Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind

The chapter began with the author asking the reader to picture themselves at their own funeral. Then to imagine what the reader would want the people giving the speeches to say about them. When you come up with what you would want said about yourself, you see what are the most important things to you. These are the things you should be making sure you accomplish in life.

If you begin with the end in mind, you can make sure, on a day-to-day basis that what you are accomplishing during your day is actually something that is important to you.

One of the most important things I took from this chapter so far is the fact that you can busy yourself with many things, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you are being effective. The world will give you many things to keep busy with, but unless you keep a tab on what you are doing and making sure that it is in line with your end goal, you could busy yourself with many things that don't really matter.

Beginning with the end in mind is based on the principle that all things are created twice. For example in construction, the architect builds every detail of the building on paper before a single nail has been hammered in. It is the same thing with our lives; if we do not plan ahead as to what we want to be accomplishing, we by default empower other people and circumstances to shape our lives. We will be constantly reacting to things around us instead of proactively makings sure that we are the architects in our own lives.

Beginning with the end in mind is a practice of personal leadership. Leadership works at directing the ship, whereas management makes sure the rowing is being done effectively. If we are not leading out in the direction we want to go, it doesn't matter how good managers we are, as we will only be effective in going in the wrong direction. Effectiveness does not depend solely on how much effort we expend, but on whether or not our efforts are focused on going in the right direction.

We need to make sure we have clarified our values and goals before we start expending energy and efforts that could possibly be leading us in the wrong direction. One way we can make sure we are always effectively moving in the right direction is by creating a personal mission statement. With this statement, we can compare our actions on a regular basis to what we have written as our most important goals.