This is going to sound negative but it’s not meant to. You can’t do it all. You can’t and I can’t either. We can’t be everything to all people, all the time. We each have a finite amount of time, energy, resources, and ability. While it seems like a great goal to try and do everything, it’s not practical. You can’t do everything and do it well. No one who has ever lived has been able to do everything so it’s okay to let yourself off the hook. You don’t have to be the first.
Take a few minutes each day this week and try to determine what’s important (notice I didn’t say urgent) in your life. I know that I stay busy every day and far too often I’m left at the end of the day and I look back and can’t see that I’ve done much. We spend so much energy on the urgent little things like phone calls and emails that we push those things that are really important to us to the back burner without even realizing it.
I want to challenge you to create a purpose statement for you and your family. This should be a simple statement or two about the purpose of your family. What do you want your family to be purposeful in doing?
Here are a few questions to help spur your thinking:
If we had a free day together how would we enjoy spending it together?
What is the purpose of our home?
What are the priorities that we value as a family?
How is our family unique?
In ten years I want our family to be…
There is no right or wrong way to write your statement. Just keep it simple, fairly general, and timeless. Let your purpose statement reflect who you are as a family. A family’s purpose statement can help you when you’re second guessing your decisions.
If you’d like to share your family’s purpose statement with me I’d love to hear it! I would share mine but I don’t want to sway anyone’s creativity in one direction.
Love this! I wrote about writing a family mission statement a couple years ago. You can find it here http://www.townsend-house.com/2012/02/organized-simplicity-part-2-mission.html It definitely helps to know the direction you want your family to go in. I also have recently learned that saying no to people (even family!) is totally OK. Making sure that your family is happy and taken care of is always the first priority 🙂
I’ve never thought about creating a ‘family purpose statement’ but that’s a great idea! I’ll have to work on that!
That sounds like a meaningful experience to share with your family. I think it changes over time slightly, but the foundation remains constant.
Very good idea. Thank you for sharing.
Love that you did this. We keep talking about creating a Family Mission Statement as well.
What a nice, positive idea!
Interesting idea. Don’t know what ours would be.
What a great idea! I’d love to talk to family about this and have a real conversation about it.
Oh man – some heavy thinking.
This isame great idea. Not sure why we don’t currently have one though.
thats gonna be something I think about . i think that might help as we have decisions to make that effect all of us
What a great idea. I’d have to think about what our families would be.
AAww… now this is such a nice idea! Thanks for sharing it!
It’s just my daughter & I, so it isn’t really necessary. I can see it definitely being essential in a two parent home, especially with more than one child.
You’re so incredibly right, you can’t do it all. I can’t do it all. No one can do it all. We can only pick and choose what’s important and do that the rest will fall into place if there is room.
Interesting idea. Not sure what ours would be, but maybe we should do one.
I will have to think about this and get back to you. Love to hear yours. It won’t sway mine…
I agree with you wholeheartedly! No matter how hard we try to do it all, we’ll have always fall short, setting ourselves for disappointment.
What a great idea! I’m way guilty of trying to do everything.
I love the idea of this. I can see how having that family purpose statement would really help when doubt starts creeping in.
Great idea! We have a family contract to which every member contributed but it’s more about how we behave towards one another, then atmosphere we want in our home. etc… this would be a great compliment to that. Thanks for sharing.