Do You Have A Vision Statement, Mission Statement or Goal?

This is a post from my previous blog.

We have been reassessing our goals and priorities again at the beginning of this year and I have been wondering if many others have set down and developed a goal for their personal/family life or for their homeschool.
We wrote a family goal, which included a few personal goals for my husband and I. We try to look at it each year and adjust parts of it to more closely reflect where we are and to address any shifting in priorities, that have come about over time. We took some training a few years ago which has really helped us to clarify our overall goals. Here are a few of the things we learned:

1. If you don’t have a goal, then how do you know if your are achieving that goal?

2. Writing down your goal helps to clarify it in your mind. It also keeps it visible, to remind you.

3. Everyone who is part of the family/group/organization needs to be involved in the development of the goal.

4. If everyone has ownership of the goal, they are more likely to be a part of the effort to achieve the goal.

5. Goals should be reviewed and reassessed regularly. Circumstances may change and the goal that you wrote last year, may not reflect your life/homeschool/etc. this year.

6. When you need to make a decision, walk through some questions to determine if the decision is leading your toward or away from your goal. How can you reach your goal, if your decisions all lead you away from your stated goal?

7. Remember that just because something seems to be leading your toward your goal, it may be leading you away from your overall goal in other areas. Strive to keep balance among all the facets of your overall goal.

8. Try to determine what indicators you may look for to determine if things are not going in the direction you want. Be aware of these indicators and monitor them to see if changes are necessary, so you don’t get off track.

To set your goal, brainstorm what you want your situation/life/homeschool/etc. to look like in the future. Write out the goal in sufficient detail to clarify your thoughts but not so detailed that you get bogged down in writing it. If it is too detailed, you will obsess over how to write the goal. Then determine the steps that you need to take to get to that goal being achieved. Once you have identified these steps, you can start implementing actions to lead to those goals being achieved.