Tag: goals

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Blue Print

blueprint finale

Hooray! Congratulations! Well Done!  

Here at Homes of Victory we are genuinely so excited for you and your family. We hope you feel more equipped, have grown closer together as a family and most of all had fun.

You should be so proud of yourselves that you worked through creating a family values statement, learnt more about yourselves and each other, set goals  and created a family action plan. We would love to hear how it works for you and your family so drop us a line, you never know who else you will encourage to create a family blueprint.

Once again – whooo hoooo! You are amazing!

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Victory

What are you fighting for?

Do you want to learn how to fight for your marriage rather than just fight in it? Start attacking the problems that arise rather than attacking each other.

Lisa Bevere

Sometimes we get hung up on the who and what and forget about the why. We can admit, that we have been caught in the cycle of ‘ attacking’ each other rather than the problems in our marriage. We have been there… but once we made a decision to lay it all out on the table, look at the issue not the person, the real issues were laid bare and the work of problem solving began.

Only then, were we able to start attacking the problems and issues in our marriage rather than each other. The thing is, it took a conscious effort to change how we both thought, it took time and calm to lay it all out, it took steps of peace from both of us, to start working on the real issues at hand.

Don’t let the little things, build into big things, where it seems like it’s gone beyond the point of no return. If communication is a problem – work out a better way to communicate, if busy is a problem – work out a way to adjust the busy, if finances are a problem – work together on finding a solution –get professional help, be disciplined, cheer each other on – rather than tear each other apart. If we have learnt one thing, on the journey of marriage – and boy we’ve had ups and downs – is this:

There is always a solution, you just need to find it.

Homes of Victory

You may have the “I love you but don’t like you days” – you may have the I’m trying to keep loving you days, but if you both keep taking steps towards peace and resolution – you’ll take your marriage to a whole new level of wonderful. Fight for what is worth fighting for.

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Blue Print

blueprint strategy 3

Action plan

By now, you should have five or more goals written down, that you are both or all happy about and agreed upon. How do you feel? Excited? Daunted?

For those of you who are not planners, and setting goals seems so foreign, please do not feel that this is not for you. It is, as much as it is for a planner. The action plan that you will create, can be as detailed as you like, it can be at the forefront of all family decisions or not. It can be what you want it to be for your family situation. For us, we are half- half planners. We love to have goals ticking over in the background, while we get on with it and have fun along the way. At times we get really distracted and need to remind ourselves of the goals we set and why, but day to day, we are not dictated by our goals. We know what they are and how much of them we have achieved, but we still like to have an element of flexibility and improvisation.

To put everything in perspective, a strategic plan (which we call the family blueprint) gives you a place to record your vision, purpose and values (which is your family values statement), as well as your long-term goals (the goals you’ve written) and the action plans you’ll use to reach them (what we will now do).

As overwhelming as an action plan can sound, you will get your groove on, once you get started. We found the easiest thing to do, was ask a set of questions, write down our answers and then tweak it as we go along.  We’ve added in the questions we asked to form our family action plan. For this we didn’t include our children, but if they have been involved in the process of developing goals or even your family values statement, it may be good to include them in some if not all of the action plan creation.

Activity: Answer the following questions according to each individual goal set.

  1. What: (The goal – as per family values list)
  2. When: (Time frame)
  3. Why: (motivations and how does it link to your family values statement)
  4. Actions required: Include when you plan to complete each task
  5. Measure of success: What criteria will be used, how will failure be dealt with
  6. Link to family budget: Estimated cost and savings plan

Creating an action plan will take time. Work through each goal at your own pace, work together to come up with an action plan for each one.

Once you’ve completed your action plan, take some time to let the goals and outcomes sink in.

Ask, is the plan as a whole realistic for your family?

What adjustments could I make, to ensure every goal is achieved?

