A new year is an inspiring time. It’s like a fresh piece of paper—a blank slate. It’s an opportune time for families to discuss their hopes and dreams for the year ahead and define some aims they’d like to strive for together. Setting goals as a family and working toward them together teaches children how to eventually set their own goals and break big ideas into manageable pieces.
Review the Concluding Year
Set out some snacks and pull up your photos from the past year to encourage a chat about the year that’s wrapping up. Make note of both the fond memories and the challenges. Enjoy reminiscing, and celebrate overcoming difficulties and the lessons learned.As you review, ask yourselves: What habits or goals do you want to carry over to the new year?
Brainstorm
Take out paper, pens, and whatever other creative tools would motivate the troops. Invite ideas for ways to make the coming year great.Get everything down on paper. There are no wrong answers, and no ideas too outlandish. Perhaps there will be ideas about vacation destinations, skills to learn, home improvements to undertake, spiritual development to focus on, charitable causes to support, things to stop doing, or fun to have.
Look for Patterns
After everyone’s ideas are spent, take a look at the notes you’ve made. What patterns do you see? What larger categories can you define, given the ideas on the page?Categories that may emerge might be nutrition and fitness, spiritual practice, travel, education, giving, career, home, finance, personal development, or fun.
Narrowing your jumble of ideas down into a handful of categories takes out the overwhelm and shows you what you hope to focus on.
