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.
As a parent I know my persuasion skills have hit a new level. I feel I am now fully qualified to get what I want, when I want… most of the time without a tantrum from the kid involved. I do think it comes down to practice and by the time I reached the third kid, they know the look in my eye, when I just need to get my own way this time for whatever reason… any one agree?
I do wonder but, what my influencing skills are like and will I ever really know my reach?
In a nutshell, there is are subtle differences between the two words:
Influence means the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.
Persuasion means the action or process of persuading someone or of being persuaded to do or believe something.
When we influence our family it may come down to our mood and how we say things – who has had a child repeat a word the same way you say it? In my home at the moment, my youngest says ‘ seriously’. I know she gets it from me, and she does a good job mimicking me. It may come down to the type of words we choose to use – encouraging or not, how we speak about other people, do we gossip?, do we uplift? The list goes on. Everything we do and say as a parent has influence.
In the workplace, I love to talk to staff about their sphere of influence. What they do and don’t have influence over – how this impacts their work and them as a person. It is really uplifting when you understand, your sphere of influence and how you can impact others for good. I’ve seen staff flourish tenfold when they get it – really get it. They may not be in positions of leadership, but they certainly lead in their sphere of influence. It’s amazing to watch whole teams transform, when individual staff realise their sphere of influence and focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t.
At times, I just love to watch my kids interact with other kids and other adults. I watch to see how the behave when they think I’m not there. The smiles and pride comes when I see them do the things I’ve taught them and come to expect of them. Like my daughter holding the door open for another family at ballet, my son collecting the cones at the end of footy training without being asked, my daughter reaching out to a sick friend in an email to see how she is, those kinds of behaviours make me feel like I’ve done something right in terms of influence.
On the flipside, I have seen behaviours in my kids, where I cringe and think, oh no…, I need to remember to behave better myself next time. Like when I get a bit cranky on the roads and call someone an idiot… or when I’ve yelled because I think no one is listening, they yell at me when they think I’m not listening. Influence works both ways, it does not differentiate between good and bad…
Influence like words, is powerful, more powerful than we give it credit for. Unlike words where we can choose to say nothing, influence never switches off. Even our silence is a type of influence. Luckily, we have a choice to make about how we influence – in a positive or negative way. No one is ever going to be perfect, but we can try little by little to bring a positive spin to our sphere of influence.
I have worked extensively in customer service roles and I can still remember some customers who walk into a space and light up the room without saying a word. This is influence of the best kind. It uplifts and it brings joy. It also shows the power of influence in all its glory.
The next generation we are raising needs us, their family to influence them in a positive way. We need to be the loudest and most positive voice in the hustle and bustle of growing up. Too much of the world relies on the negative to fuel sources of conversation, to fuel the need to feel loved, the need to feel better about themselves. The children we are raising, already have influence and as they get older, the reach of their influence will expand.
Peggy O’Mara states that:
The way we talk to our children, becomes their inner voice.
Peggy O’Mara
Stay tuned for the second part of this post tomorrow. We have more to share on this topic.
What words are soaking into your kids hearts as you raise them? What words will then rise up within them when they face the trials in life? What influence will spill out of them as their sphere of influence grows? I know I want my kids, to hear the words in their heart saying to them, ‘ I am loved”, “ I am good enough”, “ I can do this”, “ I am stronger than I think I am”,“ I am safe”, “ I am cared for”, “ I can tell Mum…”, “ I can tell Dad…” the list goes on. I may not always be there but I know my words will be carried in their heart. They will hear what I have said to them, ring true when the need arises.
For years, I saw the strength of my influence over my children, as a great responsibility and it is, but it was burdensome. Deep down I am a perfectionist and I wanted more than anything to be the best type of influence I could be. The burden became so great, that I probably, no definitely let my influence slip into the negative because I was so hard on myself. After realising this quote, and some soul searching of the most emotional kind, I came to realise it is not a burden but a rather a privilege and like all things parenting I am never going to be perfect and get it right 100% of the time.
