The Habits of a Successful Family

Remember the saying:

“Our choices become our actions.

Our actions become our habits.

Our habits become our character.

Our character becomes our destiny.”

I found variations on this saying attributed to a number of sources ranging from Gandhi and Lao Tzu to Michael Hyatt and James Hunter.  Doesn’t really matter who said it in the long run.  It’s true for individuals and families. If you want your family to enjoy intimate

conversations, fun times, and loving interactions it begins with your choices and actions. If you want your family to become a place of refuge, fun, and security, it begins with choices and actions carried out on a consistent, daily basis. The big one time events do not shape our families for the long run.  It’s the choices we make on a consistent basis that become the actions of our daily lives. As we engage in those actions on a consistent basis within the family, we form family habits. Those habits shape our families’ character and determine our families’ destiny.  That’s where honor, grace, and celebration come in. When we consistently choose to practice honor, grace, and celebration in our families, we develop families filled with respect, intimacy, security, and fun. Here are some great daily actions that will help you develop an amazing family character and destiny.

  • Honor your family with courteous words and polite actions.
  • Honor your family with expressions of gratitude and appreciation.
  • Honor your family with compliments, statements of adoration and praise.
  • Honor your family with your time.
  • Honor your family by becoming a student of your spouse and each child.
  • Honor your family by serving your spouse and children.
  • Show your family grace by accepting and even celebrating differences in talents, interests, and opinions.
  • Show your family grace by initiating the resolution of any disagreement.
  • Show your family grace by putting your spouse’s and your children’s interests ahead of your own.
  • Show your family grace by forgiving quickly.
  • Show your family grace through discipline, setting and enforcing limits in love.
  • Celebrate your family by making it a point to play and laugh together.
  • Celebrate your family with dinner time together.
  • Celebrate your family by acknowledging effort toward a goal as well as accomplishments.
  • Celebrate your family by encouraging and supporting your spouse’s and your children’s dreams.
  • Celebrate your family by worshipping together.

Make a choice to put these actions into daily practice. In doing so, you will build a family who practices honor, grace, and celebration habitually. Honor, grace, and celebration will form the foundation of character in your family and shape your family’s destiny.  Who knows, if enough families make the choice to make honor, grace, and celebration the habit of their family, we might just change the world!

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