Covey’s Habits: 2. Begin with the end in mind

“Cheshire Puss,” Alice began,
“would you please tell me which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends on where you want to get to.” said the cat.
- Lewis Caroll in Alice in Wonderland

Habit 1 was about understanding that YOU are in control. Habit 2 is the goal-setting habit. This habit is a lot of fun, and a lot of this blog is about habit 2. Begin with the end in mind is the habit where you get to dream up all the good stuff.

This habit is based on the fact that everything is created twice. The first creation is in the mind, the second creation is in the real world. This is always true! The trick is to think about what your goals are consciously (habit 1: take control, be proactive)!

This is the good part, you can now think of everything you want to achieve. Make sure that it is authentic, that it is part of what YOU want to achieve, and not what others want you to achieve. I encourage you to write it down, both for later reference and for deepening your thoughts.

Energy flows where attention goes

The movie The Secret (fanacritical review by me here) is mostly about this habit. The Secret is a movie about the Law of Attraction. This law says that there is power to thoughts (one of the concepts in NLP as well): if you think about something, you will attract it to you. James Arthur Ray phrases it like this:

Energy flows where attention goes.

Create that what you want in your mind, and the (your) energy flows in that direction. Knowing what you want will help recognize everything that is going to support you in achieving what you want (the second creation). Mind you, you still have to work for it! But the process will be so much more productive, because you will (subconsciously) recognize opportunities that will help you.

Visualize it!

The power of this habit is in your ability to make a clear representation of your goals. The more detail you have in the representation the better. Make sure you are representing it from the first-person perspective (see it through your eyes), make it full of vivid colors, hear the sounds and so on. The better you can experience being in the desired situation, the more power the representation gets.

For most people this means visualizing. However, if you prefer the auditory representation system (modalities in NLP): try to hear the sounds associated with the desired state, what music do you hear, what conversations are going on etc. For people with a preference for feeling/touch (kinesthetic), what does the situation feel like, what’s the temperature, what movements are associated with it. Get the drift? You can test your preference here.

This habit is a lot of fun to do. Do this often, it will deepen your experience and it will bring you closer to achieving what you want.

Covey covers different topics in his book, a.o. mission statements, getting the extreme end in mind (death), and principle-driven life. I will discuss these topics in future posts. Can’t wait? You can buy Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People at Amazon, or as an audiobook here. There’s also an audiobook on this habit alone. Get the DVD of the movie The Secret here.

Next week habit 3: Put first things first