Covey - The 7 habits of highly effective people

As we move into Habit 3, we'll go into greater depth in the area of short-term goals. The
important application at this point is to identify roles and long-term goals as they relate
to your personal mission statement. These roles and long-term goals will provide the
foundation for effective goal setting and achieving when we get to the Habit 3 day-to-day
management of life and time.
Family Mission Statements
Because Habit 2 is based on principle, it has broad application. In addition to individuals,
families, service groups, and organizations of all kinds become significantly more
effective as they Begin with the End in Mind.
Many families are managed on the basis of crises, moods, quick fixes, and instant
gratification -- not on sound principles. Symptoms surface whenever stress and pressure
mount: people become cynical, critical, or silent or they start yelling and overreacting.
Children who observe these kinds of behavior grow up thinking the only way to solve
problems is flight or fight.
The core of any family is what is changeless, what is always going to be there -- shared
vision and values. By writing a family mission statement, you give expression to its true
foundation.
This mission statement becomes its constitution, the standard, the criterion for evaluation
and decision making. It gives continuity and unity to the family as well as direction.
When individual values are harmonized with those of the family, members work
together for common purposes that are deeply felt.
Again, the process is as important as the product. The very process of writing and
refining a mission statement becomes a key way to improve the family. Working together
to create a mission statement builds the PC capacity to live it.
By getting input from every family member, drafting a statement, getting feedback,
revising it, and using wording from different family members, you get the family talking,
communicating, on things that really matter deeply. The best mission statements are the
result of family members coming together in a spirit of mutual respect, expressing their
different views, and working together to create something greater than any one
individual could do alone. Periodic review to expand perspective, shift emphasis or
direction, amend or give new meaning to time-worn phrases can keep the family united
in common values and purposes.
The mission statement becomes the framework for thinking, for governing the family.
When the problems and crises come, the constitution is there to remind family members
of the things that matter most and to provide direction for problem solving and decision
making based on correct principles.
In our home, we put our mission statement up on a wall in the family room so that we
can look at it and monitor ourselves daily. When we read the phrases about the sounds of
love in our home, order, responsible independence, cooperation, helpfulness, meeting
needs, developing talents, showing interest in each other's talents, and giving service to
others it gives us some criteria to know how we're doing in the things that matter most to
us as a family.
85