HABIT TWO : BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

2 HABIT TWO – BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. As you walk into the chapel, notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and family; you feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known. As you reach the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to-face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from now. Take a seat and look down at the program in your hand. The first speaker is from your extended family; the second is a close friend; the third is an acquaintance from your business life; the fourth is from your church or some community-service organization where you’ve worked. 

What character would you like each of these speakers to have seen in you - what difference would you like to have made in their lives? 

The second habit of effectiveness is to begin with the end in mind. It means to know where you’re going so as to understand where you are now, and take your next step in the right direction. It’s ma7’ingly easy to get caught up in an activity trap in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall. We may be very efficient by working frenetically and heedlessly, but we will be effective only when we begin with the end result in mind. 

1 HABIT ONE – BE PROACTIVE

1 HABIT ONE – BE PROACTIVE

You won’t find it in an ordinary dictionary, but the word is common now in management literature: Proactivity means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. If we think our lives are a function of our conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to have control over us - we have let ourselves become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by the weather, proactive people carry their own weather with them. Being proactive means recognizing our responsibility to make things happen. The people who end up with the good jobs are those who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done.