Our Family Mission Statement - Take Two

I've gotten rid of The 52 Week Challenge in the title of my posts, just to avoid becoming to repetitive, but I'm still at it!  And yes, I managed to complete week 3's Mission Statement Challenge!

Oh boy, this one left me scratching my head.  I read it, and then I stared at the screen, and stared, and stared, and stared, hoping something would pop out at me but it didn't.  I felt completely overwhelmed.  So then I scrolled down to the links at the bottom and found a way to cheat myself through it - a website where you just plug in your answers and it gives you your mission statement.  Brilliant.  Clicked on that, logged in, got to the first two questions and stared at the screen....and stared, and stared some more.  Hmpf.  Ok, well I needed help obviously, and given that this was supposed to be a challenge that we should discuss with our partners and/or family, I decided to wait until Tyler got home and make him do it with me.

When he got home I asked if, after the kids were in bed, would he mind sitting down with me and talking about this mission statement challenge I was doing.  Sure, no problem.  Then he started spitting something out randomly, very mission statement like.  It started with something to do with sustainable growth...yadda yadda.  And that's when I remembered, duh!  My wonderful husband has owned his own business as well as working for several others and was very familiar with what a mission statement should sound like, something that I was really struggling with.  So right away I felt relief already, knowing that we could do this together.

Seeing as how we both have backgrounds in horticulture and landscaping, the word 'sustainable' really resonated with me, and I knew right then and there I wanted to somehow incorporate it.

Much to my surprise and delight, Tyler actually thought about our family mission statement while he was cleaning up from dinner.  As I was giving the boys a bath, I heard him yell up the stairs "Hey, I know what our family motto can be!"  Ok, I have the world's worse memory and I can't remember what he said, but his first stab at it was a complete joke.  Really, he was joking.  But he was still thinking about it, and next thing I knew he came back up with something written down:  "Live life to the fullest through good health, happiness, balance, and love".  Hmmmm, he was totally on the right track.  And it included balance and health, two of my core values from the previous challenge which I had not discussed with him, so it's not like he already knew they were important to me.  Good, this meant we were on the same page.  But I wanted to include more, so much more.

As he walked back downstairs I knew right then - I was going to throw the rule book out the window so to speak.  All this time I was going about creating a mission statement wrong.  I was focusing on a generic thought process to work through it, and not thinking outside the box.  So I decided, that was it.  No guidelines, or templates, or examples, or fancy websites that asked questions and created the statement for you.  It had to come from the our hearts, and it didn't need to be a certain way, it could be whatever we wanted it to be.

All while I was getting the kids ready for bed, and while I was hanging the laundry, my head was spinning.  I needed to write things down. 

Sustainability...family...balance...health...relationships..........

I got it!

Working towards a sustainable future for our family through:

FACING challenges

BUILDING relationships

ENCOURAGING growth

EMBRACING differences

NURTURING health

all while striving to

FIND balance

and

GROW in love

And further what I was thinking was the impact of what I wanted to say wasn't just in the words, but on the emphasis and placement of certain words.  So that brought about another idea for how to solidify and display our mission statement.  It's probably hard to explain the image in my head, but I would like to create a tree, with the first line at the top and all the components of our family motto as the branches.  I can see it crystal clear in my mind, I hope we can create the image I am going for.  My husband is an artist of sorts, I know he can design our tree of personal growth and make it beautiful.

So there, feeling quite proud of myself at completing another challenge, especially since I found this one the most difficult one so far and wasn't sure if I had it in me to follow through.  And man, I'm so happy that I did!  This challenge really got me thinking, and it's made me really excited about our future now that it seems to have more direction.

The 52 Week Challenge - What Exactly Are My Values?

Here is my second post relating to Home Life Simplified's 52 Week Challenge, focusing on values.  A few days ago I read the challenge and my resolve already fizzled up.  Not because it didn't interest me, but because I thought "Ugh, when am I really going to feel like sitting down and actually thinking about this?"  See, thinking is not my strong point, but procrastination on the other hand is.  So I was ready to throw in the towel on week two.

Part of me likes the challenge of having to think about something.  Once again it's very much like a school assignment.  But the other part of me thinks, "Ok, school is over and I'm happy to keep it that way".  Unfortunately for me I think the years of being out of school (or even being out of the professional work force for that matter) have turned my brain to mush.  That is one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place, and a reason why I figured I should keep up with the challenge, at least for another week.  Though, once again I make no promises for next week's challenge!

