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Marriage isn’t just about building your life together, it’s also about growing as individuals alongside each other! Setting goals together to help you support the goals you are working towards as individuals is just as important as setting goals that will help you create the life you dreamed of together when you decided to get married. In this episode of the Prioritize Your Marriage Podcast, Amberly talks about supporting each other’s individual goals and dreams in your marriage, what that could look like, and how to communicate about the support you might need for the goals you have set. You’ll receive two challenges to put this episode into action in your marriage.
Marriage isn’t just about building your life together, it’s also about growing as individuals alongside each other! Setting goals together to help you support the goals you are working towards as individuals is just as important as setting goals that will help you create the life you dreamed of together when you decided to get married. One of the benefits of being married is having a constant cheerleader by your side. Someone who is invested in your future as much as their own because your futures are tied together and supported by one another. Your spouse’s individual goals aren’t just theirs; they can be yours as well, even if they don’t directly impact you and your personal happiness or success. Your spouse’s success and happiness do impact you directly, so the things that are important to them should be important to you as well. Your spouse is someone who can push you to be your best and live your dreams. Be that person for each other!
A song that I love and listen to often is ‘Grow as We Go’ by Ben Platt. The lyrics imply that one partner wants to go their own way to pursue their dreams and find out who they are as an individual, and this person, Ben because he’s the one singing, is telling them that they don’t have to split up in order to be true to who they are and live their dreams. There are a lot of people who feel like marriage ties them down, that it keeps them from doing everything they want to do and being who they truly are. A healthy marriage will do the opposite, it will help you discover your true self in new ways and provide you with the support and space to continue to live your dreams.
Don’t feel left out if you married young and didn’t get to “see the world” or do any of the other things people tell people they should do before they get married. Do that together, or support each other in still doing those things on your own or with others who share your same interests. I have an entire episode coming on this, but you don’t have to be everything for each other, and you don’t have to do everything together. You can be happily married and have individual endeavors and friends you do things with that your spouse isn’t involved with. But I digress….
Some of my favorite lyrics from ‘Grow as We Go’ say, “You can change right next to me”, “I am unfinished, I’ve got so much left to learn”, and “We’re gonna see that it was better, that we grew up together.” Allow your spouse to grow and change and evolve as an individual as you work to grow and evolve as a couple, bound together for life. Support them in all of their goals, hopes, dreams, and endeavors. Do everything you can to help them achieve their dreams! You don’t have to go out and run a marathon with your spouse or get up early every morning to help them train. But you can get up and fix them a good post-run breakfast and make sure their workout clothes are always clean. And you should be there to cheer them on as they cross the finish line.
On the topic of running races, I once heard Camille of Friday We’re In Love share that she and her husband both loved to run, but once they had kids, it was hard to run races together, so they took turns. In one season or year, her husband Jacob would train and run while she kept her running more routine and focused on being the one responsible for the kids while he took the time it requires to train for and run a big race. Then, the next year or season, they would switch places, and Camille would get to train for and run a race. It was something they both loved and supported each other in doing.
So here’s my challenge to you: Ask your spouse about their current goals. What is something they are working towards long-term? What are they hoping to accomplish tomorrow? And what can you do to support them as they work on their goals? Start with one or two of those goals and one or two things you can do to support them. It might mean that you simply cheer them on, ask how their goal is going, or act as a sounding board when they need to talk through ideas or obstacles or anything else related to achieving the goals they’ve set. They might need you to hold space for them to go out and pursue a goal, providing them with the support they need to have time, energy, and attention to put towards that thing. What your spouse is going to need as support for pursuing their goal will be unique to them as an individual, their personality, the goal they have set, their timeline, your current lifestyle, etc.
I want to use one of my personal goals as an example. I set a goal this year to get back to walking regularly. I decided to start small in January and February by just walking outside when it was nice. Sometimes I walked for 10 minutes, other times it was just to the mailbox at the end of our circle and back, and other times I went for a longer jaunt. I wanted to revive that craving I used to have for walking, and I knew that doing it outside would help. In March, I set a goal to walk one mile each day. I shared that goal with my husband but didn’t have a specific support I asked for from him because I was determined, and I knew I could fit it into my days, between teaching and meetings, while the kids were at school and he was at work. Some days, I had to walk two miles to make up for miles I’d missed. There were a couple of days I asked him to hold down the fort while I went on my walk before the sun went down because I wasn’t able to get to it earlier in the day. Sadly, I only made it 10 miles/days into my goal before I injured my ankle, but as of this week, I’m back to walking that intentional mile outside each day.
