82 pages • 2 hours read
Sean CoveyThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
Nonfiction | Book | YA | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Activities
Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.
“Driving Your Car, Finding Your Road: Your Own Personal Mission Statement”
In this activity, students will be guided through Covey’s concept of a “personal mission statement” to create one of their own. Students will then create a visual tool to illustrate their personal mission and to help them find their ultimate destination.
In Chapter 5 (Habit 2: “Begin with the End in Mind”), Covey strongly recommends that his readers create a personal mission statement, one that will serve as a daily reminder of their top-level goals and principles: “A personal mission statement is like a personal credo or motto that states what your life is about. It is like the blueprint to your life.” Using Covey’s driving analogy, a personal mission statement has two functions: It is like the engine that powers your car and makes it run; it also is like a GPS that helps guide you to where you’re trying to go.
First, take the time to work through the steps Covey outlines in Chapter 5 to create a personal mission statement of your own. For further reference, you may also want to investigate the following resources, both of which may help to spark ideas as you craft your own personal mission statement:
Next, create a “vision board” that will help you to visualize and better anticipate the future for which you are aiming in your personal mission statement. The practice of vision boarding involves collaging materials from books, magazines, and online sources to craft either a physical poster board or an online poster board of your future.
Using either physical materials (poster board, magazines, etc.) or an online design tool, create this graphic representation of their personal mission statement.
As time allows, share your vision boards with the class and discuss the ways in which your personal mission statement is evident in it.
Teaching Suggestion: Given that the nature of the exercise is somewhat personal, you may want to step in with a vision board of your own; you might consider sharing a personal mission statement and vision board for the classroom’s and/or school’s goals to serve as a guide and example. Vision boarding has become a popular activity in recent years; research shows that vision boarding is not merely a trend, but that there may be psychological benefit to the exercise:
