Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #673 Family Goal Setting

Transcript

#673 Family Goal Setting · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Now. It's doctor Justin Colson here with my wife, Kylie Modo,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: our six kids. This is the Happy Families Podcast. We're
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: so grateful that you're joining us this early in the
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: year as we do our best to make our families
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: happier this year. Kylie, you're aware that our kids have
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: set a fitness goal.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Well, they actually set it at the end of last year.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: That's right. They've set the goal so that we can
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: fire up the year. Yeah, you get it going really well,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: but are you aware of what the goal is? Two
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: of our kids have set a goal and it's specific.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: They know exactly what they're trying to achieve.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Are trying to run five k's?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: They're trying to run five k's. Yeah. So we've got
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a couple of daughters who have acknowledged that their fitness
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and health are not quite where they need to be.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And I've sort of dropped the bombshell on myself. I've
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: eased right back on my fitness, my cycling, my big
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: kilometers and writing.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: It's not a surprise when you sign up to write
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: four books.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: But that's not why I've stopped the writing. I've really
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: stopped the writing because I want to support the girls
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in their fitness habits and their improvements to their health.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: They want to run five k's and they want to
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: get it under thirty minutes, so they want to run
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: six minutes per k or less, and they want to
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: do it by the end of the school holidays. So
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: for the last couple of weeks, between three and four
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: times every single week we've been getting up, we've been
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: going for a run, and they're doing it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I've been really proud of them because it's hard for them.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: And in fact, at the dinner table the other night,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: one of the girls said to me, Dad, oh, we
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: were doing grateful things. What are you grateful for? And
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: she said, Dad, I know that I winged and wined
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: and cried and complained and said I can't, but I'm
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: really grateful that you pushed me, because today I ran
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: faster and further than I had before. It was really cool.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: They're doing hard things. So today in our Happy Families podcast,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we just want to take maybe three or four minutes.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: We want to do this fairly briefly and talk about
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: family goal setting what can you do as a family
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: to set better goals? Handful of things that we want
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to talk about, Kytie, I might get started depending on
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the age of your children. My sense and certainly looking
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: at what research tells us is that any goal for
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: a group, any goal for an organization, any goal for
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a team, and we can bring that into the family,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: although I've not seen research specifically on family contexts.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Do you know you have gray whiskers?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Stop it, we're doing a podcast. I can't believe you're
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: saying that I'll shave tomorrow. We can't let anybody know
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: family goals are going to be best and stop looking
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: at me like that. This is I'm not trying to
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I'm having a serious conversation here. Well, you don't usually
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: have whiskers, and I'm on holidays, i haven't.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Shaved whiskers, and I've just noticed.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I'm setting a goal to shave every day for the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: rest of the all a lot. I can't believe you're
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: doing this whiskers. Well, my hair is not great. My
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: hair is not great, So let's just focus on the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: hair and stop looking at the whiskers, which I'll be shaving.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I'm now trying to do a podcast with my hand
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: over my mouth. We've got to get buy in.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: In fact, by the way, I didn't say there was
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: anything wrong with their bottom up.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: You're trying to recover. No, no, no, I just noticed.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Can we just reminy Gray? Can we just record the podcast.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I know it's summer, but we still got to get
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: a message across here. Family goals are going to be
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: best if they're developed from the bottom up, not the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: top down. That is, when the kids have a really
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: big voice in what the family goals are, it has.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: To be buying. And the only way there's buy in
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: if they actually create it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Right, unless we come up with an absolute cracker of
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: a goal that they are totally hooked on, like let's
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: save up and go to Disneyland or something like that.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Let's eat in a teller for Bra, that's not a goal,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: that's a habit we've got to get out of. So
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Number one, family goals start best bottom up. And I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: think the best way to get a bottom up conversation
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: going about goals is to sit down with the kids
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and have one of those family meetings. We've talked about
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: it so many times on the podcast. We ask three
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: questions what's going great, what's not going so well? What
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: should we focus on? And just by asking those three questions,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: you basically saying to the kids, all right, we're doing
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of stuff really well, handful of things
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that we can improve on. If we were to improve
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: on one or two of those things, what would they be.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And that's essentially where we've come to with our kids'
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: fitness goals. They've decided that health and fitness needs to
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: be a higher priority. I asked them what they wanted
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: in terms of their goals. They want to be able
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: to run five k's in less than thirty minutes, and
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: so now we're creating a system around that to get
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: to that goal. And that's pretty much it. Kylie, what
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: else would you add to a conversation about how to
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: set family goals other than saying, hey, kids, what do
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: you think? And then how do we set up a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: system around that?