In the end, we may not know how much influence we have, but what we will know is that we made the effort to influence for good. I’ll leave you with this thought:
Leadership is influence
John C. Maxwell
Take time to reflect on the influence you have?
Do you see it as a responsibility or burden?
Think of times you’ve seen your kids behave in a way where you know it was your influence shining through? How does it make you feel?
Once you have your finalised family values statement, the real heavy lift work begins. Now, is the time to start thinking about and writing goals that correlate to the sets of values created in blueprint foundations.
The categories looked at in blueprint foundations were:
* family values
*home environment
*business / career
* children
* finances
* future dreams
The family values list links to the family values statement or mission statement., as created in the activity in the strategy post. Later on, the future dreams list will be used to create a vision statement for the years ahead.
The lists of values for each of these categories home environment, business, children and finances will be used to develop goals that feed into the family 1- 3 year operational plan. .
Activity: Write 1 – 3 goals for each category.
How to write a goal
There are many ways to write goals and no one way to achieve them. If you are unfamiliar with writing goals, need a helping hand, here are a few different ways to set goal
SMART goals
SMART goals are based on actions that form the acronym: Is the goal Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound?
In our family we use SMART goals for more strategic type goals, we sit and write out SMART goals in great detail as these generally take longer to achieve.
An example of a SMART goal is:
We are going to save $X to go on a holiday in September. To do this we will save $X per week.
S: The who, what, when is listed. The where is not listed in this goal.
M: The goal of a holiday, and the amount to save is listed clearly.
A: The dollar amount is listed
R: This goal links to our family strategic goals – add in the category it is relevant to.
T: The goal is time bound as the end date is September
WOOPgoals
Another form of goal writing, that is great when the whole family is included is WOOP. I have recently come across this method of goal writing. It is great as it can be parent led and has space for child input and ownership. This type of goal writing is great for ‘ team’ type goals that are not necessarily directional strategically but functional for family life. It may be about eating healthier food options, volunteering together, working on a family project – that kind of activity. WOOP stands for Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan. It encourages the big picture dreams and then by looking at outcomes and obstacles – the specifics of the goal can be nutted out. The final step – the plan is the grand scheme of how to achieve the goal. It is also the time to take the obstacles listed and write against each one an ‘ if then’ plan to overcome the obstacles.
An example of a WOOP goal is:
W: We wish as a family we could hike for six kilometres (without the children whinging)- and enjoy it.
O: Increased fitness, ability to go on more hikes and find interesting places.
O: The youngest can’t walk that far, she decides not to…
P: Start building up fitness with shorter walks. Find ways to encourage the youngest to increase her stamina.
List:
The final example of setting a goal that I find really works for me in the busy of life is this list format of goal setting. I tend to use this for more base line goals and use this list as a reminder. I keep the monthly list on the inside of my pantry as that is where I see it the most. It’s a great reminder of what I set out to do each month, as the days fly by.
Here is an example of one of my lists:
This month __________________ I will
Start/ Stop: organising birthday presents //
Learn: How to cook ravioli from scratch
Read: “and the mountains echoed” by Khaled Hosseini.
Visit: Grandparents
Organise: the linen cupboard and garage storage
Improve: print photos for lounge room wall – update photos
Overall, it’s not about the method you use to write your goal, it’s the fact that you’ve set some goals that you believe are achievable for your family.
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.
This week has been one of opportunity and disappointment. Highs and lows all rolled into one. Both the opportunity and disappointment have been caused by the opinion and decision of others. We also received valuable unwarranted encouragement while also struggling to comprehend the knock back of a well-rounded argument for an amazing collaboration opportunity. It is something we have no control over. In the middle of a download about why the we felt disappointed, we started talking about the positives of the situation, how we were building resilience and that the encouragement came at the perfect time.
To put the brakes on the disappointment, we had an interesting conversation about making a choice about who and what we were going to listen to and to allow the disappointing moment wash over us as we continued on with our work. We decided in the moment to listen and remember the words of the encouragers rather than the naysayers. We would use the disappointment to form our determination for future opportunities. The choice we made lead for a brighter end of the week and lessons learnt.
