Learning from Others: Part 3

This is the final part to what we have been learning from others so far!

Have a vision for where you are going.

This has maybe helped us more than anything else when we have different ideas about a decision that needs to be made.  Having a common goal for where we are going allows us to take our individual opinions and set them up against this vision.

We ask: does this fit in line with our vision?  Most of the time it is pretty clear and definitely points out selfish motives right away.

Again, the family that helped train us for marriage had their own family vision and encouraged us to develop our's.  My husband wrote two drastically different visions and how our lives would play out in the next 15 years as a result.

One was if we just kept going along the path most people take and the other was a much more "going against the grain" vision.  It became very clear which one was best suited!

Even on our honeymoon this was helpful for talking through things that came up.  It gave us a common ground that we had already agreed upon to begin talking through things.

Since we are two selfish individuals trying to come together as one family, I am not sure how our conversations would go about hard topics.  We would not have a clear purpose for our marriage and would probably just try to constantly win arguments.

Don't get me wrong, I am still selfish and constantly just want to win.  This vision just helps me recognize that faster and try to move out of my self-centered mindset.

This is the main factor that has helped keep fights calm and feelings from getting too hurt. A vision gets you from just focusing on yourself and becoming more of an individual and rather, unites.

It has been fun adapting our vision and seeing how it affects our marriage so far!  Thank you to the families who impacted us in this area.  They get all of the credit!


Other posts in this series:
Learning to Learn From Other People
Learning from Others: Part 1
Learning from Others: Part 2