I am an Acton parent with a Family Plan in hand. My thoughts around the experience of having a “Sandefer Plan” may ring true for you:

We met. We shared. We took notes. We looked at calendars. We listened. We dreamed. We got real. We crunched a few numbers. We wrote a plan. For all to see.

And then life came at us hard and fast, as always.  And we missed our family meeting again last Sunday. And I don’t like one of my goals anyway.

I wonder where Sam is. It’s 7am and he’s usually at breakfast by now. It’s so quiet upstairs. Something must be wrong. I knock lightly on the door. Sam? He holds a finger up for me to please be quiet. (I promise he didn’t learn that from me.) He’s reading on his bed so that he can cross his goal off his list.

He is taking action. Real world, independently chosen Action.

This is the purpose of it all. It is the beauty, too. Not the planning. Not even the plan itself.

The process of talking about our purpose and our plans is slowly sinking into the depth of our being. It is becoming real life. We are living our dreams and pursuing our goals even if we are terrible about having “meetings” and our plan isn’t well-written or documented with S.M.A.R.T. goals.

The intent to live purposefully is being played out with the little things I am seeing around the house. I might miss them if I don’t pay attention. We linger longer at our dinner table. The boys make their beds without a word from me (I know…that’s just my personal thing; I don’t care if your family makes your beds.) The television isn’t on much. We have free time on weekends. We are selecting important things to read together. We are having a blast.

This week a quote from Frederic Bastiat made me pause:

“The plans differ; the planners are all alike…”

Let us not be known as the planners. Let us be known as the doers. Sam has inspired me to put my running shoes on and get out the door. I must remember to tell him that.