The Weekly Rhythm #3: What do I do when life happens?

Welcome to the Weekly Rhythm!

Last week, I told you I’d be sharing how to make family nights serve your family instead of making your family serve the family night. (That’s a mouthful.)

Strict adhering to routines has been difficult with a full family. It’s inevitable that routines get interrupted. I had to learn this.

When we started our family night five years ago, I felt like it needed to be solid. Stable. An immovable object. A bulwark of refuge that could provide cover from the craziness of life and reconnect us. Family night would be a sacred thing, and we would adhere to it. Week after week we would rotate in age order who we would give preference to.

Then life started to happen.

A friend from out of state was in town that evening. Someone would be sick. Soccer games got scheduled. Overtime at work pulled me away. In these instances, I first saw two options. Either remain the solid fortress of family night being on the week we planned and push out life for the sake of the event, or on the flip side it would be easy to postpone this family night to the next week. Especially in the beginning before it’s settled into a rhythm, it’s almost effortless to make an excuse not to hold your commitment to a family night.

Some of you will think what I’m about to say is massively obvious. Some of you, like me, need to hear this. You can be flexible. Adjust your night as needed. Don’t cancel it or put it off, but rearrange it.

I’m still learning this flexibility. I like things to be stable and in order, but life does happen. In our most recent big adjustment, we had to switch to another night of the week for over a month. But we held to having our family night once a week.

A routine will have you repeating the same order every day like a habit. A rhythm gives you the flexibility to adjust. Let’s see how that works:

Routine: “We have our family night every Saturday and it’s important to stick to this date.” (The routine is the time and place)

Rhythm: “We aim to have our family night every Saturday, but with what’s happening in life right now we need to move it to Tuesday instead. We’ll look at if this is permanent or temporary as we move forward. but we need to keep having our family night.“ (The rhythm is the event that plans to stick to a routine but adjusts when necessary to keep the event)

It’s not going to shake out this way in every family. I don’t want to disparage a routine (which I may have done), but every family faces their own unique set of obstacles and challenges. You know your family best. The point is to have the family night serve your family. It’s not a law you keep, it’s a rhythm to come together around. It serves you. You don’t serve it.

For you to think about this week:

1. Are you more the type who wants to stick to a routine or more the type who needs the flexibility of a rhythm?

2. What parts of your life must be routines and which ones can benefit from becoming flexible rhythms?

For you to act on this week:

1. Ask your family if your are more the routine type or the rhythm type, and what are some reasons for their answer. Warning: These are questions for the brave. You don’t necessarily have to agree or implement, but address the feedback either way. Here’s a couple prompts to get you going: Do I run a tight ship with no room for error? How do I respond when things don’t go according to plan?

Take it slow, but make sure you take it. These kind of conversations are powerful for the growth of your family.

We’ve talked about family night for a couple weeks now and we’ll start to move on. This has mostly been about figuring out a day, scheduling, and having a conversation at home. Let me know how the conversations went as you’ve thought and talked about a family night. Do you have a win? Have you gotten your first night on the calendar? I’d love to hear the story! The Weekly Rhythm is a two way conversation. Either reply to this e-mail or get in touch with me on Twitter.

Next week, we’ll start talking about how to fill in the time of your family night.

Now that I have my family together, what do I do with them?

That’s it for this week. Talk to you soon!

~ J.P.

PS: You’ll get to know me more as this newsletter continues. Knowing and being known is a big thing for me. Introduce yourself by replying to this e-mail (it’ll go right to me). Let me know what has and has not worked for you when it comes to rhythms.