Attempts To Create An Emotionally-Connected Family
This is part of my 2024 personal goals review. By splitting the review into smaller blogs, I make it easier for readers to skim the main blog and easier for me to reference specific section directly from any focus area.
Family remains my highest priority. I’ve made progress and identified areas to grow. The lessons from this year will guide my focus for 2025.
🌓 Stay Emotionally Connected With My Spouse
Parting Rituals: On 91% of working days (about 202 days), I shared plans for the day with my spouse. This practice strengthened our bond, though managing interruptions from our son remains a challenge. Our son wants to monopolize the conversations with him.
Reunion Routine: We shared our day's events after our son's bedtime on 86% of working days (196 days). We missed about 20 opportunities due to evening meetups, travel, cooking, guests, or extra meetings.
Daily Appreciation: I wrote my gratitude thoughts and expressed them to my spouse 332 times in the year (91% success rate). Having reminders on my HabitNow app helped me. But, sometimes gratitude is not enough when we have a disagreement. We still need to make repair attempts and work on being kind to each other.
End-of-Day Affection: We struggled to stay consistent, achieving this 262 times (80% score). We often miss it because of mismatched sleep schedules or exhaustion. This needs improvement.
Evening priorities: 75% success. Area of improvement.
Weekly and Monthly Dates: We marked 14 check-ins or dates (a 76% habit score). I realized one date night a month was less so we increased date nights to twice a month. Though getting time for full-day outings remains a challenge when we take longer holidays or travel.
Expressing Happiness: A simple but important habit, I failed to make a dent in at all. I sometimes tracked this when writing my night journal and reviewing the day. But I often forgot about it. I want to strengthen it next year.
❌ Weekend Time With Son
While weekends included family outings, defining structured one-on-one time with my son remains a work in progress. Explicitly planning these moments can help ensure I give him time before he grows so independent that he doesn’t want time with his parents.
🌓 Focused Attention With Son
Maintaining undivided attention when spending time with my son proved challenging. His frustration when I was distracted highlighted the need for mindfulness and better prioritization.
✅ Fair Play in Household Tasks
My spouse and I are satisfied with the fair distribution of household responsibilities.
✅ Family Growth
On track.
✅ Family and Friends Plans
We spent most weekends on family outings or meeting friends.
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