It’s sad, but most people never reach their New Year’s goals. In fact, less than 10% of people actually achieve their New Year’s goals by the end of the year.
If you’re like the many people who have the goal of improving their relationship with their teen, or maybe you just want to up level your parenting this year, I want to help you win at your parenting goals.
And, if you want to be one of the 10% of people who actually achieve their New Year’s goals, I want to give you some tips on how to make that happen.
If you want to learn more about goals and habits, checkout these podcasts after you’ve finished this one.
#1 Habits are The Missing Key to Achieving Your Goals
Okay, sometimes I say things that go against the main stream narrative, and this is no different.
While most people are focusing on their New Year’s goals, I’m over here preaching about the importance of HABITS.
If most people fail to reach their New Year’s goals, that’s a pretty good indicator that we’re missing something. Well, I believe that what we’re missing is habit.
So, when it comes to your New Year’s goals, I want to invite you to shift your focus from the big future goal, to the little daily habits that you’d need to accomplish your goal.
Some of questions to ask yourself to help you identify the habits you need to make your goals a reality are:
What habits will make achieving this goal easy?
If I already accomplished this goal, what are some of the habits that I’d be doing?
What am I willing to do regularly (maybe every day, or 5 days a week, or 4 times a month, whatever regularity is needed) to achieve this goal?
When you understand this, achieving your goal becomes much more doable. In fact, sometimes you can even forget about the goal and simply focus all of your energy on the habits.
#2 Make Your Habits Simple, Yet Powerful
Sometimes it’s easy to go crazy with habits. Like, I want to play basketball Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I want to life weights everyday, and I want to walk my dog, and I want to . . .
See how complicated we can make things?
If you make your habits simple, you’ll be more likely to do them. If you make them simple and powerful, you’ll be more likely to stick with them.
So, rather than the big long list of everything I want to do, I might make the simple habit of being active EVERY DAY. You could make a simple check list to make sure that you do at least one thing to be active each day. On days when you happen to do more than one, you could give yourself a simple reward.
One of my favorite and most simple and powerful habits is walking my dog. It’s simple because I don’t have to coordinate with other people. I just grab my dog and go. It’s powerful because it’s super rewarding. Walking my dog helps me feel good physically and emotionally. It’s fun. I enjoy hanging out with my dog. I get to do some of my best thinking while on our walk.
So, as you explore making habits to achieve your goals, make sure they’re simple and powerful.
#3 Find an Accountability Partner
I like this one because I don’t like doing anything alone. If you have an accountability partner, it’s going to be harder to give up when it gets rough. Plus, you’ll push yourself harder and your goals will be more top of mind.
There’s power in having an accountability partner that’s working towards the same or similar goals. So, maybe another mother or parent would be a great partner.
It’s also beneficial to have an accountability partner who’s already accomplished the goal your working for, so maybe a coach or a mentor.
But, there’s another kind of accountability partner that I think is underutilized, but super motivating, someone that your goal benefits beside yourself. For this, I often turn to my teens. If you have the goal of improving your relationship with your teen, and you’ve identified the habit of having 5 calm and interesting conversations with your teen each week, you might ask your teen to help you be accountable for that.
Maybe your habit is to do a thought download every night before bed, you could ask your teen to remind you and check in with you. Not only do teens make great accountability partners, they’re great at calling you our when you’re not doing something, right!?!, but it’s also an opportunity to model some powerful behaviors.
#4 Be Willing to Feel Uncomfortable
If you’re trying to create new habits, it’s going to get uncomfortable. That’s okay. Be willing to feel uncomfortable. Be willing to suck.
If you’re hoping a habit will help you accomplish a goal, it’s going to need to push you past your comfort zone.
This is exactly what you want.
When I start creating new habits, I often tell the people around me that, “I’m starting a new habit, and I might really suck at first, and I might even forget, but I’m going to struggle my way through this as long as it takes.”
That way I’m creating accountability, and committing to discomfort.
#5 Make it Fun and Rewarding
If you’ve followed me for a while, you probably have heard me say that things should be a PARTY With A PURPOSE!
This is no different.
I don’t know why so many adults want to make life so dang boring and dull.
If you want to make habits that you’ll stick with, make them fun. My favorite way to exercise is playing basketball. I like winning, so it’s fun when I’m winning, but it’s most fun when my friends show up and play.
Find ways to make your habits fun. It’s important. Not only will you stick with the habit longer, but you’ll also give it a better effort and energy if you’re having fun.
Also, when people have a hard time breaking old habits, one of the biggest reasons they struggle is because the old habit is benefiting them. Use this principle, that usually works against people trying to break old habits, in your favor.
Make your habit rewarding. If you’re getting a benefit from your habit in the form of a reward, it will be easier to stick with the habit.
Bottom Line
This is the year. Don’t put off your goals and dreams, especially when it comes to parenting, any longer.
Go all in on your dreams. You’ve got this, and want support, I’m here for you!
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You probably have some traditions that you enjoy, especially during the holidays, but have you ever stopped to explore why those traditions are important?
