There’s a song in the Sound of Music which has a line in it “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” It makes sense, doesn’t it? To start at the beginning with anything and everything we do. Or does it? There is another ‘school of thought’ that if we start at the end instead of the beginning we are starting with the end in mind and so being proactive rather than reactive and planning our day or an event rather than just seeing how it goes. I wonder which one of these is you?
Let’s look at both options in more detail. If we start at the beginning and just see how each day or week or month goes then one could argue we are ‘going with the flow’ being flexible and reacting to things that happen as we go along.This theory is great and looks to be a better option as we can’t always put events in boxes and sometimes we can’t always plan for the unexpected.
However, the other option of starting anything, whether it be an event, or action or task or challenge, with the end in mind, would give us focus and direction? Wouldn’t this give us the ability to see our goals or aims more clearly and see if the outcome we expect is what we want or likely to happen at all? Starting with the end in mind enables us to be clear about what we want and decide how we might get it. We can still build choices and options in and be flexible as we work through our set tasks to reach our ‘end result’, but at least we can ‘keep our eye on the ball’ at all times.
Perhaps you can think about what you have done in the past and decide if you feel this has worked for you or not. Either way, you could consider trying the second option and see how this works for you. Are you going to start your day at the beginning or with the end in mind?
