Dan Palmer from Very Edible Gardens who wrote a great article about it in Pip Magazine back in March 2015. If you’d like to know more about the process, read these blogs by Dan. Our vision statement is based on holistic management *and* the permaculture design process we follow, it captures how we want to live and is written in present tense so it feels real. But why do it? So often in life we make spend a lot of time reacting to things, where we make decisions with a sense of urgency or without good thought, usually due to being too busy.  A vision statement helps us stay clear and focused, it’s a reference point we can check back in with as needed, remind us where we’re going and how we can get there. Ours goes like this. .

We are a loving and thriving family. We communicate awesomely and make time for one another. We are hardy and resilient.

Within this are many sub points to provide the extra detail which outline exactly how we intend to make this grand vision a reality. We drew it as a mind map as this makes sense to us, so with all the sub points connected, it looks like this. Here’s a little breakdown so you can see how all the sub points “fall out” of the one broad vision statement. These sub points are things we can put into action to help us “get there”.

We are a loving and thriving family

• Practice being thoughtful and emotionally aware.
• Don’t take ourselves too seriously.
• Approach things with fun and light heartedness.
• Stay humble.
• Keep connected and active in our community.
• Support creative endeavours even when they’re not always the most practical or functional thing to do, but because they make our hearts sing.

We communicate awesomely and make time for one another

• Don’t let sh*t linger (i.e. talk through things as needed and make it’s all sorted *before* you go to sleep each night).
• Eat meals together.
• Respectfully engage and interact with our extended families.
• As well as working together, we play together.

We are hardy and resilient

• Have the right clothes (this is actually pretty important in our cold winters where without the right clothes you don’t really want to be outside).
• Practice physical expertise, i.e. rolls and climb trees.
• Our home nurtures us – it is a diverse food-scape and play-scape, built to last.
• We are financially comfortable.

We should point out that we don’t actually feel like we’re “there” yet, but that’s not the point. The point is we know where we’re going, and that we’re going there together. We base our decisions/discussions and life around this statement, if we’re unsure about something we ask ourselves “does it match up to our vision statement?”. If not, we can let things slide, or at least put things into perspective. We also expect our family vision statement to change as life unfolds, as change is the only constant. The main aim of the game is to make sure we’re making our time on this planet count, in every possible way. There’s this quote by Mary Oliver which I love…. .

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Our little family vision statement is a hearty step in helping us realise our potential, keep connected and always reach for the stars with our feet firmly on the ground – we’re really tall, so feel like that’s possible. Happy 2016 and beyond, may life be good to you.

Us. Excuse Frida’s bum, she was pretty distracted trying to escape from my arms to smother Riley – the dog.

**FYI – We’ll be going a bit quiet over the next little bit (not so many blogs) while we finish off some work for some very patient design clients and spend some time playing with our families and basking in the glory of Summer.]]>