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Victory

I wonder…

Here at Homes of Victory we love to share thoughts and real life with you. This was written by a career woman, who has three young children. She always questioned how to balance life and work, children and career. This is shared with permission and we hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Hey my babies one, two and three.

I wonder if you’ll ever know how much I love you. When the day dawns and the crazy begins I hope you see it’s love that motivates me. When we’re all tired but we need to keep going I know you feel the warmth in my hands when I hug you, the empathy in my voice when I encourage you and the pride that radiates from my heart.

I feel the guilt of work and yet another kind of guilt if I don’t. As I pick you all up after a long day I breathe you all in – one, two, three I miss you dreadfully yet worry I won’t find the strength to make it to bed time. I know at times I’m cranky more than I should be. I know at times I’m in auto pilot. I never wish time away but some days I only want my bed. I wonder if you’ll ever see that I draw my strength from Christ and no one else. I wonder if you see the love I have for you that drives me every moment to keep on going. I’d never quit, never thought to but some days I’ve had to dig deeper than I knew possible just to get you through the day and off to sleep peacefully.

When I hear you wake during the night it is love that draws me to your side. I sleepily step towards your room saying mumma coming it’s okay. My eyes are full of sleep but my heart is always about you my one, two, three.

If it’s a bottle, nappy or cuddle I’m right there. I wonder if you’ll remember my hugs with two hands holding you tight knowing tomorrow you’ll be that little bit bigger and that little bit older.

My babies one, two, three I wonder if you ever notice my long tight hugs. They’re more than just annoying they’re me holding you close to me. One day hugs just won’t be the same so I cherish each one. So much about you is hidden in my heart. Saved and savored. Every day you remind me to laugh and find joy in the little things.

Then, when I tuck you in tight and kiss you goodnight, you whisper with your eyes closed ,”I love you Mumma”. Then, and only then, do I realise, I have wondered in vain and I realise I have been too hard on myself. Forever I will love you one, two, three. Forever you will be my motivation, my joy, my completeness. It won’t matter how big you grow or how fast the years go by – I will always know my heart belongs to you on, two and three. I know your heart too, will always have a special place for me.

Love your Mumma Bear

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Victory

#homesofvictory

Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.

Christine Caine co-founder of A21

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Blue Print

blueprint strategy

part three of creating a family blueprint

Congratulations you’ve made it through the foundation building stages. Now for the real fun – the strategy and action plan, the part that makes the foundation essentially a reality.

The outcome for this set of activities is to creation a family mission statement with a set of outcomes, with identified measurable actions. Easy… ???

Home of Victory will step you through this, to create the final pieces of your family blueprint.

Strategy part one: Family Values Statement = Vision Statement

A mission statement is generally 1 – 2 sentences that sums up: what you do and who you do it for.

Activity: Take your final set of family values from blueprint foundations 1 – and start forming sentences around those words. This will take time to perfect, but it will happen. Let it sit for a period of time and make changes as you see fit.

When you have both finalised the family values statement, share it with your children if they are an appropriate age… ours were more than willing to ask questions and agree. Their involvement will encourage you all as a family to work towards a common goal and use this statement as a foundation for future decisions.

If you feel comfortable please share your family values statements – you never know what encouragement you can provide others.

Here is our family values statement. We started with the words, We see… As we are speaking into the future of what our family will become, as we are certainly not there yet.

We see a family that seeks to draw out the best from each other and in our community giving all the glory to God. We see a family that understands our imperfections and are willing to work through them together. We see a family that travels the world, learning and sharing with people from all over the planet. We see a family that impacts local and global communities to experience true joy, peace and health.

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Victory

#homesofvictory

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

Theodore Roosevelt
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Victory

#homesofvictory

It always seems impossible until it is done

Nelson Mandela
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Blue Print

crisis management plan

To be honest crisis management is something that we don’t often come into contact with in a formal sense. From a business perspective, there is always one ticking over in the background and pending the type of business the frequency of its activation is determined. Applying this to home life, is more than a financial contingency plan which I find most common – the suggested saving of three months wages for the just in case – for more info read The Barefoot Investor for families by Scott Pape.  A crisis management plan is not so much a plan as a process that can be divided into three sections pre – crisis, crisis response and post crisis.

