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14 Customize your unique life blueprint
Hello, I’m Elaine Kung. Blessing from California, United States. We continue with Work-Life Balance series, number fourteen. Today, as we wrap up on the sixth ‘S’, share harmony at work and at home, we're gonna learn more how to help our children as a family build time management, healthy habits.
So, what is the children's mission of life? And what is our goal of parenting for our children? You may remember last time I show you for my son's 30th birthday, I share this bible verse with him. In fact, I use this bible verse every year for my student’s birthday as well. Luke 2:52, “And Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” We want our children growing up like Jesus did, to have these three ‘M’s in their life, as they develop and mature in the wisdom and stature. That is the mental and physical health. So that they know how they are gifted and find what the passion, the mission is in their life. And build the right life skill to really have a purpose to contribute to the society with the gift that God has given them. So that's the wisdom and stature and find the mission.
Second, is in favor with God. That's the spiritual health, having a close relationship with God and know that God is their master. That's the second ‘M’. God is their master, and Lord, and savior in their life. And finally, in favor with man. So that's our social, our relationship with people as they're growing up.
And eventually to have the third m which is mate, that they would find the right person that God would prepare for them. In fact, we pray for children's mate even when I was pregnant with them, and then throughout the whole life that we pray for their mate. So, these are the three ‘M’s in the children's development. You don't see money in here. We don't need the vitamins and money, but we want them to know their mission with the life skill. We want God as their master and also learn to be the master of the time. And I’m gonna use the master to show you how to build time management skill as a family. And then mate is when they mature and ready to build their own family.
So, this is the MASTER acrostic I created for you, how we can help our children, our family to really be the master of the time, master of the calendar. Instead of us running and chasing after time and be the slave to the calendar. And remind us that we talked about this five ‘P’ pyramid, and we'll show more example later. So, through this five ‘P’, the purpose, principle, passion, people, and performance that we think about how to be master of our time as a family. ‘M’ is to make it fun. It's a family experience, and it's a growth journey, make it a teachable moment to make it fun in managing our time.
‘A’, available to start early, even when they are little. 1,2,3 years old to start thinking, what do we do now and What do we do next? And how do we choose and prioritize, so that they know at an early age, the earlier the better, what is important versus not important. What is urgent versus not urgent. And what we talked about in the last few session, you can share with them. And then we can learn and practice and help each other, especially before they become teenager, we try to really teach them healthy habits earlier on.
’S’ is to start with creating a family calendar. So that we can see, could be a nice poster they can design it, or could be existing calendar and write down what everyone's activities and then how we can remind each other. And t hen the calendar can align to the family's five ‘P’ model, which I’ll show you a few examples later on. And then try not to over schedule, don't overcommit, so that there's some white space. You know how in a book, there's some margin, white space in the book that you can write some notes in the same way in the calendar. I block time when to have date time with my husband to watch certain programs or block out time when we go out for our Tasty Thursday or Fun Foody Friday. And then that way, if anything unexpected happen, you still have some buffer to take care of some surprises and unexpected events. So don't overcommit. And I need to learn this because I tend to overcommit.
And ‘E’ is to establish daily priority. Ever since the children are young, we can start asking, what are the first three things that we need to do, is a brushing teeth, eat breakfast, and put away out bed and clothes. And start learning these priorities, and then put it into sequence, make it easier for each age group. The younger children, the fewer things that they may remember, so list just one or two things. When they're older, you may go to three or four things. So they know the order and how much time to allocate for each thing. And then how much time to make sure that we can schedule so that we don't have to rush to go to school, we don't have to rush to get projects done. So, start early and then reflect on small wins. When you're able to finish up the to do list and follow the priority, and even finish ahead of schedule, let's celebrate. Let's have some ice cream or ask how they would like to celebrate. And then from baby steps, small win, you can grow into medium goals or long-term goals, and then they become mature and independent.
Now let's go back to the five ‘P’ model we talked about a few sessions ago. At the time we talk about five ’P’ to help us learn our own life goal and our own mission. We also have families taking my ‘Called To Work’ classes together. And we learned the five ‘P’ as a family, with parents and teenager children or college student or young adult. When we could use the five ‘P’ tool as a family, we now speak the same language. We get to share with each other from the heart. What's your vision? What do you want to be when you grow up? What would your end view picture look like? And then, what is your people relationship like? How do you influence each other? And the, what's your mission that would execute and make the vision happen? And perform.
So we use the same five ‘P’ model for families, so that together, we can discover, develop and then deliver on our five ‘P’ models aligned to our priorities, our values, and defining what our vision is. What we want to be when we grow up. And then the mission, how do we implement the vision and what to do to make it happen so that we can achieve this performance.
