Ramp Up the School Year - AIM For The IDEAL, DEAL With What’s REAL!

Over the past few weeks, we have ‘unpacked’ some key concepts to help your family design goals and take steps to achieve things you all dream about.  We especially talked about taking the Long View and developing personal grit in life.

Investing in your family by keeping the Long View in mind while dealing with the current reality is Fine-Tuned Families’ theme of ‘Aim for the Ideal, Deal with what’s Real’.

In "Aiming for the Ideal", we are dreaming of what could be.  There is room for creativity and possibility here.  That is part of the fun of coaching conversations, and you can start there with your family.  This is the area where great ideas and adventures happen.  Ask questions like "What is possible here?" or "What if we could GO anywhere we wanted?" or "What if we could DO anything we wanted?"

​The second part of the phrase is "Deal with what is real".  Life happens - things come up that get in the way.  Kids get sick, unexpected expenses arise....  That doesn't mean everything is a bust.  If you deal with what's real, you are willing to look for what you can do in spite of the issue at hand.  Plans may have to be scaled back or changed.  You can circle back to the questions above and create new ideas.

Parents make plans (family budgets, vacation plans, savings plans, etc.) for their families. Other examples are having a fire and house safety plan and a plan for what to do when you get separated in a large public spaces.

Some of the plans are:

•            Short Term (dealing with what’s real): how to best navigate a week of rushed and early morning departs form the house, getting everyone to their various after-school activities, etc

•            Long term (aiming for the ideal): how to grow and maintain family closeness—by creating traditions like family game nights, or sharing a holiday with grandparents, or other ‘big picture’ events like college planning (what a student needs to do to prepare for college, not just finances!) etc.

Taking time to plan, make goals, and talk about how you want your family to be even when real life interrupts, requires grit and a willingness to take a long view. And you know, these habits are not ‘instant’. They take time and energy to develop and maintain.

It is well worth taking time to dream, plan and live life while aiming for your ideals.  If you need inspiration, information and encouragement to help you build a family plan that is ‘gritty’ and real, call me. I am passionate about helping your family create SMAART goals for the #family win.

Check out this fantastic offer to move from Dreaming the IDEAL to REAL-izing it:

Click Here to Create and Realize Your Ideals!

Doing This Will Help Your Family Thrive PLUS I Share an Inspiring Story!

"Take the long view: to think about the effects that something will have in the future instead of in the present. "              http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/take-the-long-view

Identifying and embracing your family's long view (how your family wants to live EVEN when times are tough) helps you live out your values. Your family's long view helps inform your family how to respond and be proactive in all seasons of life. As parents, taking the long view is an important family philosophy AND life skill to cultivate.

Stephen Covey, author of international best seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, urges us to “be proactive” and to “begin with the end in mind”, (Habits One and Two) – which is key to taking the long view. Being proactive means you create and strive to live by a plan of action that you adjust as you move through your day, week, month and year. Beginning with the end in mind means you have an idea or a picture of where you want to go.  Otherwise, as Dr. David Campbell wisely covers in his book of the same title, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else”.

I recently had the pleasure talking with Carol Graham, as a guest on her internationally famous podcast, Never Ever Give Up Hope.  In it, I shared some of the incredibly difficult season of our lives, where for my family, taking the long view was the way we made it through my son's life threatening accident and healing. We all had to keep the long view in mind as we navigated hospitals and the long road of various therapies and miraculous recovery . The blessing and good news is through recovery and some major adaptation, we continued to focus on the long view for our family and recently celebrated a significant milestone because of it.

Listen to me talk about our struggles and triumphs through my son’s near fatal car accident and recovery here:

http://neverevergiveuphopenet.blogspot.ca/2017/08/wouldnt-you-love-to-know-how-to-better.html

Every family walks a different path, and every family can cultivate a long view to help them grow strong and be strong in all seasons of life.

That is my passion—to help families flourish as they take the long view.

Use this great tool to design and embrace a long view in your loved ones:

www.finetunedfamilies.com/home/#powerful-vision-tool