How do modern families survive the daily tug-of-war? At FamilyWorks, we’ve carefully researched the daily needs and activities of families, and we’ve created a list of six key areas that we believe encompass what makes for a cohesive, strong family life. Those areas are: relationships, finance, health, community, spiritual, and career. For your family to retain its strength against intrusive outside distractions, these areas need their own focus and their own distinct goals, and they also need to be in balance with each other.

After your family has identified its mission and vision and started outlining a strategic plan, your next steps are to figure out what goals you need to achieve to accomplish your plan. Chances are, it’s going to take quite a few steps to get to your “Wildly Important Goal.”

Your strategic plan is going to include a number of different areas: your finances, your education, your children, your emotional and physical health and well-being. The first step toward achieving your family’s mission and vision is to identify what you need to do to get there. Focus on big-picture stuff right now

Kobe’s life tells us a lot about “vision”—the ultimate dream, your family’s biggest goal, where you want you and your family to go. The vision is the thing that keeps you motivated and on-task. It is an example of what author Sean Covey in The Four Disciplines of Execution calls a “WIG,” or “Wildly Important Goal.” Covey writes that in the business world, “only 15 percent of employees actually know their organization’s most important goals—either there are no goals or they have too many goals.” Intelligent, ambitious people want to do more, not less, says Covey. But to achieve true greatness, it is crucial to narrow your focus to one wildly important goal—and that goal then becomes the prism through which you view your other day-to-day goals or activities. 

For us, innovation is about taking some of the best ideas from the worlds of psychology, business, systems theory, academia, and others and applying them to the family setting. Innovation is using tech tools to implement new systems and new practices in your family.

We are wired to need each other to fulfill our greater purpose, and we find that belonging and purpose first in the family. From earliest childhood, human beings experiment with belonging in the family unit.

Discover your unique family purpose, simplify decision-making, collaborate with a community of like-minded families, and integrate related apps and resources. Create a roadmap of where your family wants to go, and the specific steps you will need to take to get there.