As I was walking the other day, I thought about how I want to up the anty to two miles per day in May/June and then three per day in July/August. While it’s easy to find 30 minutes to get out during my day right now, when I’m not responsible for anyone but myself, I’m going to need extra support to make my miles happen as we head into the summer, our schedules shift, and the kids are home more. I might walk with my kids one mile each morning and ask my husband to be around so I can walk in the evenings on my own. Maybe I will ask him to walk with me on our date nights. And right now, when I’m struggling to get that mile done, I could request check-ins, that he ask me each day when I plan to walk my mile and follow up to see if it got done.
This is just one example of goal setting in my own life. I have many other goals right now, and my husband does as well. Throughout our marriage, completing schooling has been a huge goal that has required a lot of support from each other. In a few months, my husband will complete his MBA, and we’ll close that chapter of our marriage, at least for now… Last year, I had a goal to grow vegetables on our deck, and while I did the majority of the work, my husband set up some watering options to make it easier to tend to my pots on the deck each day and would often ask if he should water my plants while he was out watering spots in the lawn. I’ve also set goals to get back to some of my hobbies that have gotten lost in the chaos of adult life. I want to sit down at the piano and sing regularly, I’d also like to read at least one book each month. Any of those are things that I can request support from my husband for, in big or small ways.
I want to shift focus for a second and talk about big dreams and supporting each other’s big dreams. I searched “dreams versus goals” online to see if my thoughts were in line with what the internet says, and they are. Dreams are broad, aspirational visions you have for the future, while goals are more defined, with steps and a timeline to achieve them now or at a set time in the future. One of my dreams is to sing with a large choir associated with my church in my 40s or 50s. I don’t have a set timeline for when I’ll audition or pursue that dream, but it’s something that I hope to make a goal in the future and that my husband knows is a dream of mine, and we talk about it as if it will be reality. But I have goals to sing more regularly with my local church choir and with an interfaith choir that puts on a specific production each year. Those singing and music-focused goals we talk about more specifically, making plans for how to make them a reality.
Your spouse has goals, things that they are working towards currently and actively trying to accomplish. And I bet they have dreams as well. Some of those dreams might seem so far in the future or out of reach realistically. Regardless of how viable your spouse’s dreams might seem, I want to challenge you to entertain them and support them.
I have another favorite song that I listen to regularly; it’s called ‘Without a Believer.’ It’s by Sara Bareilles, and it’s on the album called ‘What’s Not Inside: The Lost Songs from Waitress,’ which is one of my favorite musicals. This song is about a woman who used to let this little boy dream out loud while he ate pie at her diner, where he would escape from what felt like a lonely time to him after he and his family moved to a new, very small town. The lyrics of the chorus say, “What good’s a dreamer without a believer? We all just need someone to care. One who might listen and root for our wishes. Someone to simply be glad that we’re there.”
With those lyrics in mind, I want to go back to my second challenge for this episode. Ask your spouse about their dreams for the future. Who do they want to be when they grow up? We’re all growing, right? Just because you hit “adulthood” and started a career and have a family and a home and a life, doesn’t mean you’re done growing or set in what you’re going to do forever. Does your partner have a dream job, a dream vacation, or somewhere they’d love to live? Is there a way that you can make those things a reality now, on a smaller scale, or put goals into place that will help you work slowly towards accomplishing those goals that feel more like dreams in your current situation and stage of life?
Maybe set a date night when all you do is dream together. Share those things in your heart and enthusiastically support each other. Talk as if they will be a reality; dream about what that would look like for your family. Avoid anything that suggests you don’t believe those things can be accomplished or that focuses on the risks and why you shouldn’t go for those dreams together and individually. Enthusiastically entertaining each other’s ideas isn’t saying, “Yes, let’s make it happen right this very second.” Remember, it’s still just a dream, but maybe one day it could be reality, and you might want to consider all that could bring to your spouse as an individual and how that would benefit your partnership and your family.
Your challenges from today’s episode are to 1. Ask your spouse what their current goals are and how you can support them in achieving those goals. If they don’t have any tangible ideas for support right now, you could suggest some to them or just check in every few days or once each week to see how they are doing with their goal and if there is any support you can provide moving forward. Knowing that you care about their personal goals and are offering support can be support enough, and also, have that at front of mind and make them more willing to ask for support as they recognize they need it. And 2. Ask your spouse about their dreams for the future. Plan a date and share your dreams with each other. What wild or totally realistic things would you love to do and accomplish in your lifetime? Enthusiastically support each other in those dreams and in the goals that you’ve shared as well.
Supporting each other’s goals is just one of the four types of goals that I recommend couples set together in their marriage. Don’t forget to listen or relisten to my previous episode and set those other goals as well, the ones that you are actively involved and working toward as a couple.
I would love to hear about the goals that your spouse has set and how you are supporting them! Hop over to social media and find me, @aprioritizedmarriage on all platforms, and send me a message telling me about the goals and dreams you each have in your marriage and what you plan to do to support one another as you work to accomplish them and “grow up together”.