Habit 2 - Begin With the End in Mind.

Hi there, Steve Kaufmann here. Today is the second in this series of short videos about Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His second habit was what he calls ‘Begin With the End in Mind.’ This is very important. I’ll give you an example.

I had a meeting with about 50 Chinese immigrants, here in Vancouver, who were complaining about the difficulty they had in speaking English. They claimed that they could read, perhaps didn’t understand quite a well when they were listening, but they had real trouble saying something. My question to them is: What is their vision of what they would like to be able to do in English? If their vision of what they want to do in English when suddenly confronted with an English-speaking person is to be able to say something in English.

I should point out that these were housewives, wives of wealthy Chinese immigrants who don’t have much interaction with Canadian society, but then when they are confronted with the need to speak English, of course, can’t do so. I said, what’s your goal and they weren’t really clear. I said that if I were you, if I had immigrated to another country, because I’m an adult and I can communicate as an adult in my own language, my goal in this new language, especially if I’m living there, is to be able to communicate as an adult in the new language on a wide range of subjects without struggling, without seeming to be foolish. That’s the goal.

You have to have a clear idea of that goal. If you have a clear idea of that goal you will achieve it. If you don’t have a clear idea of that goal, if you think you’re just going to learn some words and try and learn some grammar rules and then wonder why you can’t communicate properly you will probably not succeed. I always make the case if you don’t know where the top of the mountain is, if you can’t visualize yourself reaching the top of the mountain you probably won’t make it to the top of the mountain.

So I think the second of Covey’s habits, insofar as language learning is concerned, is this habit of saying here’s what I want to achieve. I can visualize myself achieving this and, therefore, I will work as hard as I can to achieve it.

So that is habit number two. Thank you for listening, bye for now.