Exercise with your children. Play sports with them. Go for regular walks together. Sign up with them for swimming, golf or some other lesson or activity. Continually remind one another of the importance of exercise and good health.
Teach your children what you want them to know! Teach them the importance of working, reading, studying, completing homework. Don’t assume that someone else will teach them life’s most important lessons.
Attend age-appropriate cultural events together, such as plays, dance recitals, concerts, and choir performances. Encourage your children to participate in activities that will help them develop their talents.
Sign up to learn some new skill together with your child, such as sewing, woodworking, pie-making, or word processing.
Involve your children in planning your family vacations.
Together, decide on ways to make family birthdays extra special.
Talk about what makes holidays special for your children.
Involve your children in your spiritual life. Let them accompany you to your place of worship. Share any special feelings you have about a higher power. Worship together. Read together. Pray together, if that is part of your belief.
Become involved with your children in weekly family service projects.
Schedule on your calendar fun times together such as going to ball games, hiking in the mountains, playing on the swings in the park, playing miniature golf, or going to the ice cream store.
Involve the children in making dinnertime more special. Have them take turns setting and decorating the table, choosing the dessert, and maybe even selecting a conversation topic. Be consistent in gathering your family around the dinner table to enjoy a meal together.
FROM SURVIVAL . . . TO STABILITY . . . TO SUCCESS . . . TO SIGNIFICANCE
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: The only ones among you who will really be happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
—Albert Schweitzer
Now that we’ve been through each of the 7 Habits, I’d like to share with you the “bigger picture” of the power of this inside-out approach and how these habits work together to make it happen.
To begin with, I’d like to ask you to read a fascinating account of one woman’s inside-out odyssey. Notice how this experience reveals a proactive, courageous soul becoming a force of nature in her own right. Notice the impact her approach has on her, on her family, and on society:
By the time I was nineteen, I was divorced with a two-year-old child. We were in difficult circumstances, but I wanted to make the best possible life for my son. We had very little food. In fact, I reached the point where I would give food to my son but I wouldn’t eat. I lost so much weight that a coworker asked me if I was sick, and I finally broke down and told her what had happened. She put me in touch with Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which made it possible for me to attend community college.
At that point I still had this vision in my mind that I’d had when I was seventeen and pregnant with my son—a vision that I would go to college. I had no idea how I was going to do it. At seventeen I didn’t even have a high school diploma. But I just knew I was going to make a difference in the lives of others and be a light to others who faced the darkness I was facing. That vision was so strong that it got me through everything—including doing what was necessary to graduate from high school.
As I entered community college at nineteen, I still didn’t see how my vision was going to be fulfilled. How was I going to help anybody when I was still pretty traumatized from going through it all myself? But I felt driven because of the vision and because of my son. I wanted him to have a good life. I wanted him to have food and clothes and a yard to play in and an education. And I couldn’t provide those things for him without getting an education myself. So I kept rationalizing, “If I can just get a degree and make money, we will have a good life.” And I went to school and worked really hard.
When I was twenty-two I got married for the second time—this time to a wonderful man. We had a beautiful little daughter. I quit school to be with my children while they were small. We managed to make it okay financially, but I was still obsessed with fighting that monster called hunger. I just could not let that go. So when my children were a little older, it was “get the degree or bust.” My husband was basically “Mom” to the kids while I went to school.
I finally completed my degree—two, in fact: a four-year degree and a master’s degree in business administration. And this turned out to be very helpful. Later, when my husband lost his job as a factory worker, I was able to help him through school. My education saved us financially. He got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and has been a counselor for several years now. He said he doesn’t think he would have done it without my support.
For some time I was very busy working and raising my family, and I thought: I’ve done it. I got my degree. I have a successful family. I should be happy. But then I realized that my vision had included helping others, and that still wasn’t part of my life. So when one of the alumni directors at school asked me to speak at an honors night for graduating seniors, I agreed. When I asked her what she wanted me to talk about, she said, “Just tell them how you got your education.”
To be quite honest, standing up in front of a group of at least two hundred highly educated women who were going to be honored for their expertise in science and math was a bit overwhelming. The thought of telling them where I had come from was not very thrilling to me. But by this time I’d learned about mission statements and I’d written one. It basically said that my mission in life was to help others to see the best in themselves. And I think it was the mission statement that gave me the courage to share my story.
I went into that speech making deals with God: “Okay, I’m going to do this. But if it fails, I’m never going to tell my story again.” It turned out to be a success because of what occurred afterward. After listening to my story, several of the faculty women got together and decided to do something to help welfare mothers, and the school started a scholarship fund. It was named after a woman who believed that if you educate a woman, you make a great impact not only on her life but on the lives of her children.
I was happy about what had happened and figured I’d done my part to help others, but then a little later I went through a developmental course for women where I had the opportunity to share my story again. One of the women there got the idea that we should fund a scholarship for one low-income woman, and we all agreed that we would each contribute $125 a year to do this.
From those beginnings my efforts have grown so that now I act as an advisor on a scholarship board for welfare women at a local women’s liberal arts college. I’m also involved in fund-raising for a scholarship for low-income women with high potential. These things may not seem like much to some, but I know what a big difference they can make. I had a lot of help along the way from people who felt they were doing “small things,” and I hope the small things I do for others now show my thanks.
All of this has had a positive impact on my family as well. My son, who is now working on his master’s degree, has a job where he helps people who have disabilities. He is very committed to these people and to their welfare. And my daughter—a first-year college student—is a volunteer teacher of English as a second language. She is also very committed to the underprivileged. They both seem to have a sense of responsibility to others. They have a deep awareness of the importance of contribution and actively seek it. And my husband’s work as a counselor provides a constant opportunity for him to serve people in a very personal way as well.
I guess I hadn’t really thought about it before, but as I look at it now, I see that in one way or another our entire family is serving and contributing to society as a whole. That makes me feel as though my vision is coming to pass—in a more expanded and complete way than I had originally understood it.