Begin With the End in Mind

I’ve been Revisiting the Seven Habits lately by reading the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It’s been years since I’ve read it, but considering how much I have going on personally and how much change is occurring in our society, I thought I would be proactive and give myself a refresher course. For those of you who haven’t read it, or haven’t read it in awhile, I hope this gives you some inspiration.

When Stephen Covey writes about the second habit of highly effective people, Begin with the End in Mind, he says that everything is created twice: once in the planning, the second in the doing. A building is first drawn up and planned out by the architect and contractor before it is actually constructed. In the film industry, a script is written and shots are designed before productions starts. As we consider the lives we are trying to create, we need to take the same approach by mapping out what we want to achieve and what kind of people we want to be in the process.

If we do not take the initiative to develop the first creation of what our lives are to become, someone else will, be it those who would like to control us or just the chance of circumstance. We have been given the skills that are exclusively human – self awareness, imagination, conscience, and independent will – so that we can create our own lives. Why would we not seize that opportunity? As Covey points out, “Habit 1 says, ‘You are the creator.’ Habit 2 is the first creation.”

The second habit is about leadership, which is different from the management found in the third habit. If management is in charge of getting up the ladder, leadership is about making sure it’s against the right wall. When we begin with the end in mind, we get a clear vision of our direction before we set out on the journey.

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