January Leader In Me Challenge

January 2016 Family Challenge

January is the perfect time for Habit #2, Begin With The End In Mind!!  This habit is where we literally see what it is we want to become, do, learn and gain.  Sometimes the end is something short term, sometimes the end we see is a long way off.  Dr. Covey challenges us to look forward to our 80^th birthday party and imagine what the people attending would say about us.  What is it that you would want your family, friends and loved ones to say about the life that you have lived?  This is the first step in making your personal mission statement.  This is the first family challenge of January, to make a family mission statement.  The process is simple, sit down as a family and decide what you would like to be known for, what you want your character to be.  Remember that character is different than reputation.  Character is who you really are, while reputation is how people see you.  Character is also completely in your own control, while reputation can be influenced by you. It is really controlled by other people’s perspective.  A good illustration of this is that of a prominent leader in a small town who was seen by someone who didn’t know him very well entering a very bad area late at night under what was perceived to be suspicious circumstances.  The person who saw this told quite a few people about it and they jumped to conclusions, such as him being a drug dealer, or that he must be buying drugs etc.  It turns out that this leader was responding to an urgent call from a family member who was struggling with an addiction and needed help.  The leader had unselfishly went to find his loved one and offer help, bring them to his house and find professional help for them.  His character remained intact, even when his reputation may have suffered because of the perception of another.

Your mission statement could be very short, Dr. Covey claims that his was only 3 words.  Make it something that you and your family can look to every day and strive for.  If you need some examples there are tons online if you Google “family mission statement examples” and look at the images.  Once you come up with your family mission statement, I challenge you to hang it up in a prominent place in your home and review it often with your children to keep if fresh and something that they think about. 

The 2^nd challenge option is to create some short term and long term goals for each member of the family.  Along with the sheet of paper is a puzzle that you can cut out and mix up all of the pieces (Click on the link below to open & print out the puzzle with the challenge.).  Once you have cut out all of the pieces, have your children try and guess what the completed puzzle is without seeing the original.  Puzzles are also very hard to put together unless we actually know what it is supposed to look like when it is finished.  This relates directly to life and Habit #2 in that if we know what we want to accomplish then we have a much greater chance of realizing that goal.  After putting the puzzle together discuss what goals each family member could make and how you can help make those goals happen.

Once you have finished either of the activities please fill out the form (Click on the link below to open & print out the challenge that has the form to fill out.) and turn it in to the office.  This will enter you into our drawing for a Kindle Fire or a family board game.  Remember that if you do both challenges, you get 2 tickets in the drawing!! The forms are due by Friday January 29^th. Good luck with this challenge and I would love to hear from you about your experiences with each of the habits.

Mr. Chournos

Click HERE to open and print out the challenge.