Watch the video above and talk about it with a group or mentor. Learn more.
Establishing mission, vision, and values is a good tool for settling a trajectory for yourself and your family – it’s not just for your workplace. When kids know what they’re doing, how, and why, it can make a tremendous difference in helping them make strategic choices about their lives and to accomplish their goals.
Ownership
Parents, you might be tempted to decide for your teens what their mission, vision, and values are, but this is missing the point. Your goal should be to help your teens establish those things for themselves while you provide guidance. When your kids understand their own goals and set those goals themselves, they will be self-motivated to go after them with the structure and guidance you provide rather than terrified of failing and disappointing you.
Values
Values are the principles that matter to us. Things like hard work, helping others, having a good attitude, etc. Help your teens think through what matters to them.
Mission
Mission is about the “what” of life. What are you trying to do? Maybe your mission is to be the greatest basketball player or the most celebrated pianist of your generation? Whatever it is, it’s what you’re after.
Vision
Vision is about where you want to go, meaning, what you want to do with your mission. If mission is the “what” of life, vision is the “why.” Your mission might be to become the greatest basketball player, but vision asks the question: “What’s the purpose of achieving that goal?” It’s the “now what?” question.
Strategy
What are the things you need to do on a regular basis to accomplish your mission? This is about the habits needed to succeed. If you want to get straight A’s, your strategy for doing so should be to set designated time every day to do homework, or to learn how to study better, or both! Strategy is how it all gets done.
Culture
Culture is about how you actually live. Your strategy might be to study an hour a day and to get better at studying so you can get straight A’s, but culture asks the question: “How successful are you at this on a daily basis?” This is perhaps the most important question to ask because it forces you to look at how you actually spend your time.
When your teens have their own senses of values, mission, vision, strategy and culture – and they take personal accountability for it – they will be on a better trajectory to achieve their goals than if they simply wandered through their teen years or only ever sought to please their parents. Parents, don’t browbeat your kids. Help them to think about where they’re going in life, what they’re doing, and why.
- What is your initial reaction to this topic? What jumped out at you?
- Parents: what was the mission of your family growing up? What were your values?
- Why do you think it’s important to have a clear mission, vision, and values? What is likely to happen if you don’t ever think about these things?
- Why is ownership a crucial step for teens to develop their mission, vision, and values? What would it look like for a teen to have these three things without a sense of ownership?
- What are the values that matter to you? Why?
- What would you say is your mission in life? Why?
- What would you say is your vision?
- Strategy is all about our day-to-day plans to accomplish our goals. What would be some strategic choices for you to make to accomplish your goals?
- Read Philippians 3:13-14. Memorize this passage as a family. Paul talks about life like a race. What are some things you need to leave behind and forget? What are some things you can start doing to “finish well”?
- Download the Family Fundamentals Worksheet and do your best to fill in your mission, vision, values, strategy, and culture. Have some fun with it, and make sure the kids give their input.
- Write a personal action step based on this conversation.
