Goals

September 30, 2020 sakkelley

For most of us, the school year has started, and we have begun a new journey. One of the things I like to do is create goals for our family because if we don´t know where we are going then how are we going to get there?

Before we go any further, my name is Kaycee Hobbs and I am the mother of seven children. We homeschool them all and have since the very beginning. One of our struggles is keeping up with everyone´s specific challenges and making sure they have what they need to succeed.

I learned at the beginning that I needed a specific goal is or we would never be able to see any progress. So, let´s take a minute and explore this to see if we can get a little bit more clarity.

What is a goal?
The definition of the word goal is an object of a person´s ambition or effort. It is an aim or a desired result.

You have to make a goal in order to accomplish it and it needs to be one that can be measured. A couple of years ago, I lined up the children in a row along the top of our yard. I told them it was a race and yelled “On your marks, get set, GO!”

As you can imagine, they took off running to the sidewalk in front of our house because they thought it was the finish line. They were all proudly proclaiming themselves to be first, second, third, and so forth when I announced none of them had won because they were not at the finish line.

They looked at me very confused and then asked where the finish line was. When I told them, it was the play area in our backyard they took off running.

After we had crowned and congratulated the winners of that race, I gathered them around to explain the importance of having a goal. If we do not know where they finish line is, we will waste a lot of time and energy just running around. We must know where we are headed in order to accomplish what we need to accomplish. We must keep our eye on the prize!

How do we make a goal?
When I am evaluating what goals to set, I follow three steps:

1.     Pray
2.     Ask
3.     Set

Pray
The very first thing that I do is pray and ask God what He wants me to work on with my children. Sometimes setting a goal can be overwhelming because there could be a lot of things that need to be worked on.

This can be overwhelming because we want to fix everything at the same time. We have to narrow it down to one or two things. Asking God for His help is the secret ingredient to us finding success.

Ask
The next step is to ask around to see what others think. I usually start with my husband to see what he thinks should be a goal for this particular child. After I have heard his thoughts, then I will ask the child what they think their goal should be.

Now, I am going to be very honest with you… I don´t think I have ever had a child just tell me what their goal should be. It usually takes a bit of discussion to get their brain moving.

Set
The last step is to set the goal. After we have discussed everyone´s thoughts we set the goal. I like to keep this step very simple and something that can be measured. Goals can be any of the following things:

·      Character
·      Academic
·      Health
·      Behavior
·      Financial
·      Spiritual

What do I do now?
Now that we have set our goal, we need to make a plan for how we are going to achieve that goal. We have created a FREE Printable to help you accomplish your goal.

Remember what Philippians 4:13 says: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.