Are you a homeschool parent looking for strategies to help set (and actually keep) goals for your family’s homeschool this year? We can all agree setting good habits and staying on track with our goals helps us move closer to achieving them. But getting started isn’t always easy – that’s where I come in!
In this blog post, I will show you an effective and holistic way to set meaningful goals for your family’s homeschool journey so you can stay inspired and motivated and be one step closer to success by the end of the year.
So, let’s get started!
Looking for more tips on homeschool planning? Check out these articles: Take a Moment and Reboot: A Guide to Resetting Your Homeschool Space, Homeschool Planning: How to Use SMARTER Goals, and Streamline Your Homeschool Planning Process with the Backward Design Method.
Reflect
It’s important to reflect back before we look forward because we have to know where we’ve been to know where we’re headed. Review the last year in your journal for the best results to understand what you want and don’t want in your homeschool journey.
You can’t really know where you are going until you know where you have been.
Maya Angelou
Doing this will help you create a plan for the year that is focused on what matters most to your family. You’ll know how to adjust and pivot if needed and have a roadmap to help guide you along the way.
Remember, we don’t want to dwell on the past; instead, we want to look quickly at what worked and didn’t work this past year.
Journal prompts to help you get started:
What worked well?
What was hard?
What felt like work but not joy?
What was fun?
What lifted me up? (’cause you gotta take care of yourself first!)
What subject did we love to do?
What was our least favorite subject?
What brought me down?
What did I love doing?
Where did I spend the majority of my time?
Where did my kids spend the majority of their time?
Was that time well spent?
Dream Big!
Next, we want to turn the page and dump out all of our big, hairy audacious goals.
One of the best things we can do at the start of a new year is to journal our big goals. This helps us better understand what we want and how we can achieve it.
By doing all this, we can set more realistic goals for ourselves and increase our chances of achieving them.
Questions to ask yourself:
If there was no limit, what would your homeschool look like?
How do you want to feel about your homeschool?
How do you want your kids to feel about homeschooling?
What do you want your kids to learn by the end of the year?
Where are they right now?
What obstacles are in the way? Bad habits? Limiting beliefs?
What do you want to do more of in your homeschool?
What do you want to do less of?
What do you want to improve upon?
What do you want to start doing?
Set Your Goals
Based on your journaling, what do you want to accomplish in your homeschool and/or personal life? I recommend setting only 2-3 goals for the quarter. Letting things get out of hand is easy, so setting goals for 3 months lets you see the finish line clearly. Remember, less is more!
Make sure your goals are measurable, timely, and attainable. If you need more help writing goals, check out my article about how to set SMARTER goals.
Questions to ask yourself:
What do I want our homeschool to be about this year?
How do we want to spend our time?
Who do we want to become?
Are there new habits you want to create for yourself and/or your kids?
Is there a focus word or phrase that sums up your next year?
Plan it!
Finally, pull out the calendar, planner, or whatever you use and plot your homeschool goals. If you don’t schedule it, it’ll probably not happen.
If it’s important to you, you’ll make the time. If not, you’ll make an excuse.
Marie Forleo
I prefer to plot three months of goals because life rarely goes as planned, which helps me easily roll with the punches and adjust my plans for the next quarter.
At the end of 3 months, I’ll go over this same process to develop my next set of goals for the following quarter. We take a week off from school, so I can set goals and plan.
Final Thoughts
No matter what stage you are in your homeschool journey, it is never too late (or early) to start setting goals. By reflecting on your past year, dreaming big for your future, and setting some tangible goals, you will make this coming year the best one yet.
Want a workbook version of this?
Be sure to download my free homeschool goal-setting workbook for even more help!
Xuan Klevecka is a Southern California-based homeschool mom, wife, and sometimes purveyor of vintage goods. She’s an Enneagram 5w4, a lover of good food, and a former middle school history teacher. You’ll either find her looking at road maps and daydreaming about her family’s next epic adventure or perusing recipes and cooking up a feast for the brood.
