66 Important Family Goals For the Entire Year

Find how family goals should be part of your family life!

Let’s talk a minute about family goals.

Now, I’m sure you are aware of the importance of goal setting for yourself.

It might be losing weight, getting up earlier, having a side hustle to save more money, the list goes on.

You shouldn’t have to wait until the new year to set goals.

In fact, you can start today!

Family goals are a bit different from personal goals and they tend a take a little more work.

What Are Family Goals?

Family goals are goals that you set together as a family and then work on together as a family.

Their purpose is to bring you closer as a family, spend more time together, grow, and learn together.

If you have younger children, it might be left up to just mom and dad to make the goals.

If you have older children, you can get them involved in the process of setting goals. It can start with a simple brainstorming session and a pad of paper.

While the process of setting family goals might seem a bit overwhelming if you already have a to-do list that is a mile long, set aside the time to work on it.

Either have a casual chat over dinner or a formal family meeting to discuss goals.

Talk About Goals With Your Children

First, have talk with your kids about what goals are, how to set them, why they are important to your family, and how everyone will benefit from them.

Now this will vary depending on the age of your kids and their understanding of the whole process.

Kids have a tendency to emulate what their parents are doing. If they see them setting and working on certain goals, they are more likely to have good goals setting skills as adults. It’s a win win! 

While goals can certainly be fun things like going to the zoo, they should also have a purpose. Are you trying to teach your kids certain qualities, values, and characteristics.

These help to plan your goals and shape your experiences. Even at a young age you can start to instill the benefits of goal setting.

For example, toddlers can have a goal of feeding the dog everyday, or picking up their toys. You can even combine personal and family goals. For example, if one parent is looking to lose weight, it could be a goal for the whole family to eat healthier.

The goals you are setting should be S.M.A.R.T. goals.

This means that they are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.

So don’t write something down like “eat better,” this is NOT a S.M.A.R.T goal. A S.M.A.R.T. goal would be, make a vegetarian meal every Monday that is less than 500 calories per serving.

Do you see the difference?

Put Your Goals on Display

After you have had your family meeting and you have all the goals written out that you would like to work on as a family over the next year, display them!

Make sure they are where everyone can see them and look at them on a regular basis. If you can, make a vision board for your goals or use a magnetic board.

This can be a really fun family project.

Find some images online or in magazines that portray your goals, grab some glue, and maybe a bit of glitter, and put together a vision board for your goals for the year.

You should also be defining your why for your goals.

What is the reasoning for putting time and effort into these goals? If you have enough room, put that on your vision board also. 

Setting Family Goals

There are thousands of different goals that you can set together as a family, but there are a couple of different categories to focus on to get a really well rounded experience. Some of the goals you set might be smaller goals or bigger goals.

You are not going to be able to save everything needed for college tuition in one year, but it is good to start as soon as you can.

While the goal setting process is very personal and will vary drastically from family to family general categories include:

• Spiritual
• Homeschooling/Education/Intellectual
• Health/Wellness/Physical
• Finance
• Business/Career
• Entertainment
• Community/Social

There are so many different goals that you can set within these categories.

So let’s take a look at each one of these categories individually and dive into some goal setting ideas.

Just be aware, some of these categories might overlap, but that is a good thing! It’s great to find one thing that focuses on two or more goal growth areas.

Spiritual

Spiritual can mean many different things to many different people.

Perhaps this refers to your faith and your relationship with God.

Perhaps this means meditation and a spiritual journey. Whatever spiritual goals, it should be personal and help you to grow as a family and as individuals. Here is a list of various spiritual family goals that you might want to consider working on:

• Attend church more (define what more means to you)
• Learn to meditate and meditate together
• Do Bible study/scripture
• Keep individual gratitude journals
• Pray together more
• Devote some time to service to God (this can also double for a community goal)

Homeschooling/Education/Intellectual

This is a rather wide category that can include anything related to growing your brains.

If you homeschool you might have more goals that a family that does not.