By building this into your family blueprint, as a family you will be prepared to an extent for a crisis, emergency or disaster. The idea behind having this type of plan, even briefly mapped out is to reduce the fear involved and enable the navigation of it to be the focus.

To lay it all out on the table crisis, disaster and emergency are defined as: 

A crisis is a time of intense difficulty or danger.

dictionary.com

An emergency is a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.

dictionary.com

A disaster is a sudden accident or a natural catastrophe that causes great damage or loss of life.

dictionary.com

As you can see, it is a sliding scale of impact on your family and community. None are ideal, but in life these types of situations are not an ‘if’ but ‘ when’ scenario. No one is immune from unkind situations. Here at Homes of Victory we are going to give you some framework to create a crisis management plan to enable you to navigate these seasons in life and hopefully feel more equipped.

Pre-crisis plan

First up, we have the pre-crisis plan. The following series of questions will assist you in creating a list of actions regarding the contents of your family a pre-crisis plan. We have included the basics of what we believe will contribute effectively to your family blueprint. You and your family may have other aspects to add to this part of the plan. 

Red Cross have a great online plan that lists everything you need to consider in an emergency or disaster type situation for example bushfires and floods.

When it comes to other life situations such as a crisis like an injury or illness with financial impacts there are other aspects to consider.

Documentation & medication information:

The Red Cross has a great plan for these details. This is a great template to use, for listing important documents and medication information.

Insurance:

  • Do you have an up to date will?
  • Is your superannuation up to date? Do you know how much insurance you have under your superannuation?
  • Are all of your insurance policies up to date – home, car etc… ?
  • Do you have all medicare and medical insurance up to date?

Financial:

  • Do you have a savings plan in place, in case of loss of employment or unexpected expenses?
  • Do you have other investments you could rely on?
  • Do you have plans for multiple income streams?

Education:

  • What tools are you going to use in your family life, to keep the crisis in perspective?
  • Is  there any education you need to invest in? e.g. first aid training, financial management, resilience, stress management etc…
  • Are you aware of each other’s personality types?  Keeping in mind we generally revert to this personality type under stress.
  • Look for ways to be able to talk to your children about particular situations. Check out your local library for books that explain the experience.
  • Do your children know how to phone emergency services? Relay their address?

Assistance:

  • Do you have family you could call on for help when needed? Who is it, and do you need to have a conversation about it?
  • Do you have a network of friends you could call on for help with the children.

By having a pre-crisis plan available to you and your family, it enables a level of organisation to be available for when life gets tricky.

Crisis Response

I feel this is one thing that is hard to define. For business it is all about making the crisis look minimal on the outside, while on the inside the business scrambles to mitigate the impact. From a family perspective this is far harder to do. I know for us, at time we do go quiet while dealing with issues that pop up in life, we take in a sense time out to deal, and then resurface. We are quite independent and over time have learnt to share what is happening in life and to accept support from friends and family. We tend to be the support rather than the supported. With all of that said, over time, we have also learnt to put measures in place, like what was discussed in the pre-crisis plan to enable us to navigate the obstacle as best we can. In the post – beware the layers, we share how we went through a hectic season of one crisis after another which brought us to our knees. One thing that pulled us through was our determination to continue to communicate, to continue building on the foundations of our relationship we had set, and deal the best with could with the layers of stress. These experiences have shown us how tough we are and we realised we are way stronger than we have ever given ourselves credit for. It also showed us, that in the end, we could be proud of how we managed it, as we did our best and that is all we can ask of ourselves. It wasn’t a fun experience, nor was it exciting. It was hard work, day in / day out – to stay afloat while staying grounded and keeping it all in perspective.

