E.8 Creating a Vision for your Family
Episode 8 Creating a vision for your family
The first in the power of purpose series this episode walks you through creating a vision statement for your family so you know where you are headed together with a shared vision for an ideal life.
This episode I mentioned the book Gifted: Raising Children Intentionally by Chris Davis which is unfortunately out of print! Oops! I am so bummed because I wanted to share this book full of amazing insight with you. You can still however enjoy the lovely Ms. Rachel Hollis in the Rise Podcast. Particularly episode 72 about her daily practice of writing her goals as if they already have happened.
I am not one to keep magazines laying about but I am going to purposefully try to track some down so I can update later with vision boards my kids and I create and will have the worksheets for these posts available here starting in February if you missed the Dec. 31st email.
I am so passionate about this series and am excited to share it with you. The power of purpose series is:
E.8 Creating a vision for your family
So keep tuned in every other week as new episodes are released!
Transcript of E.8 Creating a Vision for your Family
I have to admit I am so excited about this next series on the power of purpose. As we head into the new year making resolutions and lining out goals, I want to start with the heart of why we have these ambitions in the first place. In this series, we are going to talk about how to create a vision for your family, Stating what you value, the power of purpose, a mission-driven home, and how mottos and other reminders can empower your kids even when you are not there. We will go over how a vision statement, mission statement, statement of values, and motto can help define and focus a family in the same way it helps powerful brands have a clear message and consistent goal and what the difference and utility of each of these have for creating a powerful family culture. These tools will help you live with clarity and intent and bring you joy as you work together towards a common goal.
Speaking of goals. All of our goals and ambitions are meant to lead us to the kind of life we want to live. You know the one where we are fit, healthy, happy, and so on the ball, we throw pin-worthy birthday parties and speak 3 languages? This so-called “ideal” life is our Vision. And Each person’s vision looks different. Maybe your ideal life is living a quiet screen-free farm where you make your own onion jam or perhaps it is running a business while having happy kids spray each other in the backyard with a hose. The vision you have when you catch your mind daydreaming, stalking your favorite designer on Instagram, or buying yet another game for your family to play together that ends up sitting on the shelf collecting dust stems from your innermost desires for your life.
As I studied marketing in college, I was captivated by how advertisers and merchandisers capitalize on or basic desires for connection, status, and survival. Everything from the color of the label, the lighting of the store, to the number of options of jam they offer has up to millions of dollars of research behind it. When you enter a grocery store you are entering a carefully crafted space designed specifically to make you spend money and feel loyal to their brand so you will buy again. As a grocer, you cannot move a product from one shelf to another without consulting the chains purchasing and merchandising department because the brands that sell on that shelf pay a premium to be at eye level or on an endcap. I get excited about this and could give you countless examples about why you don’t see yellow walls, and how most bank commercials have a man with a beard, blue tie, belt and watch but I’ll spare you the psychology today and get to my point. A grocery store is this intentional and well crafted it’s for a reason. These details make a difference in consumer behavior. The layout, color, ambiance matter to their bottom line. I have a great interview coming up on how education is an atmosphere that will touch more on the ambiance of our homes but today I want you to consider the planning that goes into these details. Their prerogative is to make more money by making the customer happy, loyal and meeting their needs. By paying attention to the details they increase the efficiency with which they do this.
Understanding what drives you and the details that matter to you can increase your efficiency in reaching your prerogative.
Vision boards are not new. Most of us grew up making collages from magazines or enjoy countless Pinterest boards today. In the book “Gifted: Raising Children Intentionally” by Christian author Chris Davis one of the most powerful tools he has in seeing the heart of a child is having them create a vision board of what is the most exciting and interesting things to them than looking for themes. Doing this would make for a great family night to discover your children’s passions or even your own. Another way to accomplish this for the less visual learner is with a vision statement.
A Vision statement helps you more clearly identify what you are working for and what is most important to you. It elevates your thinking and gives you something aspirational to reach for. It is in our nature to strive. We like a challenge and need to believe we can become more than what we are. When people lack vision, they become discontent, anxious, bored, depressed or dulled to the melee of daily habits. They miss years of development, adventures, and living by going to work then coming home to watch TV. In Alice and Wonderland Alice asks the Cheshire cat “Which road do I take?” the cat answers “Well, where do you want to go?”. “I don’t know,” says Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which road you take.” Answers the cat. Vision is knowing where you want to go.
So today we are going to create a vision statement, if you would like to follow along you can do so with a notebook or sign up for my email list at hatchingcuriosity.com for the worksheets on creating a Family mission that I’ll mail out as a free printable Dec. 31st. (If you are listening to this episode later I’ll have the worksheets available on the show notes starting in February) Feel free to pause or come back to the podcast so you can make notes.
To create a Vision statement for your family the first thing you’ll do is brain dump everything you wish your life with them was. If you could live anywhere doing anything, what would that look like? Don’t hold back based on what you can afford now, or where you currently live just put everything out there. Include even small details if they matter to you or keep it broad.
Then if you need further inspiration to consider what is the first thing you would do in the morning? How would you do meals, exercise, school, housework? Walk yourself through an ideal day.
After you have a clear vision on the day today, take it wider. What kinds of projects would do you work on? Is there a problem you’d try to solve together? A people you would like to serve? A cause you are willing to stand for?
Or travel down the road a little further. What will your kids be like when they are grown? Another idea is to think of what you’d want someone to say in your eulogy. You know, the kind of legacy you’d want to leave.
What’s the one desire you are afraid to even say out loud. The one that is too big or too bold for others to even know you have.
