31 Days Project // Day 2 // Family Mission Statement

Welcome to 31 Days to an Organized Life & Business! For the month of October I will be a participant in The Nester’s 31 days Writing Challenge. Taking some of my own advice and taking you along on my journey to a life reset. I’ll be sharing (and practicing) some tips on everything from bookkeeping, shopping, managing kids, intentional parenting, work from home mom syndrome, work/life balance, spiritual reset and more. Not because I am the expert in these fields, but because they have worked for me in the past, and I so badly need them to work again for me now.

When I say I need this reset I’m not even kidding. When I say I’ll be writing about it, I don’t mean, I’m going to talk about past advice or something that worked once for me 3 years ago. I mean I’m going to hit publish on this blog post, and then go and do what I am writing about today.  That is all I can commit to for today. Which means, if you can relate to any of this, I invite you along on this 31 day journey. Watch me triumph or fail, but I’ll be here daily to give you updates. I’d love if you joined me, and keep me posted on your progress as well. There’s hope and support in community here. 

If you missed Day 1, or would like to catch up on any other day, click the link on the right hand side or right here.

Be sure to also follow along on Instagram as I post updates throughout the day. #31daystoreset @Angelsea Urban

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Thanks for visiting!

 

WELCOME TO DAY 2: Making a Family Mission Statement 

But first, an update on yesterday…

Friends, I’m not gonna lie. Today was hard. I came home from the 5th grade class trip with my sweet girl and I was tiiiiiiired. I hit publish at 7 am and then I was out the door and on a bus and walking around Philadelphia the rest of the day. On the bus ride home I contemplated… “hmmm… I wonder if anyone would notice if I just didn’t follow through on Day 1.” And just as quickly as the thoughts came on, I knew that even if no one was watching, **I** still had to do this for ME even if it was inconvienient. Organized by grace, yes, and if I need to I can always throw in the towel, but I don’t want to. Like I said, I need this reset. Even if it hurts.

 

So we got home at 4:25 and I power cleaned with the last bit of energy I had. And if you saw the before picture from yesterday’s post you would totally be hearing the angels singing praises of hallelujah right now. Maybe that was just the Domino’s guy bringing us pizza, because HEY…. I JUST walked in the door, and in about an hour we would be off to AWANA for the kids and our Life Group at church for Steve & I, and won’t be home until 8:30 pm. So… yeah…pizza. (With bacon, because that totally makes it protein… and way awesome.)

But while I waited for pizza, I reset my workspace. And I am thrilled about it. Now I can be at peace with my eyes, so my brain can get to work.

So… Writing a Family Mission Statement

We have one that we wrote sometime last year. It was a good one. The whole family took a long time crafting every word and adjective to make it our mantra for life. We even wrote it on the wall so we can all see it every time we leave. We had the kids memorize it before we could go to Disney. Ya know, so that they could “appreciate” the whole thing properly. lol It worked for a long time, but ya know what happened?

They killed it.

Actually WE killed it. By making them learn it upside down and backwards, it no longer had meaning to them. You could stop them both in the street and they could recite it to you. But they have we all have, forgotten the true meaning behind it, and so we are going back to square one to revise it, or at least, revisit the words and take them to heart once again. We were recently trying to make some big decisions for our family, and the mission statement should be a tool to help filter those decisions. If it’s stale and unhelpful, it’s time to revisit it.

This is the format I used the first time (that I found on google when searching “How to write a family mission statement”), and we will use it again today:

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So, does your family have a mission statement?

If not, I have included some questions to help you create your own family mission statement. At the end of the process, you will be able to combine the answers to these questions to create a concise statement for what you (And more importantly, God) want your family to be. Note: if your kids are old enough, I would encourage you to include them in this process so that they have ownership over your mission statement.

Step One: Mission Questions.

What is the primary goal for your family?

What family practices do you think would please God?

What family attitudes do you think would please God?

What are some things in your family that might displease God?

What are some of the core values you have?

What goals do we have for our children? For our family?

What would we like people to say about our family in 30 years?

Name some adjectives we would like to be able to use to describe our home environment.

Step Two: Summarize.

To write a mission statement, you simply need to take the answers to the above questions, and place them in a simple statement. You want this statement to be something you can remember. If it is too long, you will never refer to it. If it is unclear, it will be useless. It must be both concise and clearly practical. Here is an example of a mission statement:

To raise kids who love Jesus by practicing the gospel in loving service to one another, seeking to remove unloving language and actions, honoring and respecting one another as Christ has done in our lives.

The main goal: to raise kids who love Jesus.

The practices: serving one another

The attitudes: Love

The unwanted practices: unloving language and actions

The adjectives: honor and respect

Step Three: Display and Remind

Now that you have a mission statement, you can use this to help encourage growth in you and your kids. First, share it with your children. Have them agree to what you have written; perhaps even have them sign a sheet of paper with this statement on it. Second, write this statement on a piece of paper and put it somewhere where you and your family will see it consistently. Third, when someone does something out of line with the mission statement you can refer back to it at any time.

And one more thing: share it with us! We would love to hear how God is leading your family!

 

 

Maybe you can discuss this with your family during dinner and at least come up with an outline. Or maybe you merely discuss the idea. Or maybe you can just explain what a family mission statement is. You are planting the seed that will cultivate a deep root for this later. And that’s plenty to do for today.

 

Thanks for visiting today! AND… Happy Birthday to my sweet husband today!!! God bless this man who has been married to me for almost 17 years! If no one else reads this, I know he will, because he is crazy supportive in that way. He’s would be the 1 “like” at the bottom of this page if it were a slow blogging day. For that, and eleventy billion other reasons, I love him to pieces and he has my heart forever. Happy Birthday babe! XOXO

 

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Be sure to check the blog every day during the Month of October for new content. Or sign up for the VIP Newsletter for important updates.

East Coast Fine Art Lifestyle Family Portrait Photographer Angelsea Urban

Angelsea Urban is a photographer and entrepreneur helping women use their creative gifts to nourish their homes and cultivate their businesses through practical stewardship. Her unique photography work focuses on Redefining the Family Portrait Experience by telling the story of  family through personalized foundations while creating a space to strengthen family bonds throughout the experience. As a certified tax professional and seasoned business consultant, Angelsea has helped the careers of photographers, restaurateurs, musicians and general small business owners through teaching, workshops, coaching, and hands on consulting. Her ministry work focuses on fostering creative gifts in women entrepreneurs to prioritize family and discipleship. She has photographed for families, brides, Bravo TV, NFL Films, and more and has been featured on multiple blogs and magazine print for her work in photography and in business. Angelsea teaches and photographs throughout the United States, and resides with her husband of 17 years, their two children, and their barely 3 pound Yorkie near Long Beach Island, New Jersey.  

To book your session with Angelsea Urban, please visit www.angelseaurban.com

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