This post is an exercise continuing from the previous post.
Once you have clearly written your goals, ask yourself about each goal, "What are the obstacles to accomplishing this goal? How might I sabotage myself or get in my own way of accomplishing this goal?" Write your answers in your notebook.
Share Your Goals with Your Partner
Come together and take turns reading your lists slowly aloud to each other. First, read your list of Individual Goals followed by your Couple Goals and conclude with your Family Goals. Do not discuss them right now, Listen carefully to each other.
Once you have shared all your goals, discuss your responses. Are your goals aligned? Talk about any surprises - not in a judgmental way, but by sharing your reactions. Talk about these lists in terms of your values and priorities and desire to have a solid partnership.
Make a Combined Master List of One-Year Goals
Now you'll create a master list of Couple and Family goals for the coming year. Rewrite your Couple and Family goals by combining what each of you wrote, This is an opportunity to clarify your mutual goals in a common language. Make sure that the intentions, needs, and desires that each of you share are noted in your master list. Do Couples Ever Get Back Together
One of you may have something on your list that the other person does not. Here is an opportunity to discuss if this goal is truly acceptable to both parties. For example, a husband may wish to take a cross-country family vacation or a wife may hope to spend money on an addition to the house within the next year. They may be willing to add these to their partnership goals, or it may be that finances prohibit these goals.
In this event, they have two options: One is to postpone the addition until a later time - and perhaps put it on a three-year goal list. Another is to decide on a one-year goal that is a baby step toward the bigger goal, such as going on a weekend getaway or painting several rooms in the house,
Now that you have made a joint list of goals, set your lists of Individual Goals alongside this master list.
Talk about your willingness to support each other's Individual Goals during the coming year. Share your concerns about and commitment to these Individual Goals. Talk about what will be required of each of you to support each other's goals. Referring back to a prior example, if one of you wants to exercise more regularly, the other may volunteer to watch the kids one or two evenings a week, or you may need to alter your carpooling or mealtime schedule. How can you support each other's individual needs? Some goals may be rewritten or altered in order to assure that the other partner supports a specific goal.
Identify Your Mutual Priorities
Working together, choose which three Couple Goals you want to start working on first, (Two of them should be daily details you want to smooth out, They should be former problems or hot topics you have not thoroughly discussed.
While they may seem less problematic now that you have turned them into positive goals, they potentially still require deeper discussion.)
If you have a family, you will also choose one or two Family Goals from your master list. Then tell each other which two or three Individual Goals you will focus on.
Once you have mutually chosen your three partnering goals, brainstorm about each goal, one at a time, for ten minutes. Make a list for each - without judgment or edits - that includes all the possible ways you could work toward it individually and together. Write all the specific things you can accomplish as partners to make this goal a reality. Then, choose the three or four most practical steps. Circle those you could complete within the next few weeks.
Next, divide up the tasks: Who will do what and by what date? Agree to be accountable. Agree on a weekly day and time at which you will report back to each other on your progress toward the first goal. These get-togethers will now become your regular partnering meetings. Do Couples Ever Get Back Together
After you have a plan for this first Couple Goal, follow the same steps for your two remaining goals. Then do the same for your Individual Goals, either together or separately.
Because you'll want to make progress and feel successful, choose some goals that are less difficult and some more complex or challenging to start. For example, altering your meal planning and grocery shopping regimen may be a less complex goal than improving your sex life - although both may be on your Individual or Master Goal lists.
Finding a mutually satisfying way of handling money - from paying bills to establishing savings and investment plans - is often a loaded and difficult issue, but an important one to tackle in order to have a good partnering foundation and create smoothly functioning dairy details. In fact, I suggest that you select "smoother handling of finances" as your complex goal. Try to establish a series of specific action Items you can accomplish in a short period of time for complex goals. For example,
One year from now, we would like to be in full agreement and well informed about all aspects of our money management. As a solid step toward this, we agree that in the next four weeks we will review our current financial status and decide on a budget to implement for this year. We agree to have Saturday morning coffee out to review our financial progress and create new action steps to become better managers of our money.
We will also obtain the names of three financial planners and make appointments with at least two of them within the next three months. We'll work with our favorite planner to understand necessary details for our financial plan going forward.
At each partnering meeting, use the following formula for brief follow-up (unless more conversation is required):
- Each of you gives a brief report on the action steps taken to accomplish the identified goal.
- Then, each of you talks through how best to
- 1) define your goal this week,
- 2) ask for help or support,
- 3) identify ways you might self-sabotage, and
- 4) describe the action steps you plan to take this week (for each goal).
Next post, I'll show you how to listen attentively to your partner. Before that, you can check out Do Couples Ever Get Back Together.
