Year Ahead Series 2017 | Building Your Family Foundation

Today we're diving a little deeper into planning not just the immediate year ahead but the long term vision of your life. Being an entrepreneur, I had always heard of establishing a Mission, Vision and Values for business but it never registered to me that it's important to set those goals in your personal life, too. Ryan had us sit down and do an exercise in which we individually wrote out what's important to us, and then come together, compare notes, and from those two lists, agree on one unified set of values, which we wrote out in order of importance. We actually used this exact worksheet from Family Life and here's what we came up with for our family.

1. Loving Jesus

2. Valuing Marriage

3. Being a Good Friend

4. Being Healthy

5. Being Wise with Money

6. Having the Joy of Cooking

7. Pursuing Passions

8. Being Helpful and Generous

9. Continually Learning and Growing

10. Being Happy

I'll let Ryan take it from here!

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Hi! I am Allie’s husband, Ryan. I work on the side as a Culture Consultant where I spend most of my time rebuilding a company’s foundation to marry both leadership and employee beliefs. I am an encourager at heart so building others up, both in corporate settings and at home, is just kind of what I do. I am excited to talk with you guys about the importance of creating a mission, vision, and set of core values for your family. I think you will find, as we did, that when you develop this foundation it becomes much easier to make decisions, know when to say no, and to see what is deeply valuable to you and your family.

Ok, first things first, you need to invite any “decision-making” member of your family into this process. That could be your spouse, your kids, or anyone else you feel needs to have a say in what’s important to the health and success of your family. I would suggest only allowing those who live in your home to have a say, but again, that is a decision for your family to make.

VISION

Vision is what you want you and your family to look like many many years down the road. Pick a number, like 20 years from now, and write out what you guys look like. Where do you live, how much money do you make, where do you spend your time, etc. Try to be as specific as you can so that you create a clear picture for your future. It is important to not allow this to become an expectation that brings stress and sadness into your life. The likelihood that life looks exactly like the vision you create is unlikely, but the idea is that when big decisions come along you can look at your long term vision to help determine which path you should take.

VALUES

Values, on the other hand, are something to keep close by and reference often. We, for instance, keep ours posted on the side of our fridge. These are those 8-12 specific words or phrases that remind you what you believe, like being a good friend, and eating healthy food. These are things you LOVE and not just like a lot. If you like to travel, but love spending time with your friends, you will have an easier time choosing between those two when the time arises.

Values make it much easier to make decisions and be at ease with those decisions when you can think, "Does this current situation fall inside or outside of my values?" or,"Is the decision I made or am making in line with my family values?" It’s best to set aside a couple hours (probably over the course of a few sit-downs) for creating your values. As Allie mentioned, it’s also best to have each person involved create their own list of values and then come together to build one list of “Family Values”. Once you have your list you can now build your family mission statement.

MISSION STATEMENT

Like the “Declaration of Independence” or “Gettysburg Address” your family mission statement is the foundational line in the sand for your family. It should lay out those steadfast truths that all other decisions are made from. For us it is as simple as, “Love Jesus. Love people.” Shocked at the simplicity of it? Remember that this is our foundation. It is where we start to make decisions. For example, “Pursuing Passions” is one of our family’s values. What if I decided that moving to Italy to pursue being a painter was what I thought I needed to do, but Allie and I could not agree to make the move. I hope I would remember that part of our mission statement is to “Love People” which means that in order to love my wife and family I must find something to be passionate about that first and foremost “Loves Jesus and loves people”. Your mission statement is up to your interpretation and only has to make sense to you and your family so if others don’t get it that’s ok.

My hope is that you leave this post with the tools to build your family foundation and the encouragement to pursue it. Yes, it will be difficult, but so is anything that truly matters. If you are married or have kids you know what I mean! For a much more in depth look at developing your family’s mission, vision, and values click here. If you still need more clarification please reach out to Allie and I. We would love to help you with this in any way that we can. You are, after all, part of our tribe!