Partner Article

Begin with the end in mind

I’m a big fan of Stephen Covey and his book ’The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ (if you haven’t read it I strongly recommend you do). This article is inspired by habit number two: ‘Begin with the end in mind’, a habit that I have taken for myself.

Begin with the end in mind means to begin today with an image or picture of the end of your life. To use this as your frame of reference, as the criteria by which you examine everything you do or try to achieve.

Try this visualisation exercise; get yourself in the frame of mind of attending a funeral of a loved one. In your mind’s eye see yourself driving to that funeral, arriving, getting yourself seated at the back of the church. There is an obvious appreciation of the departed one’s life and a lot of love in the atmosphere. As time goes by you come to a growing awareness that it will be your funeral and you in a coffin, perhaps 30 years from now.

At your funeral the venue is packed with people you knew and there will be four speakers that are going to share your life. These are:

• An aunt, uncle or other family member.
• A close friend who can give a sense of who you were as a person and a friend.
• Someone from your work environment or outside activity.
• A representative of your church or community organisation that you gave service to.

Now think, what would you like to have said about your life and actions, your character, your contributions and achievements? Think careful on those roles and write your own urology.

If you participated seriously in this exercise you may have touched for a moment or two on some of your deepest fundamental values. You may even have found your definition of success. Maybe it is very different from the definition you that you had in mind.

This habit to begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. We all have a loose feel for what we think is of value to us but loose in my experience is simply not going to make it happen for you. Our actions and our behaviours come directly from our thought processes and goals. The clearer your goals the more refined your actions and behaviours will be.

For example, we may think from time to time that we’d want people to say nice things about us. If we take this ‘from time to time’ thought and embed it into our core, our actions and behaviours will flow from this. In essence decide what your own value system is. Write your own philosophy, your own mission statement, your own creed, your belief system. And get it written into your mind and heart through the use of imagination and emotion. Don’t tie yourself to your history, tie yourself to your potential and your future.

Examining your core values is essential. Be proactive; your actions and behaviour come from your core values rather than being reactive, where behaviour and actions stem from your feelings.

Unless you have a deep seated knowledge of what your core values are you will remain reactive and not proactive. Knowing what your core values are will help immensely with setting your life goals. You will naturally become an overcomer, a solution solver and not a problem maker.

Do not be someone that always sees the negative side to everything. This will cloud your sense of destiny and core value system. Be the person that sees problems as a challenge and inspires those around them with solutions and vision.

Your day-to-day actions flow from your awareness of your core values, so ensure these are clear and deep-seated. Success will follow.

Kevin Byrne, Checkatrade.com

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kevin Byrne .