Even with traditional public or private schools, you can set various educational and intellectual goals as a personal growth type goal. Let’s take a look at some educational related family goals.

• Learn a new language
• Read more books
• Learn calligraphy or hand lettering
• Learn a new type of art
• Write more (short stories, poetry, creative writing, etc)
• Stay updated on current events and discuss them together
• Go to a museum
• Play chess or other strategy games together (doubles as an entertainment goal)
• Use IQ or learning apps over mindless games
• Learn a new skill by taking an online course together
• Visit your local library
• Attend a TEDx Talk
• Start a family book club

Community/Social

Social and community goals can be a lot of fun and help you to connect with other families in the community that might share in common goals and values.

You never know, you might find some great new friends by getting out and working on goals within the community.

• Recycle
• Do a technology detox (pick a certain amount of time to go without technology)
• Attend community events (festivals, rallies, markets, etc)
• Join a community choir/theatre
• Volunteer at a local shelter
• Work with a local charity to collect donations or help run an event
• Donate old books and toys to a non-profit in the community
• Join a local organization (such as a rotary club)
• Visit a retirement community

Health/Wellness/Physical

Being healthy and fit is so much easier when everyone is on board.

From eating healthier to running races together, families can get and stay healthy together.

• Do a race together
• Go on a bike ride/hike together
• Go camping, in an actual tent
• Create a meal plan and stick to it!
• Organize your pantry/fridge/freezer with healthier choices
• Join a family gym
• Do a color run
• Try a new sport together
• Make a healthy new recipe from scratch

Finance

Finances are so important and the whole family should be involved.

Whether your kids get an allowance or not, whether they are even really old enough to understand what bills are, or they are about to go out on their own, the whole family should be educated and involved with the family finances.

Here are some financial goals that you can work on as a family:

• Build up an emergency fund
• Start college fund(s)
• Do a saving challenge
• Create a budget
• Pay off debts
• Start a retirement savings for your kid (or yourself if you don’t already have one!)
• Teach your kids how to invest
• Attend a money management class

Business/Career

While this might seem like more of an individual goal, the parent’s business and or career affects the entire family.

Perhaps it is dad’s goal to get a promotion but that would involve moving. Or mom would like to expand her business but that would mean travel away from home without the kids.

Even with individual business and career goals parent’s must take into consideration how it will affect their children. Or perhaps it is time for the children to enter the workforce or they have been thinking about starting their own business.

This is a very highly individualized goal category but it is beneficial to get the family involved.

• Start a side hustle
• Change careers
• Get a promotion
• Ask for a raise (and get it!)

Entertainment

This is the fun goal where you can get really creative.

This is the goal category where you put all the fun things you want to do together, so go ahead, get crazy, but just remember, they should be S.M.A.R.T. goals.

• Go fishing
• Attend a local play or theatre production
• Attend a cultural festival or event
• Go on a vacation
• Take an RV trip
• Visit a zoo
• Have an outdoor movie night or drive in theatre
• Have a picnic in a local park
• Paint a family mural in your home (or on a large board)
• Try a new craft together
• Fly kites together
• Go to the beach and build an epic sand castle
• Cook your entire dinner over an open fire
• Go to a theme park
• Do a silly family photoshoot
• Take a ride in a hot air balloon
• Create a family scrapbook each year of all your adventures

As I said before, each family is different and your family goals will be different than mine.

The main point in making family goals is to create goals that will help you grow together as a family as well as individuals. Your goals should be S.M.A.R.T. and have a purpose. While going on vacation is great and all, what is the purpose of the vacation.

Are you going to visit other family?

Taking a trip to somewhere you have never been to learn about a new culture?

Or are you just going on vacation to spend more time with one another? Whatever your reasoning for your goals, be sure to discuss them with your family and get everyone’s input on the goals that you are developing.

Over to you –

Have you created family goals? What are your favorite goals for the family? Share in the comments!

Please remember to pin me!