Application Suggestions

1. For a full day, listen to your language and to the language of the people around you. How

often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as "If only," "I can't," or "I have to"

2. Identify an experience you might encounter in the near future where, based on past experience,

you would probably behave reactively. Review the situation in the context of your Circle of Influence.

How could you respond proactively? Take several moments and create the experience vividly in your

mind, picturing yourself responding in a proactive manner. Remind yourself of the gap between

stimulus and response. Make a commitment to yourself to exercise your freedom to choose.

3. Select a problem from your work or personal life that is frustrating to you. Determine whether

it is a direct, indirect, or no control problem. Identify the first step you can take in your Circle of

Influence to solve it and then take that step.

4. Try the 30-day test of proactivity. Be aware of the change in your Circle of Influence.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind TM

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us

-- Oliver Wendell Holme

*

Please find a place to read these next few pages where you can be alone and uninterrupted. Clear

your mind of everything except what you will read and what I will invite you to do. Don't worry

about your schedule, your business, your family, or your friends. Just focus with me and really open

your mind.

In your mind's eye, see yourself going to the funeral parlor or chapel, parking the car, and getting

out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers, the soft organ music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having

known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there.

As you walk down to the front of the room and look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to

face with yourself. This is your funeral, three years from today. All these people have come to honor you, to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life.

As you take a seat and wait for the services to begin, you look at the program in your hand. There

are to be four speakers. The first one is from your family, immediate and also extended -- children,

brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who have come from all

over the country to attend. The second speaker is one of your friends, someone who can give a sense

of what you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession. And the fourth is

from your church or some community organization where you've been involved in service.

Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about you and your life?

What kind of husband, wife, father, or mother would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son

or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of working associate?

What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements

would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would

you like to have made in their lives?

Before you read further, take a few minutes to jot down your impressions. It will greatly increase

your personal understanding of Habit 2.

What it Means to "Begin with the End in Mind"

If you participated seriously in this visualization experience, you touched for a moment some of

your deep, fundamental values. You established brief contact with that inner guidance system at the

heart of your Circle of Influence

Consider the words of Joseph Addison:

When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the

epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider

the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: when I see kings lying by those who

deposed them, I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with

their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and

some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be Contemporaries, and

make our appearance together.

Although Habit 2 applies to many different circumstances and levels of life, the most fundamental

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart application of "Begin with the End in Mind" is to begin today with the image, picture, or paradigm of the end of your life as your frame of reference or the criterion by which everything else is examined.

Each part of your life -- today's behavior, tomorrow's behavior, next week's behavior, next month's

behavior -- can be examined in the context of the whole, of what really matters most to you. By

keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day

does not violate the criteria you have defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life

contributes in a meaningful way to the vision you have of your life as a whole.

To Begin with the End in Mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It

means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the

steps you take are always in the right direction.

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and

harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is

possible to be busy -- very busy -- without being very effective.

People often find themselves achieving victories that are empty, successes that have come at the

expense of things they suddenly realize were far more valuable to them. People from every walk of

life -- doctors, academicians, actors, politicians, business professionals, athletes, and plumbers -- often struggle to achieve a higher income, more recognition or a certain degree of professional competence,

only to find that their drive to achieve their goal blinded them to the things that really mattered most

and now are gone.

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that

picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most. If the ladder

is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but we will also be truly effective only when we Begin with the

End in Mind.

If you carefully consider what you wanted to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find

your definition of success. It may be very different from the definition you thought you had in mind.

Perhaps fame, achievement, money, or some of the other things we strive for are not even part of the

right wall.

When you Begin with the End in Mind, you gain a different perspective. One man asked another

on the death of a mutual friend, "How much did he leave?" His friend responded, "He left it all."

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 846