After 45 years of living I seem to have come up with the explanation to that line. Every single time in every single endeavour… begin with the end in mind!. If you can see it with your minds eye you can achieve it. Case in point, actually I’ll give you two examples.
1. coffee earlier today — We were done with the awesome stuff from Great Value and it was time to move over to the beans from Trader Joes. Typically any new coffee tends to take a couple of mugs before it grows on you. Today though I approached it with a this is going to be the best coffee I’ve had so far approach and indeed it turned out exactly as I had thought it would. The grind was perfect, the temperature of the water when it hit the coffee powder in the drip filter was perfect, the half and half was perfect temperature and as a result the end result was such that the wife said we should have another one of these in the evening (we usually have decaf lately if we do have a coffee in the evening). So yeah it was in short so perfect that madam is willing to risk staying up late.
2. Lunch today — most days lunch is an all by myself affair and it is usually a raid on the fridge. The cook comes in the evening (logically there is no point in having someone cook for me alone during the day time coz kids eat at school and SG has her lunch at the office). I cook once in a while but usually it’s just whatever is there in the fridge or bread, butter, jam with milk. So today I remembered good tandoori rotis from the meal at KDs place earlier in the week. That led to mutton roast and I landed up at Shah Ghouse (yeah some people do refer to it as Shag House but then it’s not that). Zomato delivered quickly and as I set out to eat I thought oho I should’ve ordered four rotis three looks like it’ll be inadequate and then course correcting myself I thought three is better four would be too much and then I looked at the food closed my eyes and said this will be an amazing meal I am going to really have fun today, took a deep breath, opened my eyes and started eating. Slowly working through the food I actually relished each morsel more than the previous one. Sending off an I’m the best, I did such an amazing thing ordering this food (yeah well narcissistic rascal only I am). The food indeed was just perfect and in the last morsel I still had a piece of mutton left on the plate enough to supersize that morsel and do another round of self praise ohohohoho mazaa aagaya yaar, you’re too good (yeah occasionally my self conversation is pretty on point… mostly it is pretty dark,negative and self deprecating)
So yeah when you begin with the end in mind chances are that you will get there or at the very least there abouts. The key is to visualize and see the outcome of any situation as you want it to be and then set out to make it happen. Not just that, at every step of your journey you need to reevaluate and reaffirm your faith in the experiential outcome, the journey after all is the destination. There are innumerable number of examples I could give where I see this in action.
Why does it happen this way that the people who doubt the outcomes end up attracting failure more often than not and those who go in with the firm belief and clear picture of the outcome almost always achieve what they set out to do? I think the answer lies in the commitment that belief and vision bring to the table. Because the outcome is something you have visualized, because you plan for the after party before you even send out the invites to the party, because you are clear on what exactly you are setting out to do you are in a way committed to not just the immediate outcome but also to the carry through (using a tennis metaphor here…. you do not just hit the ball and end there, you follow through with the racket and at the same time reposition yourself towards the center of court in anticipation of the next hit). That commitment ensures that you are invested one hundred percent in the whole process. It is your baby, you dreamed it up and however much the world may say it is not possible you are here to prove them all wrong by breaking new ground if need be.
There’s a thing I always say to myself “there is no target that I have set for myself that I have not thoroughly and absolutely demolished“. I know it sounds grandiose and stupid… it just works for me though. So yeah begin with the end in mind, prepare for the after party not just for the success (bring the umberlla to the prayer meet for rain), always believe in your ability to demolish targets, never look at anybody else as competition rather consider them all very powerful adversaries who have been provided so that you can practice against them, improve your game and eventually come out just a little bit better than all of them (after that just keep competing against yourself every single day to improve on perfection).
Baaki itna sab gyaan from a coffee and a meal… anything can inspire.