Reading about values and how to define them felt very overwhelming for me, and very complicated.  But I started to realize that I am a simple person by nature, and after putting some thought into it, it was actually fairly easy to narrow down my list.  Once I was able to do that, the task of defining my values didn't seem so scary.

So here they are:

1) Balance

I am a Libra, and I have always felt a strong connection to this.  I like things to be in balance.  I like to feel balanced.  Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the negative aspects of life, I look to the positive ones and see that there are always just as many, if not more.  It's always nice to tip the scales in favour of positivity, but at least I never feel like they are every tipped towards the negative side.  I don't believe in extremes and you will never find me at one end of the spectrum or the other, rather I like to stay somewhere in the middle.  I feel like this value defines everything about me, from my personality to my background to how I try to live my life.

2) Family

I find family to be a tricky one because it can be so vague.  When I use family as one of my values, I am talking about the very special little circle that my husband and I have started together.  I love my husband and my children more than anything and they are the reason I do everything.

3) Health

I have always had excellent health and it is something I have taken for granted.  As I have gotten older I have learned to value my health and the health of those I love, to cherish it, and to take care of it.  It is an ever evolving process, to be 'healthy' in every sense of the world, but I feel like I have a really good handle on it these days and it is something that keeps me motivated and moving in the right direction.  I would like to see my health stay excellent for many years to come.

4) Authenticity

One of the things my husband has always said he loves about me is how honest of a person I am with who I am.  I wear my feelings out in the open.  I always figured I would make a terrible actor because I couldn't be anything other than who I am.  When I start to fret over what other people do or think, I just bring my thoughts back to myself and try to be true to the person I am.  It's very important to me that I be 'me' and not someone else, I think that is part of what grounds me and keeps my head from getting off into the clouds.

5) Reliable

This sounds like a strange value when you look a lot of the other ones on the list, but I have to admit reliability is always something I have felt is very important, and I do consider myself a reliable person.  It's not a 'deep' thing, the need to want or be reliable all the time, but I do hold a lot of value in it.  To me it is important to be where you are going to be when you say you are going to be.  If you can't commit to something, don't say you will.  I hate being let down, and I hate having to wait for people who are disrespectfully late.  Obviously there are always valid reasons in many situations, but in general it really bothers me when someone says they will do something or plans something with me and then doesn't follow through, or if they are late 'just because'.  It makes me feel like I am not an important person, so I am always careful not to do the same to others.

There you have it, my 5 top values in a nutshell.  I feel kind of silly when I see some of the other ones on the list, but then I wouldn't be true to myself if I were wishing I had different values.  I am who I am.

Oh, and I love Deb's last line on her post  about her own values: 

Your values are your values – this is the time to be true to who you are. If not now when?, only for the simple fact that "If Not Now, When?" is the title of the latest album from Incubus, my favourite band.  Of course this is not related in any way to my values, but it did stand out to me and just that little connection made me smile.

The 52 Week Challenge: 2011 - A Positive Outlook

I don't know what I am thinking starting a blog post like this in the evening when my brain has essentially 'turned off' for the day.  I can already feel my eyelids getting heavy and I just want to sit here and be a lump until I call it a night in the next hour or so. 

But.....

I just so happened to check out Deb's Home Life Simplified site and came across the  52 Weeks to Simplify Your Life Challenge and upon reading the first challenge felt compelled to partake.  I love Deb's site and think it is brilliant, though I must admit I am not one to jump in with gusto when it comes to these life/self-improvement gigs (mostly because I am lazy!).  This one really called to me.  Right now I cannot promise I will follow through with the whole 52 weeks, but I am definitely intrigued!  And well, this first challenge I think would be a good practice for anyone.

So here it is, a post to look at the bright side of 2011.

Now, I confess that I already feel pretty good about this past year.  I know that in a recent post I gave a run down of what the year held in store for us, and there were a lot of not so nice things.  But I felt like I did a lot of soul searching this year, and I learned a lot about myself in the process.

Anyone who has read my blog up until now might already know that a lot has changed for us in the past two years.  In 2010 we had a new baby, and moved our little family 2hrs away from the only area I had ever known my whole life, where all my friends and family were.  My husband started a new job, and we started a new life.  And it was rough.  I really struggled to find my place.  I spent that whole first year here in a constant state of regret for having moved here.  While I have never actually suffered from post partum depression, all these changes so soon after having a new baby left me feeling lower than I ever had in my life.  My relationship with my husband really suffered, and I felt so alone in the world.  I really struggled with myself as a mother, trying to parent my toddler while also taking care of a baby that never seemed to sleep and left me in a state of complete sleep deprivation 24/7.  No friends to talk to, no time for myself.  In addition to all this, the entire move took a toll on our already hurting bank account as well, which made our situation all that much more stressful.

