Family Story: Set the Stage {Assessing Values}

It’s the beginning of a new year.

Enter New Year’s resolutions, goals, dream-boards, and fresh plans.

The underlying theme is hope…

for a better you,
for a better life,
for a better story.

We focus so much on ourselves, that it is often easy to overlook our families. I may have the goal to eat healthier and provide healthier meals for my family, but is the goal for my family to eat healthier? That may be the assumption, but how we word things matters, and how we include our family matters.

We hear accounts of families whose lives are telling a great narrative, but we often don’t know the beginning of the story. Which main character went out of the box? What changed? How did they get to be the main characters in a great story? The first few chapters of any good fiction book, and the first few scenes of any credible movie, establish the characters. They set the stage or paint a picture for the rest of the story. If we opened up a book and started in the middle, we would lose a lot of the story’s important details. The development and evolution of the story depends on setting the stage.

It becomes too easy to assume we know what the first few chapters of our family story really looks like. We could usually sum it up pretty quickly…

We’ve been married for 15 years, and after five years of infertility, we were blessed with three children, Savannah {7}, Caleb {6} and Daniel {4}. My husband is a business strategist and entrepreneur. We own a music and dance academy in Franklin, TN. We are involved in our church and multiple non-profit organizations.

It’s factual, brief, and to the point; but, this merely tells you what we do. It’s a snapshot of our story. It tells you very little of who we are and why we do what we do. Setting that stage is more difficult, because we ourselves aren’t sure. Life often happens to us, and if we aren’t careful, we fall into a supporting role of our own story. The difference is like a home…it can merely be a place to live – to simply eat and sleep, or it can be a place to live life in – to create, to learn, and most importantly, to make memories.

The one certainty in life is that life changes. We have to create mental space to truthfully look at what we value the most. Before you jump to the obvious values, let’s take an honest look at where our time, resources, and emotions are being spent. This first step in writing our family story is to simply set the stage. We need to take a look at where we’ve been in the past, and where we are now. We need to take a look at what we value.

To do just this, you will need 3 things for the exercise…

Your calendar
Your financial expenses
Something to write on

First, take a look at your calendar.

Last year, what big events/trips did you take? Was this a lot of travel, or not enough?

What does your week look like? In any typical week, how much time do you find yourself sleeping, cleaning, driving…{you get the idea}? Include the kids’ schedule, your own agenda, and your husband’s daily timetable. You want to look for rhythms and patterns that reveal themes. This is part of the reason that the Fitbit is such a craze right now. People are wanting to understand the rhythm of their life. A little bracelet strapped to your wrist can tell you some things, but you also need to sit down and really assess, “Where is my time and energy actually going?”

Secondly, take a look at your expenses.

If you use a budgeting app like Mint or something similar, this can be done pretty quickly. Where did most of your money go? Beyond the bare bones {i.e., mortgage, utilities, and food}, what did you spend it on? Then categorize this money – education, giving, entertainment, shopping, etc. If at all possible, come up with percentages for each category. For example, last year we spent X-percentage of our income on our mortgage. If you are frustrated that you haven’t taken a family vacation, but then you realize that you are spending 65% of your income on your home; you can potentially see why that vacation isn’t happening. But maybe it’s a year of investing into your home, so knowing that will help navigate the lop-sided housing expense. Or, you may realize that 65% is too much of an investment at this time, and consideration needs to go into the possibility of selling your house, in order to down-size.

Lastly, it is good to do an emotional check-in.

How have you felt in this last season? How do you feel now about your life?

Fulfilled?

Wanting more?

Overwhelmed?

Content?

How would you describe your emotional IQ right now?

Are you actually engaged in life, or are you just responding to it?

Don’t overthink these answers; there is no wrong answer. Just be honest with yourself. In fact, if you really look at the negative emotions within yourself, you will see that it is within this negative space that there is potential for growth. We too quickly judge negative emotions, because it’s against what we’ve learned is acceptable. We are supposed to be happy, because happiness is a universal social goal. We must allow ourselves freedom to admit the areas of our life that are lacking. One of my favorite examples of this is looking at your emotional IQ like a bank account. When someone does something that encourages you or validates you, that’s a deposit. But criticism, judgement, or neglect; those translate to withdrawals.

Multiple withdrawals may leave you with a negative balance. The more deposits that are made, then the less impact withdrawals have on your overall well-being.

Too many withdrawals in a relationship create tension. Too many withdrawals for your general emotional well-being can become a crisis. Yes, I know. Crises are typically the inciting incidents that propel a good story. But we aren’t there yet.

We are merely taking snapshots of our lives and dissecting them in ways so that we can see things that we haven’t been able to see before. There will be time for more snapshots, but let’s begin to set the stage for our family story. Now that we have taken a time, money, and emotional snapshot. Let’s answer the following questions as descriptively as possible:

Where is the story taking place?

Who are the main characters?

What is the mood of the scene?

What does our family value? What is important to our family?

Make an honest list for these last two questions. If you spent 10% of your budget on Starbucks, then you must value coffee. Be sure to take questions a step further. Why are you getting coffee that often? Needing caffeine? Meeting someone? Asking “why” helps you understand what is the underlying value. Ask the little people {also known as “kids”} what they think is important to the family. Bring them in on the conversation, because even though they may have supporting roles, someday soon they will be writing their own stories.

Don’t worry; this list isn’t set in stone, and it doesn’t need to be all inclusive. All good stories evolve. Let’s simply set the stage with an honest snapshot of where we are now. Next week we’ll take a look at where we are going or where we want to be with our values before we sit and write value statements for our family. We hope you’ll continue to journey with us through this process as we encourage one another to begin writing our family story.

As you took inventory of your time, money and emotions, what value surprised you the most? What area of your life do you feel has been undervalued?