Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A Family Mission

What does your family stand for? Have you tried to figure that out together? If not, I would highly encourage you to do so by creating a family mission statement together. It has had an amazingly positive impact on my family and I believe it can have one on yours too! According to Stephen Covey, one of my most favorite authors, in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, “A family mission statement is a combined, unified expression from all family members of what your family is all about and the principles you choose to govern your family life.”

I have to admit, it took my family a loooonnnnggg time to create our statement but I am so glad we did. It gives us something tangible to look at and say, “you know treating another family member like that isn’t part of what we stand for” or “yes, we will take that volunteer project on” together because it is what we as a family stand for. The process of putting the statement together was just endearing! Over the course of time, I would ask my children what was important to our family, what our family stood for etc. and file their responses away. I will never forget asking my three year old what he thought was important in our family and he said, “We’re best friends!”. Of course after posting the statement on the chalkboard, my oldest then wrote something to the effect of, “this sucks” all over it but deep down inside I know it brings him a sense of pride, LOL! After all as country singer Aaron Tippen says in his song, “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

Here is a link to help you get started on your mission statement: http://www.franklincovey.com/msb/

It may just change your life…

Lisa Tokarz-Gutierrez, Executive Director