In our family, by combining our unique human gifts in this way we were able to create a family compass that helped us determine our direction. That compass serves as an inner guidance system to help us keep our destination clear and move continually toward it. It also enables us to interpret feedback and helps us keep coming back to the flight path time and time again.
Creating Your Own Family Mission Statement
Our own family experience—plus my experience with thousands of families worldwide—has led to the development of a simple three-step process any family can go through to create a family mission statement.
Step One: Explore What Your Family Is All About
The goal here is to get everyone’s feelings and ideas out on the table. And depending on your situation, you may choose any one of a variety of ways to do this.
A Mission Statement for Two
If your family is just you and your spouse at this point, you may want to go someplace where you can be alone together for a couple of days or even just a few hours. Enjoy some time just relaxing and being together. When the atmosphere is right, you may want to try to envision together what you want your relationship to be ten, twenty-five, or fifty years down the road. You may want to seek inspiration by reflecting on the words spoken as part of your marriage ceremony. If you can’t remember them, you could make it a point to listen when you attend the weddings of relatives and friends. You may hear words such as these:
Cleave unto each other and none else.
Observe all the laws, covenants, and obligations pertaining to the holy state of matrimony.
Love, honor, and cherish each other as long as you both shall live.
Be blessed with joy in your posterity.
Have a long life of happiness together.
If words such as these resonate in your heart, they can become the basis for a powerful mission statement.
Or you might find other words to inspire you. In our marriage, Sandra and I have found great inspiration in the Quaker proverb, “Thee lift me and I’ll lift thee, and we will ascend together.”
You might also discuss together questions such as these:
What kind of marriage partners do we want to be?
How do we want to treat each other?
How do we want to resolve our differences?
How do we want to handle our finances?
What kind of parents do we want to be?
What principles do we want to teach our children to help them prepare for adulthood and to lead responsible, caring lives?
How do we help develop the potential talent of each child?
What kind of discipline do we want to use with our children?
What roles (earning, financial management, housekeeping, and so on) will each of us have?
How can we best relate to each other’s families?
What traditions do we bring with us from the families in which we were raised?
What traditions do we want to keep and create?
What intergenerational traits or tendencies are we happy or unhappy with, and how do we make changes?
How do we want to give back?
Whatever method you use, remember that the process is as important as the product. Take the time together. Build the Emotional Bank Account. Interact deeply on the issues. Make sure that the final product represents all that is in both of your minds and hearts.
One woman said this:
When I met my husband twenty years ago, we were both very frightened of relationships because we had both been burned in marriages before. But one of the things that really impressed me about Chuck from the beginning is that he had actually listed everything he wanted in a marriage relationship and put it on his refrigerator door. So every female who tromped through his apartment had the option of saying, “Yeah, this is what I want” or “No, that’s not what I want.” He was really clear and up front about it.
So right from the very beginning we were able to work from that list. I added things to it that were important to me, and we worked together at hammering out what we wanted in our relationship. We said, “We will have no secrets from each other,” “We will hold no resentments,” “We will be totally up front with each other about our needs,” and so on.
And going through this has made a tremendous difference in our marriage. It’s written in our hearts now. We don’t have to go back and say, “Hey, this person isn’t living up to this or that,” because whenever we feel resentment or whenever we feel something going on that we don’t like, we immediately talk to each other. And this has grown out of what we originally agreed to do.
The reason a mission statement is so important in a marriage is that no two people are completely alike. There are always differences. And when you put two people together in this most tender, sensitive, and intimate relationship called marriage, if you don’t take the time to explore these differences and create a sense of shared vision, then these differences can drive them apart.
Consider two people we’ll call Sally and Paul. Paul comes from a very supportive family. When Paul was in high school, if he had said, “Today I lost my track meet,” his mother might have responded (in spirit if not in exact words), “Oh, Paul, that’s too bad! You must really be disappointed. We’re proud of the effort. We love you.” If he had said, “Mom, I just won the school election,” his mother might have replied, “Oh, Paul, I’m so happy for you! We love you. We’re proud of you.” Paul’s success or failure made no difference. His parents were unconditionally affectionate and caring.
Sally, on the other hand, comes from a family that is not supportive. Her parents are generally disinterested, unaffectionate, and conditional in their love. If Sally had said to her mother, “Today I lost my track meet,” her mother would have replied, “Well, what happened? I told you that you ought to exercise and practice more! Your sister was a tremendous track star, and she exercised and practiced a lot more than you. What am I going to tell Dad?” But if Sally had said, “Mom, I just won the student body election,” her mother would have replied, “Oh, great! I’m really proud of you. I can hardly wait to tell Dad!”
Now two people have had totally different nurturing experiences. One has learned to love unconditionally. The other loves conditionally. They meet and begin dating. After a while they say to each other, “I love you.” They get married. But within a few months of living together, of interacting intimately with each other on a daily basis, they’re in trouble.
Based on Sally’s conditional expressions of love, Paul finally says to her, “You don’t love me anymore.”
“What do you mean, I don’t love you?” she demands. “I cook, I clean, I help earn the living. What do you mean, I don’t love you?”
Can you imagine the problems that could accumulate over time if these two people never developed a common understanding of “love”?
In addition to this difference, what if the people in Paul’s family never learned to discuss real problems or confront issues? What if they simply whisked them under the rug, pretending they didn’t exist, essentially putting their heads in the sand? What if they never learned to really communicate because things were so positive and supportive? And what if Sally’s family dealt with problems and differences either by fighting (yelling, screaming, blaming, and accusing) or “fighting” (taking off, slamming doors, or walking out)? On top of two altogether different nurturing experiences, they would have learned two altogether different approaches to solving their problems.
Can you see why Sally and Paul could easily have struggles in their marriage? Can you see how each major difference compounds the problem? Can you see how the negative, hurt feelings produced by unsuccessfully dealing with these differences could easily feed on themselves, and how Sally and Paul’s relationship could quickly deteriorate from one of attraction to one of accommodation, then to toleration, and finally to hostility?
In the midst of their conflict, society may say that they should break up, they should opt out. And in some cases where there are extreme abuses, perhaps that would be justified. But breaking up may bring about suffering that’s even greater than the suffering we’ve just described. Can you see what a difference it would make to this couple to have a sense of shared vision, particularly if it was based on principles that provided a solid foundation for resolving and even rising above these differences?
If you carefully consider the problems people face in marriage, you will find that in almost every case they arise out of conflicting role expectations and are exacerbated by conflicting problem-solving strategies. A husband may think it’s his wife’s role to take care of the finances; after all, his mother did. And the wife may think that is her husband’s role, since her father filled that role when she was growing up. This may not be a big problem until they try to solve it and their problem-solving scripts come to the surface. He is a “passive aggressive.” He slowly boils inside and says nothing, but is continuously judging and becomes increasingly irritated. She is an “active aggressive.” She wants to talk it out, thrash it out, fight it out. They get into a state of collusion, even codependency, with each other—with each needing the weaknesses of the other to validate his/her own perception and justify himself/herself. They both blame the other. Thus, a small problem becomes a large one; a molehill becomes a mountain. It may even become a mountain range because conflicting problem-solving scripts compound every problem and magnify every difference. Study your own marriage challenges and problems to see if they, too, are not fundamentally rooted in conflicting role expectations and compounded by conflicting problem-solving scripts.