Yes, this can be heavy stuff, but it is also beautiful. You can do this for yourself or for your family. If you are doing it for your family, I would encourage you to do it with your husband and even your kids if they are older. It will give you an insight into what is in their hearts and bind you together as you do the next step and find common ground. I personally love to daydream with my husband and creating these statements together helps us to get to the heart of what we want for our family and helps us define what we expect from each other.
From the beginning, we both wanted to live in a small community with room for the kids to roam, a slower-paced life for us to work on our projects, and a beautiful clean airy farmhouse on 40 acres. As we worked towards this vision (and this was only part of it) life did its thing and threw us for a tumble. After buying the land and years of work leading up to our build, we no longer are building our dream house, but we are CHOOSING this so that the rest of our vision can come true. We realized in a conversation much like the one I am asking you to have that experiences are more important to us than the Instagram worthy farmhouse. So, we chose to change directions and opt for a smaller more humble home so that we can travel, own horses, and enjoy our children while they are young. In my shoes, you may have chosen the home because of the way your home makes you feel, and that is where our values come into play. There is nothing wrong with valuing a beautiful well-made home you want to spend the majority of your time in, there is nothing wrong with valuing building a family business for your grandchildren to be proud of, or for living in an RV and spending all your time on the road seeing new places. Every one of these choices has a trade-off though. By creating a vision statement, you see what you want and then clarify it to what you want most. I want a huge gorgeous house. I want to have financial freedom and rich life experiences more. It’s the clarity of vision that made us change course.
And that’s the beauty of it. Your vision can evolve over time. The important thing is that you have one because if you don’t you are aimless and when you are aimless your life is subject to the tide, which will take you down the path of least resistance, leading you further from the life of your dreams.
Vision is different than dreaming though. It is consciously crafting your life instead of sitting back in fantasy hoping or imagining things to be different. We need to keep the vision fresh in our minds so that we retain hope and excitement about our future and are compelled to push through even when we lack the virtues of our value statement or the will to carry out our mission. How we make our vision or reality will be covered in the next episodes of this series, but this is a critical step. Even though I don’t get my dream house, knowing that I want a clean airy farmhouse influenced the windows I chose for my new home and will affect the décor I chose. I may not get exactly what I envisioned but my home will more likely have the feeling that I want because I stopped to consider what elements create that feel. It’s a silly example but the same thing applies to elements of our life. If we want a culture of work, then we need to spend a good deal of our day working. We probably need to wake up early, own work clothes, have systems in place to process the type of work we want to be engaged in. So don’t be afraid to be specific.
Once you’ve done your brain dump (by yourself or with your family) You’ll look for common themes. First look through yours, what idea keeps coming up? Does a lot of your vision revolve around academics, living sustainably, travel, having success in business, are the faith-based or center around shared hobbies? Then look at yours and your husband’s together. Find themes that they have in common with each other and try to come up with the main goal that fits what you both have in mind. Rewrite and refine this goal until you have a statement that is somewhat aspirational and inspiring to your family. (You may come back to it after writing the statement of values or mission statement as your vision becomes more focused.)
A few examples are:
“We live for the earth as it lives for us. Living sustainably and connected to the beauty of nature we will defend all living things in word and deed.” You can see that this family cares a great deal about the earth and their impact on it. They may be vegetarians, have a compost pile and an electric car. They love nature and probably spend a lot of time outdoors.
“We experience life to the fullest. Always seeking opportunities to try new things, meet new people, and open our hearts, hands, and minds to bless those we meet along the way.” This family likes to travel and has an optimistic nature and is probably very open-minded and have incredible adventures together.
What kind of family would say “Together we build a stronger community through service, sacrifice, work, and faith”? Perhaps a community-minded family in a small town with strong religious convictions?
Our current vision statement is “We see and share the beauty of the world around us, defend freedom, and work with compassion to serve others until the job is done.” Everything else that we do stems out from seeing the beauty in the world around us, building bridges of understanding, and working hard. This vision isn’t contingent on the farm or garden, but the farm and garden can certainly help us raise men who work hard and see the beauty in small things. The vision statement captures what is at the heart of what makes your “ideal life” ideal. This way as you ride the roller coaster of life and still work towards what matters most to your family. For us, the most important thing is that our boys grow to be good men and we define good men as loving, hardworking, open-minded, brave and wise so our vision statement reflects that, not necessarily dictating all the beautiful details along the way. (Though we certainly dream and work for those too.)
Creating a vision is also key to the theory of visualization. You know the one where if you picture a $100 every day and then money comes into your life. It sounds silly but there is actually science behind this. If you can visualize yourself in your ideal life you are a lot more likely to get there because your brain will create pathways as the vision becomes clearer and is repeated. It will trick itself into a sense of ownership that will make it look for ways to actualize this vision. This is why one of my favorite podcasters Rachel Hollis keeps a journal of her hopes and dreams where she writes them as if they have already happened. She is visualizing what she wants and keeping that vision fresh in her mind as she reminds herself of it daily.
As you create your mission statement keep it in a place you can refer back to often. Tweak and change it as your family grows and your children discover their passions and desires. As a family we are designed to support one another and helping our children live out their purpose is one of the greatest pleasures of being a parent. We each have our own hearts desires but as you create a shared vision and have multiple people focused towards the same goal, you’ll draw closer together by understanding each other.
In this episode, we discovered what you want and in the next episode, we will help you clarify who you are as a family.
Until then, stay curious, and share your favorite part of your ideal life on Instagram @hatchingcuriosity.