Goals and Parenting

Right now, I'm working my way through Goals! How to Get Everything You Want--Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible,by Brian Tracy. It's not a book you just read if you want to get the most out of it, it's one where you need to scratch your head and think your way through the exercises at the end of each chapter that lead you to create your goals and plans.

As I do this I've discovered some blindingly obvious truths. Most of my goals involve my family, primarily my children. As a parent, you can't have a goal that causes direct results in their lives. For example, it is unrealistic for me to set a goal for my daughter to play premiere-level club soccer. I can't make that happen, she has to make that happen. In order for that to happen, it has to be one of her goals. Instead, as a parent, my goals are to see that they use good decision-making techniques in their lives. Here are some of the ones I've got as goals right now.

Do they:

• See failure as a learning experience and not a disaster?


• React with grace and cleverness when things go wrong?


• Work hard at being good at something that others value? (This is the key to having choices in life.)


• Treat others with love and kindness and recognize that their talents are gifts from God? (Skills are not the same here - to me, a skill is a talent that you've worked to refine.)


• Are they exploring the things they love with a sense of freedom and joy? (Translated: "Turn the &#@*@*(! TV off and get yer lazy @ss outside!" Or something like that.)

I'd really love to read your thoughts on this. As I go through the exercises in the book, I learn things that I didn't expect. I had planned to blog my journey through the questions Brian Tracy asks, but I've found that the first time through is too mentally taxing to both answer the questions and commit my thoughts to prose. I'll probably come back to this in a month or two when I've had some time to digest what I've learned.