Take some time to think about situations that your family have faced. How did you pull through?

Were you proud of the way the crisis was handled?

What changes in your behaviour or thinking could you make to reduce the impact of it on your family?

Keep some space in your notebook, for the next crisis – take note of how you handled it and what improvements you’ve made. It does sound a little gloomy, but it is something to celebrate when you can see improvements on how you and your family deal with the not so nice situations in life.

Post crisis

When things settle down, and life carries on, it is important to look in retrospect at the situation or season and take some time to let the learnings sink in. When you are ready, take some time to look at:

What are your learnings?

How will what you’ve learnt equip you for the next crisis?

Who can you share your learnings with? Who will benefit from them?

What could you do to be more prepared next time?

We do acknowledge that we can never be prepared for everything in life but the more we learn as life goes on, the better we can deal with unexpected situations together.

Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted. 

Christine Caine – co-founder of A21

This absolutely represents what I believe should happen through our experiences in life – even the dark places, we can learn and grow, and something good will come out of it. It may take time, but eventually we will see the good.  

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Victory

Always…

We are basketball fans in our house, actually when I say we – I mean my husband is, and I grew up collecting basketball cards with my brother and loving the Charlotte Hornets purely because their jersey colours matched my netball uniform… Any way, the Lakers are a favourite team in our home and as the playoffs are in full swing in America, we thought it apt to quote perhaps one of the greatest players of his generation LeBron James.

always strive for greatness

LeBron James

At Homes of Victory, we couldn’t agree with this more. It’s not always about winning, or achieving, it’s about always striving – trying – making an effort. Whether your love of basketball like my husband or like myself – remember in life it is not always about winning but the process behind it – the effort – the thought behind every decision to grow and achieve.

What greatness are you striving for in your home? In your family?

What greatness are you striving for in life?

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Victory

living the dream

In the rough and tumble of life, we found ourselves talking about what our 18 year old selves wanted to do, before the reality (ahem responsibility) of life took hold. The interesting thing was, although we had all of these dreams and goals at 18, some of which we have achieved, others that are still to come to fruition, we both agreed that if we didn’t have this, we would still want it. The ‘this’ was three kids tangled together sound asleep in our bed, toys, books, shoes, scattered over the floor, a ton of clean socks hiding behind a cushion on the couch and dirty dishes waiting to be done. We joked that even in the crazy, mess of home – we are still living the dream. The dream of having a family – although it looks far different in reality, the emotional rollercoaster, the lack of sleep, chicken nuggets, visiting of public toilets, the noise, the tears, the dramas, the fun, the laughter, the push me higher on the swing squeals, all of it – is really living the dream. When the drama reaches fever pitch or dinner time turns into a calamity, we try to smile and remind ourselves we are living the dream. By doing this, we actually change the mood – to a positive one – rather than respond to the drama with more drama.

What does ‘living the dream’ look like in your home? How close is your reality to your dream?

Is it something that you need to remind yourself of more often?

What changes could you make, to make living the dream, more of a reality?

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Victory

Tetris = next level resource allocation.

Working with resource allocation can be tricky, firstly working out the needs and wants, navigating the decision making process, communicating the final decisions and getting the team leaders on board to then be able to run with what they have.

During this season, creativity is entering into the most rigid of processes and encouraging ‘do more with less’ outcomes because of necessity. I have been pleasantly surprised by the significant changes, this season has almost forced upon workplaces and staff for that matter. Even though I have been personally impacted by reduced resourcing I am none the less impressed by the changes outworking during this season. The collaboration out of necessity, the shifting of mindsets,the ebbs and flows of decision making and project delivery methods. It is incredible to be apart of and also witness in the businesses around my city and the world.

In applying these creative methods to our home lives, it may be out of necessity due to reduced finances, or drastic changes in routine, it is interesting to note that out capacity seems to have adjusted and our mindsets have flexed also.

