Trive
Homeschool Product Review with the Homeschool Review Crew.
Today I am reviewing a product I received free of charge for the purpose of using and sharing our honest thoughts.
The product is Trive, by Gozimus Enterprises, LLC. You can find their website at https://connectthetrive.com
Set and Reach Your Goal
The purpose of this curriculum set is for goal setting and achieving. We liked the idea of this, because in our family, we have a hard time with goals—both setting and achieving them!
Here’s my post with a video of the unboxing of the Trive set.
Trive Unboxing. Homeschool Review Crew. Let’s Take a Look Inside
The Trive Goal Setting kit contains:
- Leader’s Notebook
- Instruction Manual
- Goal Cards
- Review Cards
- Pencils
- A deck of Quotations
- An Access Code for Connect The Trive website
The Process
The Trive is set up sort of like a game, sort of like a pow wow, with the instructions to light a candle for the session, like you’re sitting around a tribal campfire. We already had a candle burning, so we were a step ahead!
The family gathered around to participate, and we took a few minutes to use the goal cards to put down three personal goals in writing or with a drawing. For us, even though we started out slow, each of us eventually came up with three personal goals. Three of us chose to draw pictures for our goals, and one had difficulty following directions, so he wrote all three goals on one card. Only a problem because it made the next step more tricky.
Ad
After privately writing down our goals, then the game portion began. We had to take turns choosing a random goal card, try to guess whose goal it was, let them explain it, then go through a process of reading an inspirational quote, guess who said it, rinse, and repeat. For every goal, around and around, until all of the goals have been discussed.
The game/session is finished once every goal has been discussed. It’s supposed to take a couple hours.
A leader will record the goals, and every person chooses a coach to keep him/her motivated/accountable. Then you make a date for six months in the future to meet again and see how everyone’s been doing.
At the follow up session you can opt to do prizes for the best motivational coach, as well as the member who completes the most goals. There are also points assigned to the quotation cards, so more points also equals potential prizes. Conveniently, you may purchase Trive branded merchandise at their website, connectthetrive.com
Along the way, with your access code, you will receive motivational emails from Trive to keep you inspired. Every member is supposed to sign up. I’ve received a couple of the follow-up emails which contain reminders to define, refine, and keep revisiting my goals.
Trive: What We Liked:
- An impetus to sit down and state our goals. We tend to avoid this type of thing, procrastinate, and therefore, don’t know our goals. So that was very good for us.
- Learning each other’s goals. This was good too. It drew us together and made us feel more like we could help each other by being more aware of what we each want.
- Accountability to each other. Since we each get to coach another person, this keeps us checking in with each other. Nobody’s doing this alone.
- A set time to tackle goals. We’d never get around to it without some external motivation.
- The Goal Cards. For some reason, it helped to draw a picture of our goals. We apparently are visual people.
What We Didn’t Like
- The whole ceremony idea. For us, lighting a candle, gathering around, tribal fashion just seemed a little silly. Then again, all of our kids are teen boys.
- The Quotables cards. We just aren’t into the pop culture, and so many of the quotations were from famous pop artists that we don’t really relate to.
- The process of going around and around to guess goals, read cards, etc. That, honestly, was painful. With four people participating, that meant we’d go around twelve times, and, frankly, everyone was over it by the fourth or fifth round. By then it really felt contrived, and everyone wanted to quit. It’s simply not realistic for our family to sit around for a couple of hours discussing goals.
- It’s not a game. I guess we thought it was supposed to be kind of like a game. For us, it wasn’t that. It was something good to do, like a budget, but not something we’d pull out when the family comes to visit.
Would I purchase it?
That’s a hard one.
Trive is a tool. And when you have a job that needs to be done, having a good tool just helps to make it go more smoothly. So, for those needing a little push, some inspiration, and who enjoy working as a team to motivate each other, I think I’d recommend it.
If I thought I wanted something that would fit our family better, in the goal-setting arena, I’d look for something more specific to our own values. Inspirational quotes that motivate us tend to not come from the pop culture, or from philosophers, but from Scripture and from people who have traveled the road we are traveling. Homeschoolers, families, and those with conservative values. There are some of those quotations mixed in—I think they just tried to represent a broad sampling.
Also, for me, I’d be more apt to choose to pass out index cards and skip the whole set. But I am a cheapskate, and favor simple tools.
My impression is that a lot of thought went into this set, but that it just didn’t really click with our family. That said, we all feel glad that we went through it, since we needed to define our goals, and needed something to get us going. So, maybe it is like a budgeting tool. Maybe there’s no really fun way to set and keep goals for people like our family. It’s a small step, though, in the right direction, and so, all in all, we are happy that we got to participate in the review of Trive.
Homeschool Review Crew
To read more information about Trive through the Homeschool Review Crew, you may go here. You’ll see the review introduction article from the Crew, plus you’ll get a chance to read all of the other reviews on this product. It’s a good chance to gain many perspectives.
God bless, and good luck on however you choose to set your goals and achieve them!
