Begining with the End in Mind

At first glance this headline struck me as odd. I didn't quite grasp what the author, Sean Covey, was trying to get across in the "2 habit" of his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.

Then as I read the "habit",chapter, I understood what he meant.

A summary of those thirty and some odd pages is nicely summed up in a quote from Mencius:

"Men must be decided on what they will not do, and then they are able to act with vigor in what they ought to do."

Sean's ideal way of sticking to your goal's for life was to write them out as a mission statement, a written form of your "will and won't"s, to refer to when you reach a crossroad in life.

So that's what I did. I couldn't find the perfect quote but I found three that do the job:

1. Leave no stone unturned. -Euripides
2. The great man does not think beforehand of his words that they may be sincere, nor of his actions that they may be resolute - he simply speaks and does what is right. -Mencius
3. A man is the orgin of his action. -Aristotle