Monthly Archives: July 2015

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How to Help Your Teens Learn Goal Setting

32095149_mThis process of goal setting can be used by anyone. You can teach your kids this process and they will be way ahead of their peers. We taught our children at a young age this very simple goal setting process.

Every Christmas we put a gift in each of our children’s stockings. It is the most inexpensive gift we give them, but over the years it has proven to be one of the most valuable gifts we have given them. We give each of them a blank 3×5  card that says Goals for 2015 (The year obviously changes).  On this card they put down their goals for the coming year.

We taught them to write down 3 – 5 of their big goals that they want to achieve during the year. Then beneath the goals they write down the plan they need to put in place to obtain the goals. The plan includes what needs to be done on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

They were taught to carry the goal card and to review it frequently. At the end of the year they knew what they achieved and where they needed to improve.

Our kids have grown up to be high achievers and I attribute a lot of this to their setting big goals. Did they hit all of their goals? No, but they certainly achieved goals they would not have if they didn’t have written goals.

This process is not just for kids, it is for everyone. You can do a goal card too. All you have to do is get a 3×5 card or small piece of paper and start the process. It’s never too late to start. Get started today!

Be Great!

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How to Write a Spiritual Program for Life

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Many of you have a Plan for Your Life, but do you have a Spiritual Program for Your Life?
A spiritual program for your life is a plan to help you progress in your spiritual development.  It a a road map you create to help you grow in holiness.
Steps to create a spiritual program for your life:
1) You will need to set some time aside to reflect on yourself. I recommend taking at least a half a day to do this. Pick a quiet place to reflect.
2) Determine your root sin.  The root sins are Pride, Vanity and Sensuality. We each have all of these to a degree, but one will usually stand out.
Manifestations of Pride: You don’t trust others, you are always right, being judgmental and critical of others, always trying to hit the next goal, getting down on yourself when you fail, not wanting to depend on anyone.
Manifestations of Vanity: You seek approval and acceptance from others, wanting others to like and admire you, fear rejection from friends and peers, fall into impurity in order to be liked or feel loved.
Manifestations of Sensuality: You avoid tasks or work because of your emotional state, always wanting the “newest and best” of everything, don’t control your appetite, eating or drinking to excess, escape by turning on TV or watching movies to avoid what you should do, seek intimacy for selfish pleasure.
3) List out 4 – 6 manifestations of your root sin.
     Example: I tend to judge other people
4) Choose an opposite virtue to your root sin
     Examples of opposite virtues:
     Pride: Humility, Simplicity, Meekness, Compassion, Docility, Service of Others
     Vanity: Purity of intentions, Seeing Christ in others, Purity, acceptance of yourself
     Sensuality: Focus on the person of Christ, Hope, Patience, Purity,
5) Choose specific means to obtain the specific virtue
      Choose what you can do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to form the specific virtue.
6) Determine the ideal you are going to strive to imitate
     The ideal is always to strive to become more like Christ. You need to choose an aspect of Christ’s personality as your ideal.
7) Choose a motto. Your motto is your battle cry.
 Here is a worksheet to help you develop your Spiritual Program for Your Life. This is a sample of a Spiritual Program for Your Life so you can see what a completed one may look like.
 This document should be used to do a daily examination of your conscience to see how you did each day. Reflect on it and review it. Be careful not to beat yourself up too much. Remember this is a plan that you are working on and you will not be a 100% successful every day. It took years for you to form some of these habits and tendencies. It will take time for you to work on yourself and grow spiritually.

 Be Great!

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How to Create a Plan for Your Life

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Do you have a plan for your life? Is it in electronic or print form?

I teach a plan for life using of the 6 f’s: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, Friends and Fun. I am going to give you a format that you can use to put a plan together for your life.

There are two distinct paths I have watched people take over the years. The first path is to build your life around your career/business and the other path is to build your career/business around your life.

The first path, building your life around your career/business, usually leads to a bad ending. It often leads to burnout, health issues, a drinking or drug problem and often unfortunately divorce. This is avoidable if you choose the path of building your career/business around your life. I am going to show you how.

The first thing to do is consider how you would like to be remembered for by your wife, kids, friends and family. Make a list of what is most important to you and how you would like your wife and kids remember you.

What is the main thing that you are striving to be remembered for in your life? Write your life purpose statement from this.

Now take each of the 6 categories (Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, Friends and Fun) and put a number on each of these based on the importance to you in your life, with 1 being highest and 6 being lowest. This is your values hierarchy.

Take each of the 6 categories using the format provided and put them in the order you choose. The next thing to do is to take each individual category and write down what this category would look like to you in a “perfect” world. Do this for all 6 categories. Here is a working document.

Now take your first category and write all the activities on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis that are needed to reach your vision statement in that category. Do this for all your categories. Here is a sample for a family category.

Many people like to take the 6 F’s and break them down into subcategories. For example on the family account many people like to breakdown into categories like Marriage, Children or Grandchildren and Relatives. You can create activities for each of the subcategories if you choose to make your plan for life like this.

This is your plan so you can make it any way that you want.  A plan for life is not something you can do in an hour or two. This is something that you need to schedule a whole day to go someplace offsite like a park, a lake or a place you like to think. It is also a great document to share with your spouse since you are living life together.

This is one of the most important documents that you can ever put together. Some of your life plan is in concrete, but much of it is in sand and changes as you go through different stages in your life. You want to review this document and make changes on a quarterly basis.

Pick a day every week to read your Plan for Your Life. Put it in your calendar to make sure it happens.

Be Great!

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The Most Important Thing You Can Give Your Teenage Driver

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It is a scary thing for a parent to have a new driver in the house. My wife and I had four teenage drivers over the years.

She took them out driving and I paid for the insurance and did a few driving lessons myself. For some reason they liked driving with my wife more than myself, especially the girls.  My wife still puts her foot on the floor to brake and puts her hands out to the dash when I get a little close to someone. She never did this until she taught the kids to drive.

One of our friends had a driving contract that they used with their kids. We got a copy of it, adapted it our family values and used it with our four children. I have shared it with other parents with new drivers over the years. You can get a copy here.

Some of the highlights of our driving contract are:

  • A GPA has to maintained on a semester basis based the child’s potential GPA
  • It limits the number of kids in the car
  • No cell phone calls or texting
  • The car must be kept clean
  • The teen has to respect their mom and dad
  • The new driver has to sign and date the contract. They get a copy. Mom and dad keep a copy.

The key to this is that you must stand behind each other as parents and stick to the driving contract. Also remember to check into state laws for how many passengers can be in a new driver’s car when you are revising the contract for your use.

We were lucky and only had one instance the contract was broken.  It was much harder on my wife and I than it was for the teen. In this case the teen disrespected his mom and lost driving privileges for a month. It was a long embarrassing month for the teen. Unfortunately we had to drive them to school and sports practices.

Please share this with parents you know that have new teen drivers.

Be Great!