Family Mission Statement

I was at a friends house the other day and saw a little plaque on her kitchen wall. She saw me admiring it and told me it was a quote that her Mum used to say all the time as she was growing up, that became the family motto. The one thing I remember my Mum saying when I was younger was in response to the question what's for dinner and the answer isn't a suitable quote to put up on any wall... although maybe I'll have a plaque made up as a Christmas gift for her!

There is of course a plaque that my Mum has in her home now;

Be Nice or Go Home sign

And whilst it isn't really a family motto it sure is how my Mum rules her home! Luckily none of us have ever been thrown out.

It got me thinking though. I have a personal motto, a mission statement as such and Daddy and I have spoken several times about our thoughts on a Family Mission Statement, you know what we as a family value as a family, what our goals are, what our dreams and inspirations for the future are. Have you ever thought about a family mission statement or thought about getting one written down? Well, I have thought about it many times in the past, I just never had anything written down.

So, I thought it was about time that we got it written down and of course we wanted the whole family to be involved so I separately asked them all the same questions and wrote down their answers. Afterwards I read through the answers and looked for themes and understood more about what everyone expected and hoped our family to be like.

It was a really enlightening experience and after I'd got over how fabulous my family are with thanks to some of the answers they gave, I knocked up the first rough draft of my family mission statement. It still needs a little polishing and I haven't got a motto for our family that I can put up on the wall, but I do think that as a family we are much more likely now to understand what is expected of us by the other family members, what we expect of ourselves and just what it is that we should do to make ourselves the best that we can be.

Oooh maybe that should be our motto...

Being the best that we can be.

I think I'll think about that for a little while longer.