In a Maze?: Begin with the End in Mind! (Heroic +1 #1,798)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. The other morning, Eleanor and I were having fun playing a hidden puzzle game in the new Highlights magazine she got from Grandma and Grandpa for her seventh birthday. We found hundreds and hundreds of those little hidden images together. It's always super fun. Now this time we flipped the page and did one of those mazes where you need to start at one spot and get through the maze to the finish. Now, I know how you're supposed to play the game, which is kind of sort of wander through the maze from the beginning and hope you don't get lost on your way to the end. But I can't help but channel my inner Stephen Covey when I see one of these mazes. As you may recall, habit one of highly effective people is to be proactive. We want to, as Jocko Willink would advise us, take extreme ownership, 100% responsibility, no excuses, period. Then once we take 100% responsibility for our lives and quit being a victim, blaming others for what we don't have, it's time to decide what we want. Enter habit number two of highly effective people. Begin with the end in mind. We need to know what we want. Then start from that point and work back to where we are right now to figure out how we get to the that desired end state. And that's how I like to play the maze game. Starting at the end, then working my way back to the beginning. It's remarkably easier than that kind of sort of wandering through the maze. So that's what I was chatting about with Eleanor as we played that morning, and that's today's. You find yourself a bit stuck in a maze in your life and feeling a bit lost. Step back, try to see the final destination you'd like to arrive at, know you can get there and map out your pathways. Then have fun navigating the inevitable wrong turns as you find your way out. Bonus points for doing it all with a friend and a smile today.