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Transcript

Why Most Family Goals Fail (And How to Get Yours to Stick) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hids doctor Justin Coulson here with my wife, Kylie Mold
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  Speaker 1: of our six kids. This is the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: We're so grateful that you're joining us this early in
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  Speaker 1: the year as we do our best to make our
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: families happier this year. Kylie, you're aware that our kids
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  Speaker 1: have set a fitness goal.
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  Speaker 2: Well, they actually set it at the end of last year.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. They've set the goal so that we can
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  Speaker 1: fire up a year. Yeah, you get it going really well,
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  Speaker 1: but are you aware of what the goal is? Two
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  Speaker 1: of our kids have set a goal and it's specific.
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  Speaker 1: They know exactly what they're trying to achieve.
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  Speaker 2: They trying to run five k's.
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  Speaker 1: They're trying to run five k's. Yeah. So we've got
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  Speaker 1: a couple of daughters who have acknowledged that their fitness
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  Speaker 1: and health are not quite where they need to be.
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  Speaker 1: They want to run five k's and they want to
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  Speaker 1: get it under thirty minutes, so they want to run
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  Speaker 1: six minutes per k or less. So for the last
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  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, between three and four times every single week,
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  Speaker 1: we've been getting up, we've been going for a run,
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  Speaker 1: and they're doing it.
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  Speaker 2: I've been really proud of them because it's hard for them.
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  Speaker 1: And in fact, at the dinner table the other night,
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  Speaker 1: one of the girls said to me, Dad, we were
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  Speaker 1: doing grateful things. What are you grateful for? And she said, Dad,
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  Speaker 1: I know that I winged and wined and cried and
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  Speaker 1: complained and said I can't, but I'm really grateful that
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  Speaker 1: you pushed me, because today I ran faster and further
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  Speaker 1: than I had before. It was really cool. They're doing
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  Speaker 1: hard things. So today, in our Happy Families podcast, we
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  Speaker 1: just want to take maybe three or four minutes, we
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  Speaker 1: want to do this fairly briefly and talk about family
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  Speaker 1: goal setting. What can you do as a family to
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  Speaker 1: set better goals? Handful of things that we want to
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  Speaker 1: talk about. Kylie, I might get started depending on the
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  Speaker 1: age of your children. My sense, and certainly looking at
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  Speaker 1: what research tells us, is that any goal for a group,
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  Speaker 1: any goal for an organization, any goal for a team,
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  Speaker 1: and we can bring that into the family, although I've
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  Speaker 1: not seen research specifically on family contexts.
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  Speaker 2: Do you know you have gray whiskers?
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  Speaker 1: Stop it, we're doing a podcast. I can't believe you're
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  Speaker 1: saying that I'll shave tomorrow. We can't let anybody knowaly
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  Speaker 1: goals are going to be best. Stop looking at me
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  Speaker 1: like that. This is I'm not trying to having a
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  Speaker 1: serious conversation here. Well, you don't usually have whiskers, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm on holidays.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, i haven't shaved whiskers, and I've just noticed.
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  Speaker 1: I'm setting a goal to shave every day for the
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  Speaker 1: rest of it a lot. I can't believe you're doing
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  Speaker 1: this whiskers. Well, my hair is not great. My hair
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  Speaker 1: is not great, So let's just focus on the hair
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  Speaker 1: and stop looking at the whiskers, which I'll be shaving.
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  Speaker 1: I'm now trying to do a podcast with my hand
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  Speaker 1: over my mouth. We've got to get buy in in
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  Speaker 1: fact bottom up.
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  Speaker 2: By the way, I didn't say there was anything wrong
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  Speaker 2: with their bottom up.
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  Speaker 1: Now you're trying to recover.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I just noticed.
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  Speaker 1: Can we just rem any great hair? Can we just
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  Speaker 1: record the podcast? I know it's summer, but we still
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  Speaker 1: got to get a message across here. Family goals are
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  Speaker 1: going to be best if they're developed from the bottom up,
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  Speaker 1: not the top down. That is, when the kids have
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  Speaker 1: a really big voice in what the family goals are.
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  Speaker 2: It has to be buying and the only way there's
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  Speaker 2: buy in if they actually created.
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  Speaker 1: Right, unless we come up with an absolute cracker of
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  Speaker 1: a goal that they are totally hooked on, like let's
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  Speaker 1: save up and go to Disneyland or something like that.
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  Speaker 2: Let's eat in a taler for brows.
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  Speaker 1: That's not a goal, that's a habit we've got to
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  Speaker 1: get out of. So Number One, family goals start best
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  Speaker 1: bottom up, And I think the best way to get
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  Speaker 1: a bottom up conversation going about goals is to sit
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  Speaker 1: down with the kids and have one of those family meetings.
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  Speaker 1: We've talked about it so many times on the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: We ask three questions, what's going great, what's not going
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  Speaker 1: so well? What should we focus on? And just by
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  Speaker 1: asking those three questions, you're basically saying to the kids,
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  Speaker 1: all right, we're doing a whole lot of stuff really well,
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  Speaker 1: handful of things that we can improve on. If we
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  Speaker 1: were to improve on one or two of those things,
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  Speaker 1: what would they be. And that's essentially where we've come
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  Speaker 1: to with our kids' fitness goals. They've decided that health
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  Speaker 1: and fitness needs to be a higher priority. I asked
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  Speaker 1: them what they wanted in terms of their goals. They
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  Speaker 1: want to be able to run five k's in less
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  Speaker 1: than thirty minutes, and so now we're creating a system
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  Speaker 1: around that to get to that goal. And that's pretty
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  Speaker 1: much it, Kylie. What else would you add to a
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  Speaker 1: conversation about how to set family goals other than saying, hey, kids,
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  Speaker 1: what do you think? And then how do we set
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  Speaker 1: up a system around that?
