Writing our family mission statement
When we first got married, we found that Allah had blessed us with a shared sense of principles, a love of laughter and an irresistible chemistry. 12 years and 4 children later we have experienced the good times and the not so good times, death of loved ones and birth of fresh hope, but have emerged with a greater admiration for one another's qualities, with a deeper love and a greater ability to overlook each other's idiosyncrasies and just say sorry. Most importantly we realised that our family unit was so important to us that we had the strong desire to explore and articulate what kind of a family we wanted to be by writing our family mission statement.
First of all we discussed why we felt we needed to write it down – we didn't want a family without direction, we didn't want to have major regrets as parents on hindsight and saw the benefit of a mission statement as a binding code that our family could come back to if we ever careened off course. We also wanted to leave a legacy behind that we had worked towards. So we spent ½ an hour every other night for a month reading a book about visioning together. My husband had been on a visioning and leadership course earlier in the year and he went through the notes with me bit by bit every night. I remember feeling really excited after each session as we slowly and carefully looked to the future together – the architects of the beautiful family we wanted.
As we wrote our family mission statement little by little we had to be willing to take apart what brought out the best in our family, which principles we wanted to live by and what kind of a family culture we would like to create. We also had to look our own personal shortcomings squarely in the face and say: I'm going to change that– my family is worth it. We thought of the most descriptive words we could to express the characteristics we would strive to embody as parents, spouses and family and community members including what we would regularly do to renew ourselves.
The mission statement ended with a short description of our vision for each member of our family in 10 years time – where do we hope to be then? Even if we are destined to leave this earth before then, we hope our intentions will please Allah and be a source of reward for us.
What occurred to me as we shared personal visions for ourselves was that, though we were different in our approaches, we essentially wanted the same things and I was moved by how important it was to my husband to help me achieve what I wanted in life. He didn't feel the need to assert his male authority by putting his ambitions first, but he genuinely saw my happiness as an integral part of his. All in all a bonding experience that I'd recommend to every couple who knows their family is definitely worth it!
Use this mission statement builder:
http://www.franklincovey.com/msb/
6 comments:
Mash'Allah sister; what a great idea, and how lovely to have that real experience of working together to build something for the future. My husband and I come from different cultures and inevitably we have found that our expectations or assumptions about raising children have differed..how helpful would something like this have been.
Also I think that formalising things in this way underlines the fact that parenting is a shared endeavour, not just 'women's business', or something to be undertaken in a haphazard way, but the most important undertaking in the life of a couple...
Jazakillahu Khairan. You are absolutely right. I think sometimes it takes a wake up call to fathers/husbands before they take this sort of thing seriously but when they realise the potential it has for benefitting them - giving some time and thought to it now could potentislly save the heartache later.
Also, how many husbands and wives grow apart over the years? As their lives take different directions and they become more and more self-absorbed? This could be a way to bind our families together so that we do not drift apart, but are very much part of each others lives and interests - part of a team. If the team wins, you win. If the team loses - you lose.
masha`allah sis i really enjoyed that ... very well put together ... jazak`allah khair
As salamualaymum. jazakAllaahukhairn, very beneficial an excellent timming!
wasalam
Mashallah Luv this idea, I will do it too with my husband. Jazakallah khrain
Barak'Allahu fik Fatima. This is amazing; it never occurred to me to have mission statements for the family, but what better environment to have it for! Something I'll definitely keep noted insha'Allah x
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