Hello my fellow bloggers! Today I want to share the second habit to make your life better. Overall, there will be 7 posts with 7 habits. All these articles are inspired by the book “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey. I highly recommend this book for everyone, who doesn’t feel himself happy on a daily basis.
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The second habit is very simple and can be described in a short sentence:
Begin with the end in mind
On the first look, it is very simple. It’s just a common sense to always clearly set your goals. It is applicable for all aspect of your life. Yet this habit is way deeper than you might think. Let me try to explain. The first “layer” of the habit is relatively simple. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation.
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Mental (first) creation
Before you can create anything, you have to come with an idea. The better you visualize it, the better your chances to implement it. It is easy to put examples here. In business, when you want to release a new product, you have to plan it as good as you can. You need think it over several times. Make market investigation, study competitors, make all calculation of expenses and possible profit and etc. In IT, we often say that a day of architecture palling saves a month of development efforts.
The main aspect of the first creation is Leadership. Leadership answers the question: “What to do?”. This is your compass. Before finding the most effective way to climb a mountain, you need to make sure this the mountain you really want to climb. Selecting your goal correctly is more important than finding the best approach to reach it.
Physical (second) creation
Physical creation makes you dreams come true. Once you have a full understanding of your goal, you need to plan how to implement this. On this level you need Management skill. Once you confirmed you are climbing the right mountain, you need to find the best route to its summit. You need to plan how many camps you will have, what tools you will take with you, who will be in your team, how to make summiting as safe as possible and etc.
The second “layer” of the habit is much more complex. I won’t be able to fully explain it in this short article, so I suggest you reading the book yourself. The base part of it, that you should see your life as a whole. Get a dream job, buy tesla, own 100 BTC and other similar things are not the real goals of your life. Your life have many aspects, you play many social roles: son, father, husband and finally yourself. You need to make sure you understand WHO you want to be. Dr. Covey suggest a very powerful tool for this - Personal Mission Statement. This tool focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based. Writing your own personal mission statement is one of the most difficult things ever. It took me around two years to complete it and I’m not even sure it is completed. I would want to give you some tips on this, but won’t be able to explain good enough, so I have to refer to the book here.
Disclaimer
I’m not a financial of any kind. I encourage you to check all information yourself and make decision only based on your own opinion. All articles are created for solely entertainment purpose.
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