Begin with the End in Mind – Habit #2

Habit #2, in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, starts with a thought experiment – imagining that you are at YOUR funeral!  There will be 4 speakers – one from your family, a friend, a co-worker, and someone from your church or service organization you are involved with.  What would you like each to say about you and your life?  What character would they have seen in you?  What contributions and achievements do you want them to remember?  What difference would you like to have made in their lives?  (What would you have done differently? – my addition)

Covey contends that IF we participate seriously in this visualization experiment we will see our “deep, fundamental values.”  “Each part of your life…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 while.

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.”

The question – What do YOU want said at YOUR funeral?  HOW do You want to live YOUR life – so that it is real, observed, unquestioned by those around you?

I challenge you to write down Your life message.  Distill it down so it is crisp, succinct – captures YOUR essence.  Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” 

At the risk of alienating you, I will share my life message:

I want it said that “he boldly and confidently lived his faith, evidenced by the fruits of the spirit.  Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”   Am I there – NO, but it guides and drives me to be a better person. 

By Design or Default

In Habit #2, Covey says that “…if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default.  We reactively live the scripts handed to us by family, associates, other people’s agendas, the pressures of circumstance – scripts from our earlier years, from our training, our conditioning.

These scripts come from people, not principles.  And they rise out of our deep vulnerabilities, our deep dependency on others and our needs for acceptance and love, for belonging, for a sense of importance and worth, for a feeling that we matter.”

The I Dare to Act community is challenging YOU to understand YOUR deep fundamental values and then design a life based on these values - these principles that are true to you alone – rather than just living by default in the whirlwind of life.

The questions for you – What are your deep, fundamental, unchanging values?  What needs to change in your life to ensure you live by design and not by default?