From Soccer to Scriptures

How to Help Kids Master Goal Setting 

 

By Emron Andrew

 

When our daughter Emily was younger, she played soccer. A lot of soccer. We spent countless Saturdays on the sidelines cheering her on.

Emily has since traded her cleats for tennis shoes, literally, as she’s pivoted to tennis. Were those years in soccer wasted? Definitely not. The discipline she learned on the field, setting goals to improve her skills, is now translating to tennis.

She hasn’t even played tennis for two years yet, and she’s already competing against kids who have played their entire lives. It’s not that she’s a tennis prodigy. She’s just been able to excel so quickly because she learned how to accelerate her expertise during all those years in soccer.

 

Setting SMART Goals

 

Now I know I sound like a proud dad (because, well, I am), but I’m not sharing this to boast about Emily. I’m passing it along because it’s an example of how we can teach our kids to set goals.

We can get them involved in activities that challenge and stretch them, while giving them guidance and support in learning how to set — and achieve — SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound).

 

Applying Gridiron Grit

 

As another example, I’ve shared in a previous issue how our son, Ethan, was all-in on football, going to camps and working his way up through little league and high school with an eye on playing in college.

Heading into his junior year, however, he reconsidered the direction he was heading. He realized there were other goals that mattered more to him, like academics, time with family, a religious mission after high school, and ultimately, pursuing an entrepreneurial career.

And while he left football behind, he brought the relentless work ethic and goal setting he gained on the gridiron with him. Last fall, for example, he took two weeks off during his senior year to sell fiber optics door-to-door in West Virginia. I joked with him before he left that he shouldn’t come home if he wasn’t the No. 1 salesperson. He laughed, but then put his all into it, and sure enough, came home one of the top in sales.

 

 

 

The Art of Achievement

 

We’ve also watched as our older daughter, Taylor, has applied SMART goal setting to dance. Her dance academy involves the students in multiple disciplines: acro, ballet, jazz, hip hop, etc. They have different skills they have to pass in order to matriculate through the levels.

When we were talking the other day, Taylor was proud to tell me that while most of the girls her age or older are at level 3, she and a friend are the only ones who have made it to levels 7 and 8 — and she’s determined to keep working hard to keep moving up.

 

Spiritual Stepping Stones

 

Now it’s not just about sports, dance, or even early work experience where we can help the young people in our lives adopt successful goal setting habits. It’s also in personal areas, like faith and spirituality.

For example, one year our family set a goal to read a book of scriptures that’s dear to our faith, “The Book of Mormon,” not just once in the year, but three times. We used an app to help us figure out how much we’d need to read each week to stay on pace.

Of course there were times when we got behind, so we’d simply recalibrate and add a little more reading here and there to make up for lost time. It brought us closer to read the scriptures together, talk about what the passages meant to us, and reach our family goal by the end of the year.

 

Catching the Vision

 

As you look at your own kids and grandkids, I’m sure you have experiences just like these, watching the young people you care about push themselves to learn, grow, and achieve more in their lives.

I encourage you to help them use the SMART method — as well as another goal setting hack that Doug Andrew teaches with The Clarity Experience (see the “Tool Spotlight” article for more). The trick is to write your goals in the past tense rather than the future tense, as if you’ve already achieved them.

So we have our kids envision themselves at the end of the year (or whatever time-frame their goal is set for) and describe who they are and how they feel having achieved the goal. This puts them in a growth mindset, igniting the subconscious to help them achieve their goals more effectively.

I wish you and your family all the best as you head into the coming year, reaching the very goals you’re setting right now.

 

 

> Want resources to help your family set goals? Join the 3 Dimensional Wealth Community and get instant access to powerful goal-setting tools in all 3 Dimensions of Authentic Wealth! Click here.