Happy New Year from all of us at Barton Publishing! We hope 2010 will be your best year yet!

I wanted to share with you a little personal story about what I do with my kids every New Years Day.

We set goals for the family!

Ok, so I’ve got this big 4′ x 4′ white board that I bought at Menards (like a Home Depot), which costs about $18 (if you can fit it in your vehicle, I recommend it). Otherwise, a small white board will work, too.

A white board works great for writing down goals and can be used over and over again using Dry Erase markers.

Anyway, we usually gather in the living room (I’ve got 4 boys ages 5, 7, 9 & 11), and first we reflect back on the past year: remembering all the things we did together and then checking off the set goals we met during the past year. It’s a lot of fun looking back and seeing what we accomplished through goal setting!!

Next, we take a picture of the white board so we have a record of the goals forever. Then we wipe it off and start fresh!

At the top of the white board, I write “Barton Family Goals” along with the year. (Can you believe it’s 2010 already? It’s a space odyssey!)

Then, I give each of the boys a chance to name one thing they’d like to do in the next 12 months, and we all take turns until we run out of ideas or goals – or run

Barton Family Goals 2007

out of white board!

The first thing that usually gets entered on our board is our summer family trip to Fair Hills Resort, which is on Pelican Lake in Detroit Lakes, MN. We all love it there! (And if you’re looking for a great family getaway, I highly recommend Fair Hills – and their Hootenanny! Tell them I sent you if you end up going.)

Other things we putBarton Family Goals 2008 on our white board to set goals include things we want to do, places we want to go, people we want to have over for dinner, things we want to buy, fitness goals we want to achieve, or personal goals like “learn how to ride a bike” or “learn how to speak Spanish.”

During the year, we keep it somewhere so we can see it and be reminded of the things we want to do and goal setting. It helps to have visual reminders every once in awhile. I’m thinking about putting a white board up on the wall in our basement somewhere, so we can just keep it there year round.

You can see an example of our 2007 & 2008 family goal white boards on this blog post.

Anyway… I thought you might enjoy seeing this, and it might spark an idea or two for you to do the same thing and set goals with yourself or your family!

If you end up doing it, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below! You could even link to your picture if you want.

I hope you’ve had a wonderful 2009, and again, we at Barton Publishing wish you all the best in 2010!

Yours for excellent health,

Joe Barton

Comments

comments