Begin with the end in mind

I think it was Stephen Covey who said “begin with the end in mind.”  Why that is at the forefront of my thinking right now is that it is very much what I want to do.
It seems to make sense to me to work out what I want and to work backwards and fill in the steps to achieve that.  I feel it is really important to know what what I want looks like.  I ask myself the question “what would what I want look like functioning as it should?”
I know that adjustments are needed at times.  But there was something I learned crewing on a sailing boat.  The hardest part was getting started.  Making adjustments was the easy part.  I find that in life in general.  I will always commit myself to a minimum amount of time.  Chances are I will go over it but because starting is the hardest part I commit to making a start and take it from there.
We have chairs that are coming apart.  Merril and I wanted to fix them.  So we made a start and the back of it is broken now.  We knew what we wanted to look like.  Having done some, I put a completed one in a public space.  Success in this case was having no one notice.  We are on the home run now.
Having the end in mind in my mind prepares me for the hard times that inevitably come.  Life is not all highs.  It is not all lows either.  For me it is a mixture of both with a lot of everyday life in between.
I find such things easier to handle when I know the track I am on leads to where I want to go.  It is also easier if what I go through is a part of the process designed to get me there.  For sure not al is easy or is all desirable but all potentially works for my good if I am willing to let it and do not too readily give myself to moaning beyond what is reasonable.
It seems to me trouble is inevitable, but it is not all there is.  In fact, it is for me in the minority.  The life I choose for myself is not necessarily easy, but it is best I am willing to pay what price may be necessary to achieve my goal.