Live Your Mission

As I began to prepare to return to work, I was overcome with both excitement and anxiety.  I was thankful to return to a job that gives me purpose with people who inspire me everyday.  I was also sad to leave my little guy so early.  Major life events often force us to take a second look at our mission.  Over the holidays, I felt overwhelmed by the need to clearly define my personal mission and my family's mission.  For me, trying to balance the demands of family and work required clearly defining the "why" of our family and making sure that we were living a life that aligned to our mission.

I spoke with my husband about my idea for creating a family mission statement and he was on board.  On New Year's Eve, we sat down with our children and had them say whatever they wanted to about what they considered our core values, "why" our family existed, our family's purpose, etc.  We were amazed by the comments they made and tried to let their voices be the loudest in the room.

It took a few more days of writing and clarifying but after several drafts we had a family mission statement.  I used recitethis.com from our August PD to turn our words into a beautiful piece of wall art and hung our mission statement in our kitchen.  In addition, the girls also created personal vision boards, similar to the Begun With the End in Mind Road activity many teachers use, to help them achieve their short term goals and think about their long term goals.

Creating Vision Boards

In one of the 7 Habits videos, Stephen Covey talks about how he walked on the beach and sat down to write his mission statement.  He said that after several hours he had a mission statement and was overcome by a feeling of clarity.  I can honestly say that after spending the time to create our family mission statement, I too was left with a feeling of peace and clarity.  Remember, as Antoine de-Saint Exupery said, 

Keep living the 7 Habits!  Research shows that we are happiest when we have a strong purpose and the vitality to pursue our purpose.  Is your daily life aligned to your mission statement?  

Big Rocks:

A big thank you to Judy, Robin, Diane, Ron, Mary Ann, Nicole, and Julie for all of their hard work for Career Day.  We have 23 speakers this year and we will be ready to welcome them on Friday. The schedule is as follows:

Breakfast

Session One: 9:10-9:40

Session Two: 9:50-10:20

Session Three: 10:30-11:00

Presentation and Lunch 11:15

An additional thank you to Karen and Fatino for the musical presentation and spirit singers and all staff who are working with students to prepare them for their Career Day jobs.

We have two new staff members!  A warm welcome to our new gym teacher, Julie Adams, and a big congratulations to Jillian Black who was officially hired as our new Center teacher.  We are so happy to have both of you join the Cooper team!

Week of January 26:

Monday: Sarah and Terry Lunch Meeting with Speech Writers 11:15

Tuesday: Lighthouse Meeting 3:45

Wednesday: Cooper Learning Lab 8:00-11:00

                    Planning Team 3:45

Thursday: 7 Habits Administer Training (Terry all day, Sarah 12:15-3:15)

                 Menchies Fundraiser

Friday: Career Day 9:00-1:00