2/21/16 Family Goals

     Today I was blessed to have the chance to speak in sacrament meeting. These are always great opportunities to learn as well as to give service. In case you're interested I'll include the text from my talk preparation. I did go off script a little as I was blessed with a little more time than I initially planned for. Things went well and Heidi says I did a good job. Here's the talk:

Family Goals Talk

Introduction

My Brothers and Sisters ALOHA

              Today I have been asked to talk about a subject that is important to me and that is family goals. Specifically, I am going to talk about three aspects of family goals: First, why is setting family goals important. Second, how can we choose what to have as our goals and Third, what can we do to keep from getting discouraged with my family goals.

First, why should we care about setting family goals?

Heavenly Father sets goals. If it works for Him it will work for us.

              Recently my wife was taught by Sister Knight, of the Greenfield ward, that Heavenly Father is the best example of how to be a good parent. If we read in the scriptures about how he treats his children, we can learn a lot about how to be better parents.

              In the beginning, Heavenly Father held a family counsel (Abr 4:26) where he told his children about His goals for us. He called it the Plan of Salvation.  It is a set of family goals that if we follow them will allow us to become like he is and allow us to be with our families forever. When we heard about it those of us who are on Earth today shouted for joy (job 38:7).

              I’m a firm believer in the power of setting goals. I have goals written in dry erase marker on my bathroom window. I start almost every day reviewing my to do list and prioritizing which goals are the most important for today. If we want to get something done we need to start by deciding to do it.

Prioritizing

              Perhaps one of the most important reason to set goals is that we don’t have unlimited time. When Heidi and I make our plan the hardest thing is often deciding what not to do. By setting goals we prioritize what is most important.

How should we go about choosing our family goals?

Keep the Commandments

Thomas S. Monson, October 2015 General Conference

"I am confident that each of us has as his ultimate goal life everlasting in the presence of our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is imperative, therefore, for us to make choices throughout our lives that will lead us to this great goal. “

When I was a missionary down in Argentina there was an Elder from Texas who had a great expression. He said “goals should be stars to steer ourselves by not sticks to beat ourselves with”. Think about that as you are setting your goals. Ask yourself “Will this goal inspire me to be my best self?”

As a family our most important goal is to be the type of family that wants to be together forever. Whenever we find ourselves doing something that gets in the way of that goal is a good time to think about things to change.

We should pray for guidance

Visit the Temple

In October 2015 General Conference Elder Larry Lawrence taught us to ask the Lord “What Lack I yet?” He will tell us and if we act on what He tells us He will teach us more.

OK by now you may be thinking “Yeah, but setting family goals is hard and when we don’t make progress I get discouraged, what then?”

Here are some simple things that you can try to up your success rate:

Start Small

Have a fall back plan

Mark it on your calendar

Tell other people about your goal

Don’t be afraid to table a goal for a while with a plan to visit it again later

              Let’s face it, setting and sticking to goals is hard. Many people refuse to make New Year’s resolutions because it is so discouraging to make them and find that you drop them after a few weeks. Fortunately, there are many things that we can do to overcome this vicious cycle.

Start Small

              Saint Francis of Assisi has a great quote it goes:  Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/francisofa121023.html#pjRooaGwLVXUVX9J.99

Think of Alma 37:6-7 “behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

 7 And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.

Nightly Scripture story

              When my wife and I started doing nightly scripture study with our children it did not go well. Or kids were not interested in sitting still and listening. They wanted to jump on the beds. We set a goal that we would read at least one scripture every night as a family. We decided that if need be we could quote a one. There were many nights when we quoted “Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy”. The interesting part is that while we had many days when that was as far as we got there were many others where we read a whole chapter. As time went on the percentage of one scripture days decreased and now we routinely read a whole chapter.

Have a fall back plan

              Elder Andersen, when he came to train our local leaders, shared a similar plan his family did. They had a goal to read a chapter a day in the book of Mormon. He wife ended up memorizing a short chapter so that if they had a rough day she could quote it and they could be consistent in keeping their goal. (3 Nephi 30 I’m fairly sure).

              The idea here is that when you set your goal you should have a plan for what you will do when you feel like quitting.

Heavenly Father does not expect us to get there suddenly in one flurry of effort. (D&C 98:12) “For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept”

Mark it on your calendar

              There has been research that shows that if you mark a specific time on your calendar you are more likely to get it done.

Tell other people about your goal

              Another small but helpful thing that we can do is to let other people know about our goals. This is especially important for family goals. Heavenly Father sends prophets and many others to remind us about the plan of salvation. Telling our kids and others about our goals helps with our kids because they know what we expect of them. Telling others helps because they may ask us how our goal is going. That can help us keep trying when times get tough.

Revisiting Goals/Not Dying in the Pool story

              Two summers ago we made a goal to teach our kids how to swim. Actually our real goal was to teach the well enough that one of them fell in the would not die in the pool. They could swim to the edge and climb back out. After practicing close to 5 days a week by the end of summer our two oldest had achieved the goal but our others had not. This might have seemed like a failure except that not long after summer ended my second oldest did fall in the pool when she was in the backyard by herself. Because of all our hard work nothing worse happened than she got all wet. I don’t want to think about what would have happened had we not had that goal in place. This past summer we revisited our “Not dying in the pool” goal and two more of our children can now get out of the pool safely on their own. The important thing here is to be grateful for the small successes that you do have and don’t be discouraged that you still have a ways to go. We still have two kids left who are not safe around pools and while that is a scary thought I am so grateful that four of my kids are ready should they happen to fall in.

Conclusion

              In conclusion let me recap the things that we have discussed. Heavenly Father sets goals. He created a plan before he created the world. If that is the pattern that works for the most powerful Being in the universe it will also work for us. We should set goals that inspire us and be careful not to beat ourselves up when we fall short. We should not be surprised when it gets hard to keep our goals. In fact we should expect it and plan on it. Have a fall back plan for what to do when things get hard and don’t be afraid to admit that you may need to revisit some goals again later on.

              Heavenly Father loves you right now. Even before you set any goals. He will always love you no matter how many times you fail. He will also help you to succeed and to have the joy and happiness that He has promised if we learn to keep the commandments. My invitation to you is that you make a plan, right now, to set a family goal. If you already are doing this, great, if not find a time today to start setting family goals. It can be simply that you want to be an eternal family and that you will work together to make it happen.

       I bare you my testimony that Heavenly Father loves you and that peace and joy are found in living the gospel. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I did add in that the Savior taught in the New Testament "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt 5:48) in the book of Mormon he said it slightly differently "Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect." To me this suggests that the Savior did not consider Himself perfect until after He was resurrected. We learn in Luke 2:52 that "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." I suggest that perhaps Matthew 5:48 means that we should become perfected in the way the Savior became perfect line upon line. We probably won't become perfect 10 things at a time. We'll do it one thing at a time.

     This evening the stake had a fireside. Heavenly Father blessed us so that things went smoothly. There was a video that didn't download properly but Heavenly Father blessed me to be able to fix it without it being noticeable in the meeting.