2013: Family Goals Project

I love the New Year. No offense to Christmas, I love Christmas. But I also love when it's over. I'm usually ready for a return to the routine, and to refocusing on what's important.

This year we have decided to focus on setting our family goals. After years of reading articles about finding your parachute and 7 daily habits and all of that...I've decided to put the knowledge to practical use. We are going to make our way through 2013 (and hopefully 2014-the rest of our lives) with the goal of improving ourselves as individuals by improving ourselves as a family.

I first encountered this idea of unity goal setting 10 years ago during a 3-day Franklin Covey seminar at work. At the end of the three days we were charged with writing the Mission, Vision and Value Statements for our company. It didn't mean much to me at the time (because I was 24 and couldn't have cared less), but I see now how having a singular mission for a group of people can help keep your goals focused and ever-present.

To kick off this project we started by doing a family vision drawing. This came from the Families With a Purpose Blog, specifically from their 31 days to Fresh Starts calendar, which divides a bunch of these activities (and others) into easily planned daily chunks. Some are as simple as cleaning out a closet, others more time consuming, like creating your Mission Statement.

The question was posed: draw a picture of your ideal family life. (Our future, our goal, our vision...our heart and soul) We cleared the table, and sat down with hot tea, blank paper and colored pencils to begin our evening's journey.

There were laughs and stories and silliness. All in all, it was a pretty perfect night. Our family vision pictures came out nearly as I would have expected. Farm animals, love, adventure, reading, exploring and being happy were reoccurring themes throughout almost everyone's drawing. (I am glad for that, I was little afraid that legos and Disney princesses would be more prevalent)

For the most part the kids seemed to understand that we were aiming for true happiness, not passing fancies like toys. There were a lot of grappling hooks and rockets in Luke's picture...but he swears it's because true familial happiness lies in exploration...even in outer space. And really...who can argue with that?

Next step...the family Mission Statement.