If you’re like me, you have some holiday traditions that are special to you. For me, I like to set up a Christmas village in our living room, and to make it even more special, we hide a lamb in our Christmas village that people can look for and hide when they find it, to symbolize finding Christ in Christmas.
Traditions are important because they convey a message of values and often connection.
Traditions help give people a sense of purpose, belonging, and fulfillment and enjoyment.
Also, when your teen is not longer a teen, and living away from your home, your traditions will help them want to return to your home, these traditions will help them feel excitement and joy when they visit, and they might even be traditions that they carry on with their own families in the future.
Traditions Create Connection
Ultimately, traditions are a fun opportunity to create connection and joy.
I want to share 3 simple ways that you can create holiday traditions with your teen that will build connection and love. This will help you see Christmas and the holidays as an opportunity to connect with your teen and share powerful values with them.
If you’re not careful, you could accidentally push your teen away with your traditions, especially if you try to force your traditions on your teen. But, if you follow these simple steps, you’ll create family traditions that you and your teen can look forward to for years to come.
#1 Make it Fun!
Seriously, this one should be a no brainer, right!?!
But, how many times are we as parents guilty of sucking the fun out of things? This is one area where you definitely don’t want to be a kill joy.
I don’t know why we think that everything needs to be boring. One of the things that some of my teachers would tell me when I was a principal was, “School’s not supposed to be fun.”
I say, Bah humbug to that. School SHOULD be fun, and so should enjoy your holiday traditions.
If you want to create some new holiday traditions with your teen, make sure their fun.
If you want to create memories that will have your no-longer-teens telling their spouse, “But, we have to go to my parents this year because I LOVE this tradition!” your traditions need to be fun.
For this, find ways to celebrate things that you and your teen enjoy doing.
Find ways to celebrate growth and accomplishment.
One of my mottos is, “How can we make this a party with a purpose?” Apply that to some of your holiday traditions. Ask your teen things like, “How can we make this fun?” They’ll help you.
#2 Keep It Simple
Sometimes I have the best of intentions, and I want to do something, and I think it’s going to be so much fun, and I want to invite all of these people, and I want it to be perfect, and I want to incorporate so many things, and before long what started as a simple idea has exploded into a full scale production.
If you want to create and impactful holiday tradition with your teen, keep it simple.
Don’t make it so complicated, or expensive, or exhausting that you’ll never want to do it again.
Make it simple enough that your teen wants to do it with you. Make it simple enough that you want to do it with your teen.
Some of the best holiday traditions are simple because they were made for children, and the children enjoyed them enough to remember them and pass them along as adults.
We used to have my dad bring two of his fancy horses, Norwegian Fjords, to my house, then hitch them up to a wagon, then go caroling through my neighborhood. It was super fun. The only problem is that it is not simple, and as my kids have become busy teenagers, that tradition has fallen by the wayside. Don’t let your traditions fall into the same trap.
#3 Let Your Teen Lead
I’m on this kick of empowering teens. If you want to create an awesome holiday tradition with your teen, that you will both remember fondly for years to come, let your teen lead. This will empower your teen. This will increase their buy in and the likelihood that they will enjoy the new tradition.
EMPOWER YOUR TEEN.
You could ask your teen, “What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?” or “What holiday traditions would you like to start in our home?” Bottom line is, let your teen lead. Let them have the experience of creating something.
One year when I was a teacher, I tasked my students with coming up with some form of service to give back to the community. They couldn’t agree on one service project, so we combined 2 into one. It was a food/coat drive. We gathered hundreds of pounds of food for our community. We collected tons of coats. We collaborated with various departments in the tribe to make sure that the food and coats made it to families that needed it, and my students lead the whole thing.
And, at the end of the school year, when I asked, “What was the most meaningful thing that you learned this year?”, all of my students said it was the service project.
BONUS #1 Make it Meaningful
If the tradition that you create has a deeper meaning, and if it’s meaningful to both you and your teen, it will have a deeper impact on your lives.
BONUS #2 Traditions Ideas From Me and Others
Build a Christmas village
Go Christmas caroling
Make cookies and deliver them to elderly neighbors
Do a fancy Christmas dinner and invite your teen to bring a date
Do secret Santa Activities
Play boardgames
Cook food together
Do a holiday scavenger hunt
Do an act of service
Family service project.
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If you create experiences you can create powerful transformations and powerful relationships.
We underestimate the power of fun in our lives.
When I took my kids surfing in Hawaii the instructor told us that when we got up to make sure that we looked ahead of us, like at a palm tree. If we looked down in the water, that is where we would end up.
I love this, it fits so perfectly with my favorite saying, “You are where your attention is”
We need to set our intentions and not just let our lives govern us.
You’re just a different person when you have these experiences
There is a version of you that exists that you don’t believe exists right now, when that version of you gets to come to the surface and play and you can go back to your [regular life] and you’re like “yeah, I’ve ridden waves. I rode waves in Puerto Rico”
Here is the link to a free tool they created called “The Map” : https://www.steadfastlifecoaching.com/the-map-audio-training it includes audio recordings intended to “awaken” your inner athlete, adventurer, or child of God in 3-5 minutes. Which ever identity you believe will serve you best in the challenge you’re facing.
