The two most important commitments we make as Acton parents are:
- To be learning something – always.
- To write a Family Plan.
These two action items connect us more deeply to our children and help us forge a life marked by purpose and engagement.
Don’t overthink this. Just ponder a few things: What are you craving to learn? What goal do you most want to achieve? Each of your family members can answer these questions for themselves, too. Do you want to know what their dreams are? We all have limited time and money. We’ll spend them somewhere. Where will you spend yours?
To show you how simple this can be, take a look at my family’s process in the photo below:
The content is not important. Just notice how simple and scrappy it is. Other Acton families have much better systems than ours, but this works for us.
Twice a year, we share our personal goals and decide on our family goals for the next 6 months. We record them on a whiteboard. This board stays in a closet most of the time but we pull it out now and then to see where we are. Then, as our 6-month period comes to an end, we have another family meeting to see how we did and where we want to go. (The purple checkmarks are the goals we achieved. Yeah!) We then re-write our board with the goals for the next 6 months.
It doesn’t seem very significant, does it?
Strangely, this simple process transformed our family and many others who have shared their stories with me.
Family life means something. What does it mean to you? What will it mean to your children when they look back? Will you be intentional with your family life?