So here are some examples. A teenager, 15 years old, high school student, spent 45 minutes with me and we answered the questions and then she came up with her five ‘P’ model as a senior high student. And then you can see the purpose and then build up to principal, passion, and eventually to performance. It ties directly back to her vision, and then put numbers in her performance. How many honors class, what grades you would like to get? How many stress coping strategy, and then how many times to read the bible? Those are good ways to define your five ‘P’.
And then she defined 10 years later when she's 25. What should the five ‘P’ look like? So most of these would remain similar, that she care about her family, her faith, and her home own health. And then what's different are in burgundy. Those are the more adult vision, right? To be a more accomplished professional, work-life balance, exactly our topic right now. And then our career, and then how do we really use our strength, our passion for our work.
So, then we have more examples from parents. So, this is an adult thinking about scriptures that are aligned to her vision. Philippians 2:16, “as you hold firmly to the Word of life.” And then her principal, using 2 Peter 1:5-7, “to make every effort with faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, godliness”. And in her passion is to live out her faith at work, in the family, and in the community. Her people are her patients. She's a doctor, so she takes care of patients. And then also how to help build discipleship, and also help build up other parents, community. And then her performance, she has a few, you see, she want to reach out to 7 non-Christians. We call them seven best. And then she wanted to coach three disciples. So, this is a very good example of a parent, five ‘P’.
And then we have other examples, a teacher in this case, and she even integrated the five ‘P’ with the five ‘P’ blessings that we talked about before. Which is your presence from God, God’s power to help us do what may seem impossible. God promises that are so rich and his word always come true and fulfilling in our life. And God’s provisions, providing the right people at the right time, at the right place. And then God’s pleasant surprises, so she incorporated as her personal mission statement.
And then this is mine. This is my own five ‘P’ model for my big picture for the year 2021. What is my goal this year with this five ‘P’? So, purpose is to expand the ‘Work As Mission Strategic Alliance’, it’s a movement that we have formed about faith and work. And then energize the church to really build this movement together. And now principle is to drive the workplace discipleship both locally and globally, and help the church grow. And my passion is to teach and develop curriculum, and then also coach and do discipleship, both in the workplace and in the family.
And then for people, is to encourage them at work and at home. And then to evangelize to outreach and share the gospel, and to equip leaders so that they can also become bi-vocational ministers to help lead other groups in their company. And then we offer them curriculum so that they can use with video, with questions to discuss in a small group at work and the church.
And finally, the performance, you see my numbers? I want to develop two curriculum this year. And God is so good. We ended up now developing about three by the end of this year. I pray for 20 bi-vocational coaches that I would develop and mentor. And God has given us 27 so far, God has answered our prayer above and beyond. And then I do mentoring of 20 mentees every month. Now I ended up doing more than 20. And then hope to partner with churches. So that's my model.
And that way with the five ‘P’ model, and the three ‘C’s we talked about, you could actually develop a customized personal mission statement. When you have a personal mission statement, then you’re very focused on your goals, in your mission statement and use your time very well in your community, in your calling, or in your career. So, this is my personal mission statement.
We need to answer these four questions with the five ‘P’s that we just talked about, and the three ‘C’s that we discussed before, the calling, career, and community. What is the message I embody based on my passion, principle, and calling? What is the unique task that I want to accomplish? So that's my performance and my career. What is the specific audience that I’m addressing, administering to? Those are the people and community. And finally, what's the ultimate impact? What is the purpose that I want to deliver and really make a difference? So, answering these four questions, this is my personal mission statement, and they're all color coordinated.
So, I would read this statement for you answering these four questions. I am ‘Called To Work’, that's our faith ministry. Sharing my faith journey as a bi-vocational minister, a wife, and a mother… to inspire, encourage and transform lives and to give generously, I want to influence with how I experience Christ in all areas of my missional life. I want to encourage, equip a new generation, of these bi-vocational servant leaders. Both are having a vocation at work and also have a role in the kingdom to serve God with teaching curriculum and life coaching.
And then I want to expand the ‘Work As Mission Strategic Alliance’, WAMSA, the faith and work movement with the workers, leaders, managers, church pastors, and ministry partners. And then ultimately the purpose is to bring people to know and model Christ at work, at home, and in community. We can really achieve and live our cultural mandate, the great commandment, and the great commission. So, this is a good review of our five ‘P’ model, how to help our family to develop that. And then together, we share harmony at work and at home. See you next time.
Reflections:
1. From a life-wide perspective, what points will your 5P model emphasize?
2. What is your most important work goal for the coming year? Please try to build a 5P model around this goal.
3. As a parent, what kind of "mission life" do you want your children to have? Try using the 5P model to chat with your child about your views.