Its spring, and everyone is busy sketching out their plans and goals for the 2010 summer camping season. In the last book review I talked briefly about how a theory of hope can help make sure you achieve your goals and have a great season. This is especially true for those of you trying to introduce kids or a significant other to one of your favorite activities. Today we'll spend more time learning how to apply some of the concepts. By the way, if you have kids, try to involve them in as many of these activities as possible, it will help them learn valuable life skills and start to help them lead a life filled with hope!

In case you didn't read the book review, hope was defined as the sum of the mental willpower and waypower we have towards our goals. In other words, people who can create good goals, devise pathways for achieving those goals and tap into motivation for achieving them are high hope people. More importantly, high hope people fare better than low hope people in almost every measure that has been tested. So, how do you create high hope for this year's camping goals? Easy, by focusing on these three dimensions. The best part is, they have been shown to be highly inter-dependent, so if you do better in one, the other's tend to get a boost as well. Let's start with goals themselves.

Goals

When making your goals, keep a couple of things in mind.

1. Create stretch goals. Choosing goals that have a 100% or 0% chance of success are not good goals. Its hard to get motivated for  these. Instead, choose something that is slightly harder than your last goal that you successfully attained. However, if this is your first time taking kids or a significant other, you probably want to choose something closer to the 100% end of the scale. Make sure you get an early success!

2. Be specific. Vague goals are hard to plan and get excited for, so be specific. What is it that you want to do or achieve? Do you want to accomplish a specific task, or create a specific memory with/for your family? Spend some time and make sure you fully recognize what you want to accomplish, and why you want to accomplish it.

3. Make backup goals. Remember what Murphy has to say about the best made plans, and make some backup plans. If you are set on achieving a specific task or activity, make sure you have a backup. That way, if the weather changes or someone doesn't feel well, you can shift to another goal. If you only have one goal, and it gets blocked, everyone ends up frustrated and not having fun. If you can switch to another goal, everyone can stay engaged and having a good time.

4. Involve your family. Nothing will help motivate your kids and/or significant other better than letting them help choose the goals. If you're taking a significant other, this is also a great way to make sure you understand what is important to them and try to make sure you can get your goals aligned. If you can make sure your goals are aligned everyone can work as a team (or family!) and have a great time. Its easier to help each other along if your heading to the same place as well. If your goals conflict, make sure you start the season by focusing on your families goals. Your primary goal is to get them out with you and having fun, if you focus on what they want (spending quality time together away from the television, making great memories, etc.), you'll achieve your goal. Push the family too hard towards something you want, and you'll be lucky to get them outdoors again. Let them brainstorm, and you'll learn amazing things about your family.

Willpower

Remember that waypower is our internal motivation for achieving our goals. If you followed the steps above, you should have picked something that is important to your family. That's the first, and most step, in creating excitement in everybody. Next, you'll want to focus on the process of getting to your goal. Recognize positive outcomes as you plan and prepare for the activity, celebrate small milestones along the way. Be enthusiastic about everything yourself. Nothing ruins a trip faster than a dad cursing under his breath while packing the vehicle (I know, its kind of in our job description, but save it for the trip to the in-laws!). Not that I'm speaking from experience, but it can create a lot of tension and suck the excitement out of the air faster than Dyson picks up dirt. Keep a sense of humor about setbacks. Kids get frustrated fast, so be a good role model and try to find some humor, laugh, and then start to problem solve a way around the setback. And lastly, but the other people some new gear. Everybody loves new gear. Choose something that the other people really like; clothes, a new headlamp/flashlight, hiking boots, sleeping bag, etc. Give it to them as you get closer to the big day so that they get excited, but still have time to learn how to use it or break it in (if it requires this sort of thing). Promise to teach them a new skill. Let the kids light the fire, and let them know you'll be teaching them this skill. Guaranteed enthusiasm!

Waypower

Waypower involves the mental road-maps we create for how we are going to achieve our goals. There are a number of key components here:

1. Break things down into smaller, doable steps. This can make a big goal seem more possible, especially for kids or someone new to outdoor activities.

2. Work on building the skills necessary. We're taking our kids to Minnesota this summer for a week of fishing and swimming in the lakes. I have the fishing poles rigged up with sinkers and let the kids practice casting in the yard. We even setup hoola hoops as targets and award 2 points for landing the sinker in the hoop and 1 point for getting it within a couple of feet. It keeps the kids excited to practice, and hopefully by July they'll be able to cast without sinking the hook into me!

3. Build mental pictures of what it will look like to achieve the goal. Help your kids think about what it will be like to climb to the top of the mountain, catch a fish, start the campfire, find constellations, see a shooting star, track animal prints, canoe, raft, float, setup a tent, etc. Get them to picture how cool it will be to accomplish their goal. One of our goals is to get to the Devils Head Fire Tower when Forest Ranger Bill is up there (I missed him by a week with my oldest son last year). When the weather is good, we go for long walks around the block (building up some stamina for the trip, especially for the youngest) and we talk about what questions they would like to ask him. I hope Forest Ranger Bill is patient, their list is getting long!

4. Create multiple paths for success. If you only have one way to accomplish your goal, its too easy for one roadblock to stop you. Instead, brainstorm multiple ways for accomplishing your goal. Include bad weather scenarios, broken down vehicles, etc. Think through roadblocks ahead of time, you can even involve the family and make a game of finding the most unusual way around a barrier.

5. Think of setbacks as failures of strategy. Especially for kids, this can help keep them from thinking it was their fault or that they weren't good enough, and instead teach them to keep a sense of determination around achieving their goals by problem solving. What part of the strategy didn't work? How can it be improved for the next time? When will the next time be (might as well start planning right then!)? Sometimes the strategy might have been good, but it wasn't implemented well. If the strategy involved skill building, but they didn't practice enough, then make sure they understand that aspect of it. As long as its done in a supportive manner, its ok to let kids (or significant others) know that the implementation of the plan wasn't the best. Help them do it better next time.

Put these pieces together and you'll have great summer. Just remember, the most important piece is that you act as a good role model for you kids on how to do these things. The best part is, you'll have a great summer of achieving your family's goals, and you'll be teaching your kids valuable life lessons and giving them the gift of hope.