Habit 2: Begin with end in mind

Habit 2: Begin with End in Mind


Sean Covey’s second habit is described as Begin with End in Mind. As I have begun to find out throughout the entire book, he effectively makes everything sound easy and reassuring, and advice that is truly applicable to me.
He starts out by simply saying we are the driver of our life, and since we are the driver, we must draw up the map and decide where we are going, and how to get there. When I first read this I thought to myself, “how can I expect to know what I want to do later on my life”? As with this entire book, you have to apply it to yourself. Sure, there are kids out there who have known since freshman year in high school where they would like to be going for college, what they would be studying, and what profession they would like to get into. I am not/was not one of those kids. I was just happy to see what happens. (Which according to Covey is an example of being the “passenger” in the drive of life…Not so good.) A truly interesting realization I made when I read this was that the kids who do have a concrete plan and idea of where they are going are nearly 100% of the time the kids who are making the good grades, the kids who are happy, and the kids that are succeeding in whatever they are doing. I don’t want to dwell on the past, (and I know I have experienced some success) but it would have been nice to have developed, especially with my college search process, with an end in mind.
Again, I will say it 100 times, the key to this book is to apply it to yourself. I can site a perfect example where I began with the end in mind. My senior year cross country season. After my junior year, I began with end in mind. I told myself, “I am going to win the state championship next year”. I set a goal, set an end in mind, and knew what it would take to reach that goal. Winning a race is like building a cake. You have to pick out a recipe (the race in mind, in this case the State Championship) and then follow the instructions (training) and then you get to eat the cake (winning the state championship). Every example that I can think of in my life where I began with an end in mind, I always have experienced success, joy, happiness, that whole bucket of enjoyable emotions. Winning the state championship was perhaps my greatest achievement I have ever made, something I will remember forever. It was done by beginning with end in mind.
This book continues to have an eerie effect on me. It is like it reads my mind. I just start reading the pages, not really knowing what to expect or what to think, and then just it all starts falling into place. I tell myself that plans like this could never work, but then the examples of how it will work simply fall into place for me, making total sense. I tell myself “wow, that really is true”. Beginning with end in mind is so simple and so straightforward, but it is sad how many of us (me included) fail to realize this simplicity. Again, you cant take every single thing from this book, but you can make take what makes sense to you and what applies to you.