Page 45 - stephen covey The seven habits of highly effective people

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
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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