4 Lessons on Goal Setting from a Mom who is Potty Training Twins

For months we have been in the midst of potty training my twin, 2 year old daughters. I may be ever so slightly biased, but I believe they are pretty amazing. They each are hilarious, smart, and creative in their own unique ways. They are also independent thinkers. Which can be…challenging. It’s good in the long run I am sure, but at times it can be tricky.

And as it turns out, potty training as been one of those tricky occasions.

Here they are brooding (and yet they are still so cute):

Over the last few months I have been piecing together the ways in which potty training is like setting and achieving any other long-term goal, and I have discovered 4 key lessons in the process:

Lesson 1: To achieve a difficult goal, you need to know why it’s important.

Getting buy-in from these girls has been a challenge. It may become important to them at some point, but for now things like getting to wear “super fun big girl underwear” is just not a large motivating factor. I can see them thinking, “I like my pull-ups and diapers. Why would I change?”. And they aren’t wrong.

Key takeaway: It’s important to have a clear vision for how your life will be different – and better – after you achieve your goal, and don’t settle on anything less.

Lesson 2: Punishment does not work.

Everything I read said not to get mad or punish your kids when they have an accident, so we don’t do that at home. When I learned at daycare that some of the kids may need to sit down for a few minutes if they poop in their pants, I asked them to stop. I could see one of my kids regressing a little, and as soon as that stopped, she happily tried potty training again.

Key takeaway: Negative reinforcement does not work for achieving your goals. You should be giving yourself positive rewards that motivate you to keep working harder instead.

Lesson 3: Incentives work, to a point.

So while positive reinforcement is a great thing and definitely works in the beginning, it has its limits. Our girls get one M&M if they go pee on the potty, and two if they go poop on the potty. It’s really fun for them to get to pick which color they want. That all being said, after doing this for about a month now, I can see that it doesn’t quite have the same effect that it used to. Now, I can see they are excited because they feel proud.

Key takeaway: Eventually, something needs to take over internally. We need to switch from being motivated by external rewards to being motivated by something intrinsic.

Lesson 4: It will happen when they are ready.

Like so many things, it’s all about timing. At this point I have heard enough potty training stories from other parents to know that it ultimately comes down to the kid deciding that they want to do this for themselves, rather than us saying it’s the right time.

Key takeaway: We can put all the structures and plans in place that we want, but at some point we need to just go with the flow (pun intended). Try stepping back and enjoying the process rather than focusing solely on the end result.

So there you have it! 4 lessons from a mom who is potty training twins. And perhaps next time I should write a blog post on the lessons I have learned from them about fashion:

And on that extremely cute note, I leave you with this thought experiment:

Are you enjoying the process of achieving your goal? If not, how might that change?