When you set goals for yourself or your family, how do you make sure those goals stick, and there is follow through? You use your brain to help you! You just need to understand how parts of the brain work to attain goals. You have two major parts of your brain that need to work together, your amygdala and your prefrontal cortex.

Your amygdala is the emotional response center of your brain—the motivation you need to attain goals lives here because of motivation at an emotional level. Low motivation means no one is buying into the goal in the first place, and there is less likelihood to follow through with the goal.

Your prefrontal cortex is your logical, thinking brain—the goal planning and execution place. If there is no simple plan, and you have an excited and motivated family, but no one knows the plan to get there, goal attainment is also unlikely.

The key to success is to get these two important goal setting parts of the brain to work together. Here are some key tips to help you start the process, increase delayed gratification skills, and establish habits that everyone can replicate for future success in attaining goals.

4 Tips to Getting Your Family to Help Around the House

1. Define The Goal

Have you ever found that you have one goal for a Saturday afternoon and everyone else in your house has a separate goal? Do you carry the weight of a task at your house, and no one else is helping? Well, what’s your goal, and have you communicated that goal with the rest of the family? I have seen so many arguments start in families (mine included) all because family members had goals but forgot to communicate them with everyone else.

To make goals work, we have to take the time to outline the goal for yourself first and then get input from others in the family. An example of this, in our house, is how we clean up the house. A few years ago, the weight of the cleaning fell on me, and I was often crabby with my family for not helping and pitching in. But, until I sat down and defined my goal, I was just hollering at everyone constantly about cleaning their piles, dishes, socks, shoes and sports bags. I felt drained and under-appreciated big time.

I sat down and defined the goal: Having a clean house that everyone helps to maintain and lessens the burden on one person. Once I got clear on my goal, it was time to sit down and discuss it with my family. I made sure to do this when I was not mad about negligent house cleaning. Do not blame and shame. The goal is to create buy-in and see if there are any additional goals not considered. Invite your family to consider your point of view and ask if they have noticed it, too, and how they would solve the problem and move towards the goal. This creates the framework for the buy-in that connects to the amygdala for motivation. Family members feeling valued and included is one of the biggest ways to increase the motivation needed to see goals through to the end. Defining the goal yourself, so you are clear and then including others in on the goal-setting helps with efficiency and clarity for all involved.

If you want more help with helping kids set goals, check out: Goal Setting and the Brain: Helping Your Kids Set and Achieve Goals

2. The Why Behind the Goal Really Matters

This is typically the motivation component. If you are sitting down to define your goal and the answer is: “because it has to get done” (which may be true), get ready to dig deeper to find motivation for your family. While getting it done may be essential, it really isn’t motivating anyone to help you. Trust me, standing with a basket of laundry lamenting that this all “has to get done” did not motivate one person in my family to help me get it done “because it has to be done.” Not one time.

Once you have defined your goal, ask your family members to consider motivation. Just ask what area or level of connection they feel to the goal? If it’s a low level, how can we increase the motivation to reach toward the goal? In our house cleaning situation, while they agreed it wasn’t fair I was doing most of the work, they weren’t the least motivated by this awareness. It was good old-fashioned allowance that sparked motivation (although we got creative and used some of our allowance towards a family goal of a vacation or outing). Going right to the source and getting clear on what is motivating your kids is helpful. Don’t assume your motivation and “why” will motivate others. Ensure you have a firm understanding of the motivation for your family members and incorporate that into the overall plan for creating momentum in tackling the goal.

Our kids voiced that they had never received an allowance for chores and wanted to, so we sat down together and made a list of allowance/non-allowance chores. Daily chores done are the family-contribution chores and don’t receive an allowance. However, the big once a week clean chores do come with an allowance. In addition, if everyone works together and gets the job done smoothly, we put money in a family pot to help us save money for a vacation on experience.

3. Define The Goal And Plan

This is where we engage the prefrontal cortex part of goal setting. While this sounds obvious, a clear working plan where everyone knows expectations is important. Again, if you are leading, lay out the map yourself to visualize how to get there, but hold space for family input and co-creation. Come in with some kind of mindful framework for how this goal could be met, but allow room to consider more than one way to get there. Have a family meeting where you outline your plan and then invite feedback and choice for the steps needed to reach the goal. When the plan is solid, write it down. It is so important to make sure we write the plan down, so everyone has a map to refer to when coming to challenges and unexpected circumstances. Start by asserting where you are, define where you need to be, and then between those two, start the step-by-step process to get from point a to b. You don’t have to change it all at once. We started slowly with just the main level of our house. We did the main level together for about three weeks in a row so that everyone could work together, understand cleaning expectations and support each other. We then added the upstairs.

4. Assign Responsibilities

To help keep motivation and plan working simultaneously, have family members choose the parts of the plan they are responsible for, define deadlines, clarify areas each person is to collaborate and include checkpoints and milestones to help keep everyone on task. Checkpoints are pre-determined spots in the project where you will come back together, share progress, check in with challenges, gather feedback and get meaningful results on where you are in relation to the goal. Milestones are places where you pause and celebrate moving towards your goal. A key to motivating kiddos and not overwhelming them is to break a bigger goal into those smaller goals and then celebrate when those smaller goals get met. This can re-energize a tired kiddo, keep the family creatively engaged and show support.

Following these tips for goal setting will help everyone use both parts of the brain necessary for your family to move forward and develop the skills and habits needed for a more peaceful, manageable home-life.

*Responsibilities and chores boost brains! If you want to see how to set up a plan of responsibility and determine a chore and helper schedule for your home, check out our social-emotional learning kit: Rooted In Responsibility. Want to help kids gain confidence in growing and attaining their goals? Check out our Finding Your North Star Goal.

Setting Family Goals: Getting Your Family to Help Around the House

4 Tips to Getting Your Family to Help Around the House