subject: Achieve Your Goals - Begin With The End In Mind [print this page] Achieve Your Goals - Begin With The End In Mind
Beginning with the end in mind is the second habit from Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This means that whenever you set off on any new venture or activity you should have a clear picture in your mind of what the end result will look like. When you begin with the end in mind, you have a personal compass to guide your daily activities. Without this compass you are unlikely to make significant accomplishment of your goals. Beginning with the end in mind is part of a process called 'personal leadership'; this means taking control of your own life.
Everything we create, we create twice. The first act of creation is when we create something in our minds, the second is when we bring that thing into physical existence. If we take control of the first act, we have an opportunity to set our own compass and take control of the end result. We set our compass using our creativity and conscience.
There are three facets of personal management. First is leadership what do we want to do? Second is management what is the best way to do it? Third is productivity doing it. According to management writers Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, "Management is doing things right; Leadership is doing the right things."
One way to start on the process is to develop a personal mission statement. This will help you focus on what you want to be, what you want to do, and the values that underpin what you want to be and do. The personal mission statement gives basis to the setting your compass.
In order to begin with the end in mind you need to examine the centre of your life. Your centre is where you derive your security, guidance and power. Giving too much importance to people or things external to yourself places you at the mercy of mood swings, inconsistent behaviour and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. At the other end of the scale, being self-centred is inadvisable, as people tend to develop poor mental health when they live in isolation.
By centring your life on correct principles, you create a stable foundation for successful relationships, achievement and financial security. The principles you choose to base your life on should be deep, fundamental truths, classic truths, or generic common denominators. They will become themes running through the fabric of your life.
In developing your personal mission statement, you can use your creativity to imagine milestones such as birthdays, anniversaries, retirement and funerals. What accomplishments would you like to celebrate? Visualize them in rich detail!
You can make your mission statement balanced and easier to work with by breaking it down into the specific role areas of your life and the goals you want to accomplish in each area.
If you find your actions don't fit with your mission statement, you can create affirmations to help you to improve. An affirmation should have five ingredients: it should be personal, positive, present tense, visual and emotional. You can also use visualization techniques. Affirmation and visualization are both self programming techniques that should be used in harmony with correct principles.
Mission statements can also be made for families, departments and organizations of all kinds.
A family mission statement is an expression of its true foundation, its shared vision and values. It should be developed and regularly reviewed by every member of the family able to participate in the process if there is no involvement in the process, there will be no commitment to the statement.
If the mission statement of your family dovetails with your personal mission statement, and you use those statements to keep your end in mind, you will accomplish your goals more quickly and easily.
For more information on how you can improve your personal effectiveness, visit LifeWith Personal Coaching.
