In this episode we give you an inside look at a powerful system for success that our family has been following now for about 15 years.  It has helped us expand our vision and achieve dreams that are bigger than we ever thought we could.

It’s a system for success that I’m pretty sure you won’t hear much about in many other places. But this has been a critical process for us individually and as a family. Like many good things in my life, I learned about this process from a mentor who had focused on success in this specific area of life more than I had. I will be forever grateful to my family coach and good friend, Greg Gunn for opening my eyes to this life changing system for success.

In this episode all eight of us gathered around the table for a fun discussion right after we finished our 15th Annual Gienger Family Goal Setting Retreat.  What is that?  Here’s how it works. We all get together as a family at the beginning of each new year to celebrate our successes in the last year and set goals for the new year. We start with a a focusing talk by dad.  Then we spend 3-4 hours in solitude and silence where each family member journals on their successes in the last year and writes down goals for the new year.  After everyone takes time alone to document their successes and work on their individual goals, we come back together to share what we have written down.  This gives us a rich space in time to celebrate each other’s successes and become aware of how we can support each other’s goals.

After we finished our time of sharing this January, we all sat around the table, clicked record and reflected on the experience.  As you listen to us discuss the following questions, we hope you will gain insights that could help you create a system like this, in your own way, in your own life.

  • What are some of your earliest memories of doing our Annual Gienger Family Goal Setting Retreats?
  • Can you describe what it has been like for you to do this when you were young kids?
  • How would you describe the actual process we have used in our annual goals setting retreats?
  • To the spouses who married in to the family (Teliah and Auren): Do you remember when was your first time joining us in an Annual Family Goal Setting Retreat?  What was it like for you to participate in this process?
  • What do you think have been the benefits of doing this for you and for our family?  What’s the value of this from your perspective?
  • What are some of the highlights or most meaningful elements of what we experienced or what you heard or shared in this year’s Annual Family Goal Setting Retreat?
  • How do you see this carrying on into the next generation?

Resources:

  • Check out the Family ID podcast by Greg Gunn who was Lonnie’s initial coach on this topic.
  • Kylon and Te referenced their excellent Successful Dropout podcast for young people looking for an alternative to the traditional institutional university education route.
  • After listening to the podcast, some have asked for a copy of the questions that we have used over the years to guide us through our celebration and goal setting process.  If you’re interested, you can check out our Gienger Goal Setting Annual Retreat Questions. As with all systems, we hope you can learn something from our process…but please be sure to customize this system in a way that works best for you.
  • If you’d like to see an example of part of the “stage-setting” for an annual retreat, Shelley got some video of some of Lonnie’s introductory comments at the beginning of the 2018 Gienger family goal setting retreat.

Thank You!

Thanks again for listening to the show! If it has helped you in any way, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the page.   We’d also really appreciate any feedback or questions that might guide what we talk about in future episodes.

Additionally, reviews for the podcast on iTunes are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show and we read each and every one of them.

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