"To achieve a goal you have never achieved before, you must start doing things you have never done before. It doesn’t necessarily mean constantly trying new things. You might need to try the same thing consistently!"
Chris McChensey 4DX
What is your goal and what is your plan to get there?
Take a second to break it down.
Let’s say your goal is: Overall feeling of peace in the home.
That is a lofty goal! Especially with one or two of our kids and if you are starting from a pretty chaotic place.
You could quickly feel like a failure if you set this goal. The craziness can happen fast! And you could get frustrated and quit.
What if instead, you broke it down? Think of it like a home renovation project. Where you might start with paint, then do flooring. But you know before you can paint you need to sell some furniture and clean out the closets.
You might set some mini goals like this:
- Sell unwanted furniture
- Pack up closets
- Move furniture we are keeping
- Hire Painter
- Pick out flooring and schedule installation.
It’s the same with a home behavior goal.
Main goal: Over all peace in the home
Mini goals:
- Tackle arguing
- Tackle chore time
- Tackle meal time but first tackle food issues!
- Tackle time in the car with siblings
All of those areas can be HUGE goals that could take several months to do.
Even for each of those you might break it down if they feel too big:
For example:
Tackle chore time could be:
- Week 1 and 2 - Do chore one on one. If 90% successful then move on.
- Week 3 start chore one one one for the first 10 min then let them finish the last 5-10 min on their own.
- Week 4 - start chore one on one for the first 3 min then on their own to finish.
- Week 5 just 30 seconds getting them started then on their own.
Seems annoying, but as you do this and break it down for you and for your child, you will see success! Your expectations will be much more reasonable, and you won't be as irritated and frustrated. And as you do one, the next will get easier and pretty soon it all just works out! You are making progress!
Now it's time to think about measuring or tracking your success. Tracking is so important because in the heat of the moment you can really feel like it's not working. Maybe you have been working on week 1 and 2 of chores and the last 3 days have been awful and made you feel like you were going to be doing this for forever. But when you look at your data which can be as simple as 1/1 on the calendar each day, you see that actually they did the first 8 days great and only the last 3 have been awful. Then you realize it's a siblings birthday that week and that always throws everything off. You then could just maybe add 1 week to the 1st phase of the goal. You are able to stay in logic and all is well! If you don't track though, it's really hard to keep it straight with everything you have going on.
Keep the tracking simple, tally marks or a simple 1/1, that's all you need.
Hope this helps you guys achieve your big behavior goals!
Question to think or journal about : When you read this what do you feel? Do you feel frustration? Maybe you feel like the pace will be slower? Write out or think what you are feeling, what makes you feel that way, and what are you making it mean?
XOXO
