Decide Where We Want to Go Before We Decide What to Do
Habit 1 begins with a powerful realization:
We are responsible for how we respond to life.
But responsibility alone isn’t enough.
We can become very good at taking action and still end up moving in the wrong direction.
So the next question becomes:
Where are we actually going?
That’s the essence of Stephen Covey’s second habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:
Begin With the End in Mind.
Before we start building, we need to know what we’re trying to create.
Before we start a journey, we need to know where we want to go.
And before we spend years building a life, it is worth asking:
What kind of life are we actually trying to build?
The End in Mind
One of the most memorable exercises from this chapter is to imagine our own funeral.
Not exactly the cheeriest exercise. 😂
But it forces us to step outside our current circumstances and imagine the end of the journey.
What would we want the people who matter to us to say about us?
Our family.
Our friends.
Our colleagues.
The people we have influenced.
What would they remember?
What would they say we stood for?
What difference did we make in their lives?
And perhaps the more important question:
“Does the way we are living today lead toward the person we want them to remember?“
That question turns the idea of a “life vision” from an abstract exercise into something much more personal.
Once we have decided what we would want them to say about us, we can occasionally ask ourselves:
“Do our actions today lead to what we would want them to say about us?
If they do, great!
If they don’t, we’d better work on them.”
Our eventual legacy isn’t created on the day people remember us.
It is created through the way we live every day before then.
Reverse Engineering Goals
Once we know where we want to go, we can work backward.
I think of this as reverse engineering our goals.
Suppose we want to achieve a particular outcome.
Instead of asking only:
“What should we do next?”
we ask:
“What needs to happen before we can achieve that?”
Then we keep breaking the answer down and backwards.
For example, if our goal were to generate $1.2 million a year:
$1.2 million annually
↓
$300,000 quarterly
↓
$100,000 monthly
↓
Weekly target
↓
Daily activities
↓
What we need to do now
The numbers themselves aren’t the point.
The principle is.
A large goal can feel overwhelming when we look at it as one giant destination.
Reverse engineering turns it into a sequence of smaller milestones.
Start with the destination. Work backward until we reach where we are today.
Then we can build the path forward.
In short, start with the desired outcome and reverse engineer the path to get there.
Create a Personal Mission Statement
Covey also introduces the idea of a Personal Mission Statement.
At first, this may sound like something designed to be printed, framed and hung on a wall.
But the statement itself isn’t the important part.
The clarity behind it is.
A personal mission statement gives us a framework for making decisions based on our values and purpose.
It helps answer questions such as:
- What do we stand for?
- What matters most to us?
- What kind of person do we want to become?
- What roles do we want to fulfil?
- What principles should guide our decisions?
- And Add a Why to the What.
A mission statement without personal meaning is just words on paper.
The real value comes when it becomes a compass for our actions.
When we’re faced with competing opportunities, difficult decisions, or distractions, our values can help us decide what deserves our attention.
This also reminds me of another framework I’ve encountered through the SAF: Values, Identity and Purpose (VIP).
- Our values help us decide what matters.
- Our identity helps us decide who we are.
- Our purpose helps us decide why we are here and where we want to contribute.
Together, they give us a stronger compass for deciding what deserves our time, attention and energy.
What Is at the Center of Our Life?
Another fascinating idea from this chapter is the concept of our center.
Whatever we place at the center of our lives can influence how we see everything around us.
Covey describes four important things that our center affects:
- Security: What gives us a sense of worth and stability?
- Guidance: What influences our decisions and direction?
- Wisdom: How do we interpret our experiences and understand the world?
- Power: What gives us the ability and motivation to take action?
Our center can be many things:
- A spouse.
- Family.
- Money.
- Work.
- Possessions.
- Pleasure.
- Friends.
- An enemy.
- Religion.
- Or even ourselves.
The point isn’t that every one of these is inherently good or bad.
The question is:
What happens when we place our entire sense of security, guidance, wisdom, and power in one thing?
If our identity depends entirely on our career, what happens when we lose the job?
If our self-worth depends entirely on money, what happens when we lose it?
If our happiness depends entirely on another person, what happens when circumstances change?
If our center is built around something that continually drains us, eventually everything around us feels the effect.
If we don’t take care of ourselves, how can we take care of others?
Our center matters because whatever sits at the center of our lives has a powerful influence on us. It shapes our attitudes, our behaviours, our decisions and ultimately the way we respond to life.
If the center we have now does not empower us to be proactive, perhaps it is time to reconsider what we have placed at the center of our lives.
We should be the ones influencing our center, not allowing our center to control us.
What We Focus On, We Give Power To
This is one of my own takeaways from the chapter:
“What i focus on, i give power to it.
But remember that it is i who choose what to focus on!” – Max Yeo
Our attention is not unlimited.
Whatever repeatedly receives our attention tends to occupy more space in our thinking, emotions and actions.
So choosing what deserves our focus is itself a form of leadership.
And this connects directly back to Habit 1.
We learned to take responsibility for our response.
Now we begin deciding what we want our response to move toward.
We don’t control everything.
But we can choose what we give our attention, energy and effort to.
Create Twice
Covey describes the principle of creation twice:
Everything is created first in the mind, and then in reality.
A building is designed before it is constructed. The blueprint begins with a vision.
A business is imagined before it exists.
A journey is planned before we take it.
And our lives are shaped in much the same way.
If we don’t consciously create the first version in our minds, we can easily end up living according to someone else’s design.
Society’s expectations.
Other people’s definition of success.
Circumstances.
Habit.
Convenience.
We may spend years climbing a ladder only to discover that it was leaning against the wrong wall.
Beginning with the end in mind gives us the opportunity to choose the wall before we start climbing.
Visualization and Affirmation
The chapter also explores visualization and affirmation as tools for personal leadership.
Visualization allows us to create a mental picture of the outcome we want.
But I don’t see visualization as simply wishing for something and waiting for it to happen.
The useful part is the clarity it creates.
A good affirmation should be:
- Personal
- Positive
- Present tense
- Visual
- Emotional
When we can see, feel, and understand what we’re working toward, our daily decisions can become more aligned with that vision.
The mind creates the first version.
Our actions determine whether that version ever becomes reality.
Lead Ourselves Before We Lead Others
There is another layer to Habit 2 that I find important.
Leadership begins with ourselves.
Before we can lead a team, business or organization toward a destination, we need to know what destination we’re heading toward.
Otherwise, being highly productive simply means we are becoming very efficient at moving without direction.
And this is where Habit 1 and Habit 2 connect beautifully:
Habit 1: Be Proactive – We are responsible for how we respond.
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind – We decide what we want our lives to move toward.
Then Habit 3 naturally asks the next question:
How do we organize our lives around what matters most?
That’s where the journey continues.
My Takeaway
For me, Begin With the End in Mind is ultimately about personal leadership.
We don’t have to know every step of the journey.
We don’t even have to know exactly how we’re going to get there.
But we should have some idea of where we want to go and why it matters.
Because every day, we’re making choices.
Some choices move us closer.
Some choices move us further away.
And some simply consume our time without taking us anywhere meaningful.
The clearer our destination, the easier it becomes to recognize the difference.
We don’t need to see the entire path. We just need to know the direction we’re walking.
And once we know the direction, we can begin choosing what deserves our attention.
P.S. If i don’t have my Private Victory, how will i have a Public Victory?
Continue the Journey
← Habit 1: Be Proactive – Taking responsibility for how we respond to life.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Timeless Lessons for Life and Leadership
→ Habit 3: First Things First – Organizing our lives around what matters most.