Do You Have Guiding Principles for Your Household?
Create more harmony with guiding principles in your home
For the Stoics, the virtues of wisdom, courage, justice and temperance are the foundation for personal growth, wisdom and resilience. When we establish these types of qualities for ourselves and others, we can achieve greater wellbeing and achieve a life well lived.
Similar to these Stoic virtues, I wanted to establish Guiding Principles for my home. I asked my girlfriend to come up a list and I came up with my own and we’ve placed this list in a prominent place in our home to guide our daily actions and interactions. This process could be expanded to many other aspects of your life including a business place, a family code of ethics or amongst a team.
This list could include the hopes and also the expectations for the home. The values should be clear for everyone under the roof, and this gives clear guidance on how each person should behave in the household. If each person can contribute to this list, it becomes more collaborative and more meaningful. When collaboration exists compliance naturally increases.
Here are the Guiding Principles for my home:
- Communicate Effectively: Tell the truth. Let your concerns be heard. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don’t suffer in silence.
- Complete the Task: If you start a project, finish it. Put things away. Ask for help if needed.
- Express Gratitude: Be thankful and show it with kind words, actions and gestures.
- Seek out the Hard Job: Be the spark. Find the task no one else wants and get things started.
- Be Efficient and Effective: Have and create systems to handle all things. List of to-do’s, etc.
- Be Curious: Of each person’s interests, passions, experiences and life stories.
- Be Respectful: Of one another’s requests, needs, hungers, hurts, processes and joys.
- Find Humor: Create ways to make each other laugh, for there is no greater sound than laughter in a home.
We have really enjoyed the process of creating this list of Guiding Principles for our home and I hope you do to. Feel free to share yours in the comments.
