129: 4 Life-Changing Resolutions To Make With Your Family

January 25, 2021

As a family, the New Year is a great opportunity to decide together what habits and rhythms of life you want to live out in 2021. It’s also a great time to come together and set some family goals for the upcoming year too. And, that’s why in today’s episode, we want to share the 4 Life-Changing Near Year’s Resolutions for your family to make this year. These ideas will grow your closeness with one another, but they will also set healthy rhythms for your children to take with them into adulthood.

When we think of New Year’s Resolutions, many times we are very aware of what changes we want to make in ourselves like losing the last bit of baby weight or wanting to read more books. And sometimes we are keenly aware of what changes we hope to make in our spouses. Har, har..just kidding…this episode has nothing to do with that.

Until the pandemic hit last year, we had never thought about making meaningful family resolutions. In a previous episode, we talked about discussing with your family about what stays and what goes. It was in the middle of our country’s lockdown when we were all working and learning from home. Everything else but grocery stores were shut down…so literally, we lived, worked, and played at home. But, in the middle of this mess, we were able to look at everything we used to have in our schedules and take a proactive step in choosing if we will put those activities back in.

Have you Taken The Relationship Check-in Quiz?

Take this relationship quiz with your spouse. Within minutes, you will immediately see the strengths of your relationship and also the areas of growth that you can focus on this year. We know this is going to be a great asset in building a strong, connected, and joy-filled marriage.

In This Episode, You Will Hear About:

The 4 life-changing resolutions to make with your family:
1. Adopt a growth mindset.
2. Try things that we will fail at.
3. Practice “secrecy.”
4. Learn to apologize.
Why having a growth mindset is crucial to your family’s well-being.
We’ll discuss why we need to teach our kids to fail.
We will break down the practice of “secrecy” (and no..it’s not about keeping secrets from one another).
We’ll talk about all things apologies and how to avoid the tricky “I”m sorry” traps.

Resources Mentioned During the Episode:

Listen to our previous mini-episode about It’s Time To Decide What Stays And What Goes
Hear more about growth mindset in our previous episode, How To Raise Resilient, Gritty, and Passionate Kids
Want to hear more about the importance of failure? Listen to Why We Need To Teach Our Kids To Fail
Find out more about Strengths in Marriage and Strengths-Based Parenting by listening to our previous episodes
Learn more about how to apologize in a meaningful way by reading Why Won’t You Apologize? Healing Big Betrayals and Every Day Hurts by Harriet Lerner
Read The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn To Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed by Jessica Lahey
Learn more about the importance of a growth mindset through these books, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth and Mindset: Changing The Way You Think to Fulfill Your Potential by Carol Dwek
Take a look at Daniel’s newest book You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies About Work, Life, and Love

Quotes and Tweets:

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. – Carol Dwek
Your ideas about risk and effort come from our mindset. So, this year, resolve to help your family realize the value of challenging yourselves and that the effort to learn and grow is worth it. @imbetweenshow
We can learn from our mistakes…but if we are scared to make mistakes, then we will live our lives paralyzed by the possibility of failure. @imbetweenshow
By resolving to try something new as a family that has the risk of failure, it creates an environment where failure is normalized and not something to be avoided like the plague. @imbetweenshow
Changing our beliefs can have a powerful impact. The growth mindset creates a powerful passion for learning. “Why waste time proving over and over how great you are when you could be getting better?” – Carol Dwek
We are creating a generation that has no idea what to do when they actually struggle. Every time we rescue, hover or otherwise save our children from a challenge, we send a very clear message; that we believe they are incompetent, incapable, and unworthy of our trust. @jesslahey
Do you know what the antidote to approval is? It’s secrecy. Secrecy is deliberately keeping our good deeds and personal virtues unknown. @imbetweenshow
By practicing secrecy, we are proactively taking the time to put aside our need for outside affirmation and to instead rejoice and delight in God as He delights in us. @imbetweenshow
If you want to change the world, go home and love your family. – Mother Teresa
If we want to teach children to apologize, learn to say, “Thank you for the apology.” and stop there.” This piece of advice sounds simple but it is difficult to put into practice. We reflexively use the apology as a springboard. @HarrietLerner