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I think one of the most important things when it
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: comes to goal setting is there needs to be accountability.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: There needs to be check in points, or else we're
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: just having a conversation about something that we'd like to
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: see happen, but there isn't any intention set on how
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: we can record progress, how we can actually acknowledge progress.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And without the recognition of progress, it's really hard for
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: motivation to stay high and for our desires to continue
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to improve.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the challenges that you have is
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: when the kids set a goal, or when you create
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: a family goal, the parents actually become the police. They
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: end up rousing on the kids if they're not doing
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: what they said they were going to do, because this
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: was the goal and we were committed and now you're
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: not doing it, and we feel like we have to
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: push the kids and make it happen. The sense of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: autonomy and the encouragement of I guess creating the structure
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: which gives the kids the scaffolding, the support that they
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: need to be the instigators, the ones that are making
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: it happen themselves, really really essential.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: And when it comes to some big goals. For our girls,
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: running is has not actually been in their vocabulary.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: They don't run, they just but they do now.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: But if we had have just said, Okay, that's a
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: great goal, you need to get up and go and
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: do it on your own, chances are it wouldn't have happened.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I've had to give up my goal of being a
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: professional athlete, I've had to give up my cycling to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: be involved. And this is I think the critical thing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Your kids have got aspirations, and as a family, you've
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: got aspirations. Maybe it's saving up for a holiday or
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: going and doing a big hike. But the best way
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to keep things moving, the best way for motivation to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: be high, is for number one, kids to feel like
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: they can reach it, like they've got the capability, the competence,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the capacity to do it even if they need a
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: leg up, even if they need support. And number two
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: for them to be freely choosing it. But there's a
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: third thing that's even more important. This is the one
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that you cannot do it without, and that is involvement.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I think the only reason that our girls are now
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: running around about three k's three and a half k's
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: without stopping and at a reasonable pace is because for
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the last four weeks, whatever it's been, I've been getting
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: up with them and going for the run with them
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and dragging them out of bed, and because they've told
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: me to do it, but I'm doing that. There's that
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: level of involvement. It's the involvement that seems to create
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the level of support that's necessary for them to get there,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and then what happens is they start to make progress.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: They start to see that it's happening, and those little
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: pieces of progress give them more inspiration to get up
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: again tomorrow and run again.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Well, each day you've done it, you've been able to
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: sit down with them and they've been able to look
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: at the stats on their Strava Strava and stuff and
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: recognize and see that there's ebbs and flows. Some days
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: they actually are doing really well, and then there are
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: other days where they're just really flat, thethargic, lacking and energy,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: and it's hard work, but they can see when they
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: improve and that gives them such a boost to want
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: to keep trying.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: If you've got younger kids, setting goals is probably as
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a family not a huge deal other than to say, hey, kids,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: here's what we'd like to do. What do you think
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: And it might be having a goal to go on
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: a holiday, or it could be to do something every
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Monday or every Saturday or whatever it is. You just
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: get the kids to say yes, and then you make
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: it happen and they'll go along with you because they're little.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: As they get older, though, once they're sort of north
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of about eight nine ten years of age. That's when
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: these principles become really important. Obviously a lot more that
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: we could talk about, but this is meant to be
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a kickstarter. Hopefully your goals are going well for the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: new year. Hopefully your family is feeling inspired to achieve
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: something great this year. We might have a podcast down
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the track and talk to you about what our family
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: goals are in a few days time, but for now,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: we hope that this has been a little bit of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: inspo for your parenting better for twenty twenty three. The
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruhland from Bridge Media.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. Tomorrow, we're going to
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: have a conversation about the power of habit on The
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Happy Family's Podcast