The 7 Habits: Habit 2: Begin With the End In Mind

Introduction

The Habit 2 of Stephen R. Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is "Begin with the end in mind". This habit can be understood with a very simple example of destination. We must have a clear cut idea of our destination during any travel as what will be the purpose of travelling if there is no clarity of destination. We can plan to reach faster to our destination only when we have clarity. Hence beginning with the end in mind refers to starting things off with clear cut idea of final destination so that best possible tactics can be applied to catalyse our success. This habit also helps us to clearly visualise our goals which eventually increases the chances of our success. Stephen Covey said that things are created twice, the first is when our mind built its mental picture and second time in our physical reality. Begin with the End in Mind is a best method to visualise our goal before it become reality.

Step by Step Process

This habit of starting with the end in mind can give you fabulous results. We understood the importance of having the clear understanding of outcomes of desired action and now let’s explore that how we can achieve such vision.
1. Dream Big (Or Small)
I had asked many people about their long term plans like where they see themselves in next 10 years but most of them are still struggling with daily challenges. It is rightly said that if we fail to plan then we plan for a massive failure. Here visualisation technique can help us to visualise our dreams. Sit in solitude for 1-2 hours and focus on your big dreams. Visualise your massive success and think about your feelings at that time. This is called a visualisation technique.

Watch this video to understand that why we must try one more time:

2. Be Honest
We must be honest with ourselves and accurately gauge our current position. Be brutally honest while doing this activity as you need to plan out a path to achieve your ultimate goal. If you clearly see your current position then you can plan a better action plan to reach your final goal.
3. Design a Path
When you are aware of your current position and know your ultimate goal then you can plan a near to straight path to achieve that goal. We can work backwards from the point of achieving your goal. Imagine that you want to learn a guitar then one step backward is to play a good tune on guitar. Before that you must learn easier tunes. But how you’ll learn easier tunes, a teacher is required to teach guitar to us. To hire a teacher you must work in extra shifts to earn more money. Your teacher will then ask you to purchase a guitar and then you have to save money to purchase a Guitar.
A sample path to achieve a goal of learning a Guitar will look like this:
a) Do extra shifts to save money
b) Buy a Guitar and hire a good Guitar teacher
c) Practice easier tunes that she will assign you
d) Keep practicing and begin to learn intermediate tunes
e) Finally ask her to teach you the most difficult tune
f) Master the tune by doing intermittent practice
g) Inform your friends that you have mastered the Guitar
Try this formula and achieve your goal

4. Mission Statement

Now we have already completed most crucial points like Dream Big, Be Honest and Design a Path. Now its time to prepare a mission statement to achieve your goal at a supersonic speed. Mission statement is a sentence that defines our purpose, why that purpose matter to us and how we plan to pursue it.

5. 100% Commitment
The last step is to fully commit towards our goal as we have already identified that our goal resonates with our purpose of life. We also know that where we are and what we have to do to achieve our goal. Our full commitment will increase the chances of achieving our goal by multiple times.

Summary

The vision of keeping end in our mind will surely help us to achieve our goals in a faster manner. This activity helps us to know where we are and what all are those steps that will help us to achieve our goals and which ones are taking us away from our goal. Follow 5 steps mentioned in this article to implement this philosophy.