“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a business and self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey, its first published in 1989. The main focuses of the book is the 7 habits as you can tell from the title. I’ll start off listing the 7 habits and briefly explain each one to give you a concept of what each means.
- Be Proactive. Take initiative in life by realizing that your decisions are the primary determine factor for effectiveness in your life. Take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow.
- Begin with the End in Mind. Self-discover and clarify your deeply important character values and life goals. Envision the ideal characteristics for each of you various roles and relationships in life. Create a mission statement.
- Put First Things First. Prioritize, plan, and execute your week’s task based on importance rather than urgency. Evaluate where your efforts exemplify your desired character values, propel you toward goals, and enrich the roles and relationships that were elaborated in Habit 2.
- Think Win-Win. Genuinely strive for mutually beneficial solutions or agreements in your relationships. Value and respect people by understanding a ” win” for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution than if only one person in the situation had gotten his way.
- Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood. Use empathetic listening to be genuinely influenced by a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem solving.
- Synergize. Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals no one person could have done alone. Change of attitude. When one works on attitude nothing can be a hindrance to ones’ effectiveness in life.
- Sharpen the Saw. Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term,effective lifestyle. It primarily emphasizes exercise for physical renewal, prayer and good reading for mental renewal. IT also mentions service to society for spiritual renewal.
Couple of these habits mention above really fits into my personality,as it resembles some of my habits that I already have to a certain extent. I have always seek for a win-win situation with others because I learnt that it’s better to make a friend then a foe. Winning is always more joyful if you have someone to share it with. Habit 5 (Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood) have always been a part of me, as I am more of a listener than a talker myself. Listening to various problems from my friends helps develop a deeper bond between us and it also helps them relief some stress at the same time. Helping others has always gave me a sense of fulfillment and joy so this habit comes natural to me. Habit 7 is what I have been slowing adapting to because as I grow older, I feel the increasingly importance of maintaining good health physically and mentally. I strive to maintain a healthy lifestyle and practice habits that will be beneficial to me and try to eliminate bad ones at the same time. Being healthy is the best thing you can really ask for in life.
I found that setting your goals clearly and being able to prioritize work is really important habit no matter if I am still in school or working. You can get easily overwhelm by today’s workload and lose focus of your goals but if you can determine which ones are more important to you, time will be spent more efficiently. It also takes out the unnecessary stress that arises from a heavy workload. Habits 3-6 really helps with creating a strong bond between friends or colleagues. Having a positive social connection with the people around you will be immense help to your school life or career. Able to share and develop a strong relationship with others will help you reach you goals in no time. The last habit is the most important, maintaining a healthy lifestyle will be crucial to your success in any part of your life.
Here is a brief summary of the book if your interested.
If you want to read instead here is a written summary about it here.
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