The question I have for you in your situation is.. In your moment of opportunity or disappointment, do you choose which voice you listen to, or do you listen to them all? Chances are if you do,
The negative voices in your life will speak the loudest and linger the longest in your thoughts. Don’t listen to them.
Do you listen to the encourager, the naysayer, the ‘you can do it’ voice or the ‘don’t even try’ voice? Only you get to choose which words stick and which ones you need to let slide off. Likewise, in your life whether at home or work, are you the encourager or the naysayer? Do you see opportunity or feel threatened by great ideas? Are you someone who enables another to thrive, or do you like to do all the thriving?
In life everything comes down to the choices we make and when. Make choices today the contribute to building others up, that encourage others while seeking to find the best solutions. Wouldn’t it be a better world if we all encouraged one another, gave constructive feedback, and had the capacity to see what others see in terms of their dreams and visions.
Side note – May Homes of Victory be a positive voice in your life, may you see the passion and encouragement behind each post. Live each day making choices that lead towards victory in this season.
Congratulations, you made it through the second part of creating a family blueprint. We hope you enjoyed the conversations and spending time doing so with the one you do life with. Did you find it interesting to learn about personality types, and figure out what the needs of your family are? How did you go putting your crisis management and stress management plan together?
What area did you find the most beneficial?
We would love to hear your feedback.
We found the who we are? section to be the most eye-opening. Even now, a few years after we decided to learn more about who we are, we are still learning more about each other’s personality. We have found ourselves talking often about this topic how our personality types clash and how they work together. We have been identifying more of our strengths and weaknesses – in order to learn how to compromise just a little more, in order to be more considerate and aware of each other. We must say, so far so good. We feel that we have grown closer together and have more knowledge and understanding of each other.
How do you feel since you’ve worked together on your obstacle course responses?
Did you use any of these conversation lead to big changes in your family?
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 TheBarefoot 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.
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?
We’ve just had a week away camping at the beach. We feel incredibly blessed as where we live Covid restrictions have lifted to the point where we could do this, as it is our absolute favourite thing to do.
Every time we camp on the drive home we chat about what improvement we could make to the set up and experience. Bit by bit we add to our camping gear to make camping that little bit more organised, enjoyable and easier.
The addition to this trip was a set of walkie talkies… our kids don’t have phones ( they’re 10,8 and 4) and our camping trips are screen free as much as possible. We take bikes and scooters and love to give our kids freedom to ride, play and meet other kids so these walkie talkies were perfect. They allowed them freedom with boundaries. We could relax knowing we could contact them.
Reflecting on this camping trip we realized our kids had learnt some valuable lessons by being given freedom. All of which contribute to their developing leadership skills.
Confidence: They could choose where they went knowing we could still keep them safe and were available if they needed us. The walkie talkies gave them the confidence to be apart and meet up again as they chose.
Communication: This section was three fold. 1) The kids were able to communicate with us, when they wanted , and thought through the process before contacting us. 2) They communicated with each other clearly and decisively – as they were having too much fun to spend too long talking. 3) Having a communication tool on hand made them feel safe – while having the freedom to explore together or alone. The fun part was the kids allocated every one a bird name as our ‘ code name’ for the walkie talkies. It added humour and fun to the conversations.
Decision making – they knew the boundaries of where we stayed and knew to stay within them. They did explore further – but communicated that to us first. We showed trust in their decisions and they in turn displayed communication and trust.
Without even knowing it, they spent the week learning a different dimension to their current leadership skills. The freedom we gave them – along with the trust, gave them the confidence to do what they wanted to and explore.
Likewise in the workplace- we too can give freedom to our staff – possibly not with walkie talkies on a camping trip, but freedom within their role – as we observe mentor – freedom for some – opens up so many possibilities and will get the creative thoughts flowing.
What ways can you build freedom into your family life?
Homes of Victory 