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  Speaker 2: I think one of the most important things when it
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  Speaker 2: comes to goal setting is there needs to be accountability.
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  Speaker 2: There needs to be check in points, or else we're
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  Speaker 2: just having a conversation about something that we'd like to
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  Speaker 2: see happen, but there isn't any intention set on how
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  Speaker 2: we can record progress, how we can actually acknowledge progress.
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  Speaker 2: And without the recognition of progress, it's really hard for
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  Speaker 2: motivation to stay high and for our desires to continue
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  Speaker 2: to improve.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the challenges that you have is
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  Speaker 1: when the kids set a goal, or when you create
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  Speaker 1: a family goal, the parents actually become the police. They
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  Speaker 1: end up rousing on the kids if they're not doing
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  Speaker 1: what they said that were going to do because this
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  Speaker 1: was the goal and we were committed and now you're
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  Speaker 1: not doing it, and we feel like we have to
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  Speaker 1: push the kids and make it happen, the sense of
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  Speaker 1: autonomy and the encouragement of I guess creating the structure
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  Speaker 1: which gives the kids the scaffolding the support that they
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  Speaker 1: need to be the instigators, the ones that are making
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  Speaker 1: it happen themselves, really really essential.
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  Speaker 2: And when it comes to some big goals, like for
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  Speaker 2: our girls, running is not has not actually been in
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  Speaker 2: their vocabulary.
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  Speaker 1: They don't run, they just but they do now.
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  Speaker 2: But if we had have just said, okay, that's a
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  Speaker 2: great goal, you need to get up and go and
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  Speaker 2: do it on your own, chances are it wouldn't have happened.
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  Speaker 1: And this is I think the critical thing. Your kids
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  Speaker 1: have got aspirations, and as a family, you've got aspirations.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it's saving up for a holiday or going and
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  Speaker 1: doing a big hike. But the best way to keep
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  Speaker 1: things moving, the best way for motivation to be high
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  Speaker 1: is for number one, kids to feel like they can
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  Speaker 1: reach it, like they've got the capability, the competence, the
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  Speaker 1: capacity to do it even if they need a leg up,
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  Speaker 1: even if they need support. And number two for them
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  Speaker 1: to be freely choosing it. But there's a third thing
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  Speaker 1: that's even more important. This is the one that you
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  Speaker 1: cannot do it without, and that is involvement. I think
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  Speaker 1: the only reason that our girls are now running around
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  Speaker 1: about three k's three and a half k's without stopping
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  Speaker 1: and at a reasonable pace is because for the last
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  Speaker 1: four weeks, whatever it's been, I've been getting up with
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  Speaker 1: them and going for the run with them and dragging
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  Speaker 1: them out of bed, and because they've told me to
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  Speaker 1: do it, but I'm doing that. There's that level of involvement.
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  Speaker 1: It's the involvement that seems to create the level of
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  Speaker 1: support that's necessary for them to get there. And then
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  Speaker 1: what happens is they start to make progress, They start
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  Speaker 1: to see that it's happening, and those little pieces of
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  Speaker 1: progress give them more inspiration to get up again tomorrow
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  Speaker 1: and run again.
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  Speaker 2: Well, each day you've done it, you've been able to
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  Speaker 2: sit down with them, and they've been able to look
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  Speaker 2: at the stats on their Strava, Strava and stuff and
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  Speaker 2: recognize and see that there's ebbs and flows. Some days
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  Speaker 2: they actually are doing really well, and then there are
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  Speaker 2: other days where they're just really flat, lethargic, lacking and energy,
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  Speaker 2: and it's hard work. But they can see when they improve,
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  Speaker 2: and that gives them such a boost to want to
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  Speaker 2: keep trying.
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  Speaker 1: If you've got younger kids, setting goals is probably as
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  Speaker 1: a family not a huge deal other than to say, hey, kids,
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  Speaker 1: here's what we'd like to do. What do you think?
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  Speaker 1: And it might be having a goal to go on
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  Speaker 1: a holiday, or it could be to do something every
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  Speaker 1: Monday or every Saturday or whatever it is. You just
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  Speaker 1: get the kids to say yes, and then you make
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  Speaker 1: it happen and they'll go along with you because they're little.
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  Speaker 1: As they get older though, once they're sort of north
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  Speaker 1: of about eight nine ten years of age, that's when
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  Speaker 1: these principles become really important. Obviously a lot more that
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  Speaker 1: we could talk about, but this is meant to be
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  Speaker 1: a kickstarter. Hopefully a goal's going wealth the new year.
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  Speaker 1: Hopefully a family is feeling inspired to achieve something great
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  Speaker 1: this year. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin
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  Speaker 1: Ruland from Bridge Media. For more information and details and
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  Speaker 1: ideas about making your family happier, visit us at happy
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  Speaker 1: families dot com dot au