Start With The End In Mind
By:Lee
Start with the end in mind. Start with the finished product and see what it took to get there from where you currently stand. What does the end look like? Are you sure this is what you’ve wanted all along? What if you won’t want the same thing when at the halfway point and now, you’re stuck? If anxiety has not sent you back to the drawing board, then proceed forward until you start to feel its pull. Now that you have defined what the end looks like, what steps will you take to get there? How many steps are there? How long will each take? All of them? Now that the path has become clearer, is the finish line as bright and inviting as you had hoped? Or has it lost some luster before you reach the line for real even there?
Asking ourselves these questions can be overwhelmingly difficult, especially when the answers become "no's" sooner than expected, if expected at all. Now that the foundations of the goal have been tested, how much different does the end look when the finish line is the starting point? How strong were those foundations? Did they stand the test, or should they be abandoned in favor of starting fresh with a new approach?
Now that the game plan has been audited, time to reformulate. How different does the plan look now with the end in mind? What needs to be changed? Where was the bottleneck? Were there multiple? Be honest with yourself and how you intended to reach your goal and use this exercise as a test run. Imagine if the exercise had not been conducted at all, would you reach your goal at the same pace now that previous problems have been addressed? Or would the goal even be reached at all?
Starting with the end in mind is an invaluable strategy to help one see the path to victory just a little more clearly. No, it is not a guarantee that your endeavor will be successful, but it is guaranteed to aid in your success. Gaps will be filled with solutions that you applied, issues addressed, worries soothed. With no true cost but time, yet potentially yielding a superior product, Start with the end in mind.
“It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the business of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover that it’s leaning against the wrong wall”
- Stephen R. Covey
Start with the end in mind. Start with the finished product and see what it took to get there from where you currently stand. What does the end look like? Are you sure this is what you’ve wanted all along? What if you won’t want the same thing when at the halfway point and now, you’re stuck? If anxiety has not sent you back to the drawing board, then proceed forward until you start to feel its pull. Now that you have defined what the end looks like, what steps will you take to get there? How many steps are there? How long will each take? All of them? Now that the path has become clearer, is the finish line as bright and inviting as you had hoped? Or has it lost some luster before you reach the line for real even there?
Asking ourselves these questions can be overwhelmingly difficult, especially when the answers become "no's" sooner than expected, if expected at all. Now that the foundations of the goal have been tested, how much different does the end look when the finish line is the starting point? How strong were those foundations? Did they stand the test, or should they be abandoned in favor of starting fresh with a new approach?
Now that the game plan has been audited, time to reformulate. How different does the plan look now with the end in mind? What needs to be changed? Where was the bottleneck? Were there multiple? Be honest with yourself and how you intended to reach your goal and use this exercise as a test run. Imagine if the exercise had not been conducted at all, would you reach your goal at the same pace now that previous problems have been addressed? Or would the goal even be reached at all?
Starting with the end in mind is an invaluable strategy to help one see the path to victory just a little more clearly. No, it is not a guarantee that your endeavor will be successful, but it is guaranteed to aid in your success. Gaps will be filled with solutions that you applied, issues addressed, worries soothed. With no true cost but time, yet potentially yielding a superior product, Start with the end in mind.
“It’s incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the business of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover that it’s leaning against the wrong wall”
- Stephen R. Covey
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