Overcoming the Obstacles to Your Family Goals

Unfortunately for busy families, life doesn't necessarily happen smoothly and perfectly no matter how much we hope it will and somewhere along the way you will probably encounter some type of obstacle or setback to your family goal. Here are some tips to help you get past setbacks and obstacles.

Understand the Reasons - Take some time to truly understand the reason behind the setback. You can adequately address the obstacle if you don't truly understand the why's. Try the Tackling the Yeah But's exercise to help get you unstuck.

Identify the Action Steps - Make sure you have concrete action steps for your goal. Sometimes we just come up with goals without any thought into the specific steps that are required to achieve it. Work together as a family to write specific manageable action steps.

Reevaluate Your Goal - Sometimes obstacles are really big (i.e. death, serious illness, loss of a job) and you need to reconsider how these obstacles will affect your ability to achieve your goal. Consider scaling back, modifying, or deferring the goal when faced with serious circumstances. Use times like these to teach your kids how to deal with setbacks and problem solve.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize - Sometimes we get sidetracked from our goals because we took our focus off the goal and focused too much on the things in our way. Focusing on the negatives or Yeah But's rather the end objective will surely distract you from completion. Families can keep focused on the goal by minimizing negative self talk, thoughts, and relationships.