was that excellence for God's glory. And that's, that's been something that has been on our hearts for many years is, is just how, how do we effectively minister to others? Uh, you know, we feel that God has taught us of course so much and uh, has, has given us also a passion now for helping other families, uh, whether that's other moms or other, uh, parents or, you know, just different categories of, of, of a godly home.

Val Harrison: 26:39

Yeah. You know, we, you say we've learned a lot really that to, we've made a lot of mistakes. We've had a lot of opportunities to learn from all of those mistakes. So those are some of the categories that we really dream in. And then we set goals in those different categories and that helps to shape our decision making in time. So if we're in the middle of a crisis time, we already know our values, we already know what we're working towards, so it helps us to be able to make decisions cleaner with a little less stress because we've already established what our vision is for the next step. So intentional parents. We just hope that you will take a little bit of time to figure out what are the categories that you want to start dreaming about and that you want to start setting some goals in and just test it out and see if you don't find it. To be really team-building in your marriage to set these goals and get a cast, a vision for the next step in your family. You can find today's show notes and transcript at practically speaking, mom.com there you'll find Val's blog books and the six rooms of the intentional mom's home. If you found this podcast to be helpful, we would be honored if you would subscribe to the podcast, follow her blog and join in the practically speaking moms online community through Instagram and Facebook. At practically speaking, mom, Val is looking forward to spending time with you again next week. Right here on the practically speaking mom podcast. The place for an intentional mom to build a strong family.