When allocating resources to projects and business as usual tasks I often visualise the game of Tetris. How should the resources fit to have the best outcomes. I must admit to needing some brain breaks lately to order my thoughts and have found myself playing Tetris. Somehow, while lining up the blocks, I am able to creatively work out the solution to the real life resourcing issue at hand. No longer, is it a game I played as a kid, competing to get the highest score, but now its gone to a whole new level of helping me work through resources allocation dilemmas.

What ways has this season forced you to be more creative?

Aside from the negative impacts of this season, what are some positive changes that have occurred?

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Blue Print communication

communication 3

The value of free

Ever since I can remember we’ve done this in our home, I don’t even know how it started and I hope it doesn’t end. It doesn’t happen often and it doesn’t happen always but when a Love Gift is given, it often surprises and makes the recipient feel special, it communicates encouragement and love. What is a Love Gift you ask? It can be whatever we want it to be, as long as when it is given, we say “ Love Gift”. It can be the last piece of chocolate, the first pick of the roast pork crackling, it can be I love you written on the mirror, a post it note somewhere in the house. A Love Gift can be anything and for anyone in our home– it is often free – but the value of free in this case far exceeds any other monetary value. You see, it is the thought that counts, it’s the ‘ want to give’ attitude behind it. Love Gifts actually work the best, when they’re hard to give. When we’ve had a disagreement or when the kids have been playing up, it’s at those moments Love Gifts seem to have the most value.

A friend came to me the other day telling me about her relationship and where they were at.. she was so sad it had got to this point and at the same time all four of them were sick and tired and over it. I encouraged her to give a Love Gift. Her first response was why? My response was, because he won’t expect it. The simple act of kindness when all you want to do is stay in a slump, can make a giant difference to everyone in your home. She messaged me a few days later to say that Love Gifts work! Sometimes all it takes is for someone to be the bigger person and show love in the most unexpected way to make unexpected changes to the situation.

My daughter now, even writes little notes to her friends, as a Love Gift. If she notices someone upset she will come home, write and note and give it to them the next day. She said she loves to make people smile and sometimes all it takes is for someone to notice.

Whether in our homes or out in the world, the value of free – goes along way. The thought behind the Love Gift also speaks louder than words, and communicates kindness at the deepest level – something I feel our world needs more of.

Take some time this week to give a Love Gift to someone in your home. Think about who you would cheer up or show love to, outside your home – you never know what difference you will make in someone’s life.

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Leadership

#homesofvictory

  Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.

Brian Tracy
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Victory

make it interesting

I am in the throes of honing my negotiation skills using my three year old as my muse. Call her what you will, but the term three-nager springs to mind frequently. I do feel a little bit saddened by the fact that she can outwit me, even though I’ve already had two other kids to practice on. My third child seems to be overflowing with spark, wit and laughter.

One thing I have learnt, through her behaviour is the art of making something menial seem so interesting and exciting that I can get her to do what she was just saying no to, without her even realising. Her older siblings have cottoned onto my moves, and watching them negotiate with her is pure joy. Sometimes she wins, most times they do. I’ve taught them the art of distraction, and it works in the most amazing ways. She could be trying to use the computer while they are trying to use it for homework and as soon as one of them says, look a bird, she runs outside calling out “Where?”. She then spends time searching for birds, watching them, asking them if they need to poop… she is totally distracted. We have all learnt her currency and use it to our advantage.

Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.

Paul Hawken

Likewise I have been applying the art of distraction to my family as a whole. When the grumbling over chores starts, it suddenly becomes a game and we have a family champion. When getting ready for school is a drama, we beat the buzzer and all get into the car happy and on time. By making the mundane interesting, I am able to get my team onside and working together – yes at times it is draining, and at times, I just want them to do what they are asked the first time. But – the choices we make to lead, manage and influence combine to create the family life we have.

How can you apply the art of distraction and making problems interesting to your home?


What are your key negotiation strengths?


How do you involve the children in constructive solutions?