First Things First

by Stephen R. Covey

The Quadrant II process would be incomplete without closing the loop—without turning the experience of one week into the foundation for the increased effectiveness of the next.

As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently.

It’s easy to say “no!” when there’s a deeper “yes!” burning inside.

The single most significant factor, he realized, was a sense of future vision—the impelling conviction of those who were to survive that they had a mission to perform, some important work left to do.1

a compelling, future-oriented vision is the primary force that kept many of them alive.

The power of vision is incredible!

Vision is the best manifestation of creative imagination and the primary motivation of human action.

More than any other factor, vision affects the choices we make and the way we spend our time.

Good or bad, these scripts can keep us from connecting with who we are and what we’re about.

This passion can empower us to literally transcend fear, doubt, discouragement, and many other things that keep us from accomplishment and contribution.

As he focused on his vision, his personality weaknesses were essentially eclipsed. Vision and purpose created personality growth and development.

He wanted to love people, to serve people, to be with people.

The power of transcendent vision is greater than the power of the scripting deep inside the human personality and it subordinates it, submerges it, until the whole personality is reorganized in the accomplishment of that vision.

The passion of shared vision empowers people to transcend the petty, negative interactions that consume so much time and effort and deplete quality of life.

One of the most powerful processes we’ve found to cultivate the passion of vision is creating and integrating an empowering personal mission statement.

What we’re talking about here is not simply writing a statement of belief. We’re talking about accessing and creating an open connection with the deep energy that comes from a well-defined, thoroughly integrated sense of purpose and meaning in life. We’re talking about creating a powerful vision based on the true north principles that ensure its achievability. We’re talking about the sense of excitement and adventure that grows out of connecting with your unique purpose and the profound satisfaction that comes in fulfilling it.

This quick exercise will give you some insight into the potential power and passion of vision.

In order to do it, we have to get into and create an open connection with our deep inner life.

One of the most powerful uses of self-awareness is to become aware of conscience and how it works within us.

Only as we tap into our conscience can we discover our unique purpose and capacity for contribution.

What you alone can contribute, no one else can contribute.

Viktor Frankl said we don’t invent our mission; we detect it. It’s within us waiting to be realized.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s ta...

Every human being has a work to do, duties to perform, influence to exert, which are peculiarly his, and which no conscience but his own can teach.

Only as we connect with our conscience in this deep inner life can we create the fire within.

We have to turn inwards, to look into ourselves; look into this container which is our soul; look and listen to it.

Conscience not only puts us in touch with our own uniqueness; it also connects us with the universal true north principles that create quality of life.

Once we tap into conscience, we can use our endowment of creative imagination to envision and give meaningful expression to conscience-inspired vision and values by creating an empowering personal mission statement.

After writing a mission statement, we can use our creative imagination to visualize ourselves living it—today

We can live out of our imagination instead of our memory.

When living our mission statement means swimming upstream, going against the environment or our own deeply ingrained habits or scripts, we can use our endowment of independent will. We can act instead of being acted upon.

The passion of vision gives us a new understanding of independent will. Without the passion of vision, “discipline” is regimentation and restraint—control yourself, grit your teeth, white-knuckle your way through life.

But the passion of vision releases the power that connects “discipline” with its root word, “disciple.” We become followers of our inner imperatives, voluntarily subordinating the less important to that deep burning “yes!” Instead of “control,” we’re focused on “release.”

The key to motivation is motive.

These statements are incredibly diverse.

Each person’s personal vision is unique.

Regardless of who or where they are, when people get into their deep inner lives, they sense true north.

It’s not enough to have values without vision—you want to be good, but you want to be good for something.

A mission statement with these characteristics will have the comprehensiveness, depth, and principle-based foundation to make it empowering.

Even with a powerful written document, it’s vital to realize that it’s impossible to translate the mission to the moment in our lives without weekly cultivation—pondering over it, memorizing it, writing it in our heart and in our mind, reviewing it, and using it as the basis for weekly Quadrant II organizing.

To be empowering, it has to become a living document, part of our very nature so that the criteria we’ve put into it are also into us, into the way we live our lives day by day.

When we talk about time management, it seems ridiculous to worry about speed before direction, about saving minutes when we may be wasting years.

Creating and integrating an empowering personal mission statement is one of the most important Quadrant II investments we can make.

What is quality of life if it isn’t spending time with the people you love most?

The most frequently mentioned conflict is between work and family roles.

Obviously, balance is a “true north” principle.

“One man cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.”2

“You think because you understand one you must understand two, because one and one makes two. But you must also understand and.”

When we begin to apply this paradigm on a personal basis, we see that balance in our lives isn’t a running between compartments; it’s a dynamic equilibrium. It’s all parts working synergistically in a highly interrelated whole.

But the reality is that the same person who gets up, showers, and eats breakfast in the morning is also the person who interacts with clients at the office, makes presentations to the board, coaches the Little League team, cleans out the garage, and goes to church. Whatever we are we bring to every role in our life.