I know this sounds like a lot of terribly negative stuff for a post that is supposed to be positive, but bear with me here because I am getting to the point.  Afterall, dawn comes after even the darkest nights, and I consider the second half of 2010 and first bit of 2011 to have been possibly the darkest night of my life and it seemed like the sun would never rise.

After what seemed like a cruel and endless winter, spring arrived and with it the hope for a new chance to be happy in our new life, and not a moment too soon.  Simply being able to get out more once the weather was nicer was a huge step in the right direction.  In the spring we got a membership to the local Y, where I finally found some time for me.  I managed to put aside the martyr syndrome that meant I needed to be with my children every minute, and take time for myself to exercise.

As spring emerged so did everyone in hibernation.  Finally I was starting to see the same familiar faces at the playgroups that I had been going to for weeks.  Next thing I knew friendships were blossoming, and I was starting to connect with other moms in my neighbourhood.  That was another huge step for me, a breath of fresh air.  Meeting these women and starting to socialize was one of the highs of my year.  Since becoming a mother in 2008 I longed for other mom friends, and had yet to make any really good ones.  I was starting to think I would never meet anyone I could relate to.  I can't tell you how good I felt when I saw these friendships with these special women starting to take place.

Over the course of the summer I really saw my life turn around.  In fact, I have already blogged about it here:  360.  The change in how I felt about our life, about myself, about everything this past summer was one of the biggest changes of my life.  I really saw our life start to take shape, to take meaning.  For years we seemed so transient, never knowing where things were taking us, and finally it seemed like we were becoming grounded and focusing on what we wanted.

The end of the summer saw my husbands parents buying a property, moving here, and starting a business.  My husband quit his job, a job that he didn't enjoy, to work with them in starting their business.  From the moment he starting doing this I saw a change in him, I saw how he was now doing what he was meant to do in life.  It's amazing how different people are when they are doing what they love best.  I have loved watching him take so much joy and pride in what he does.  This family adventure of starting a hops farm has been an exhilarating and exciting event for us, one that leaves us in anxious anticipation of what the future holds.

Fall brought with it the exciting news that we would be adding a new baby to the family, something that I had been hoping for for a long time.  Even despite having a rocky first year with our second son, I always knew in a heartbeat I would do it all again and had hoped that we would be able to grow our family further.  To say that we are excited about this new addition is an understatement, we are ecstatic.

There are no words really to describe what 2011 meant to me.  It has been a year of change, of maturity for us as individuals, and as a family.  It has been the year where we have discovered who we are, what we want, and where we are going.  We have learned so much about ourselves and what we want out of life, and we are feeling so good about things going into 2012.

So in a list, the positives of 2011:

• I have taken control of my health and have started eating better and exercising
• I have made wonderful new friends and no longer feel like a loner
• We have finally sorted out our finances and taken measures to save and get back on track
• We have grown stronger as a couple, and as a family
• My older son started school and is thriving
• My younger son started sleeping like a champ and has become an amazing little toddler
• My in-laws have moved here and we have family nearby to support us
• We have joined forces with them to embark on the exciting challenge of starting a new business
• We found out we are pregnant!
• We feel like we have found our place, our home, and have begun to put down roots
• Oh, and I turned 30!  Which I have come to look upon as a very positive thing!

I don't feel like this post has done Deb's challenge justice, as I am just not good at articulating how I feel (though it is apparent that I am good at rambling on and on!).  Deb asked, and my answers are:

What energised you?  Exercise, feeling good about life, the new family business venture

What made you feel happy?  Making new friends, watching my children grow, seeing my husband happy at work

What made you feel at peace?  The feeling that we are finally on the right track

What positive people lifted you up?  My wonderful husband, my children, my new friends, my in-laws

What filled your "tank"?  Finally finding time to take care of myself

What worked to bring your family together?  Making a conscious effort to spend more quality time together

What is something that made you feel excited to dive right in?  Everything about this year!

What did you learn (positive things)?  I learned that I can be the person that I want to be if I think positively

What are you grateful for?  My husband, my children, my family, my health

I feel like a student and this was my homework assignment.  It has been a long time since I have been in school, and I think we tend to forget how good it is for us to challenge ourselves with assignments.  It's easy to think "I'm done with that part of life, I never want to go back to school!", but these kinds of challenges are what keep us sharp, and keep us learning new things.

Thanks Deb!