In business, most people understand the well-known concept of starting at the end.
This was explained in great detail in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The concept says instead of focusing simply on what you are doing today – first, you need to see the end. What is it you are hoping to build?
What do you want to see in 20 years? In 10 years?
Then to work backward from there. If that’s what I want to see in 20 years, then where do we have to be in 10, in 5, in 2, and eventually you can come back to your day-to-day goals with a fresh look.
Instead of just gliding through your day, you can now make each decision, each strategy, with the thought in your mind of what you are striving toward. Now your decisions have purpose.
But, like I said, on the most part we understand this as it relates to running our business.
But - and Covey actually starts with this point in his book - wouldn’t the same concept apply to our lives?
Just like a business – many days, weeks, months, even years are wasted because people just drift. They drift from one day to the next, pick up a habit here, lose a discipline there, and eventually 10 years go by and we think, “What have I been doing?”
Don’t let that be you.
I would challenge you to start at the end when thinking about your life. At the end of your life, what do you want to be? What do you want people to say about you?
What do you want to see in terms of health, relationships, spirituality, family and work?
And if that’s where you want to be at the end of your life, where do you need to be in 20 years? In 10 years?
And come back to today. What are you doing each day that is doing nothing to move you toward that person you are hoping to be? What can you do to have more purpose in how you live your life?
When we can see the end – what we truly want in life – we then have a new lens to view the decisions we make. Each choice is either moving me closer or further away from that end destination.
But without looking ahead, we can’t see it, and we only drift.
And nobody drifts into excellence.
