The seven habits of highly effective people

As a result of I have been driving backwards and forwards from Corvallis to Portland a lot currently to take care of my mom and cousin, I’ve had ample to time to take heed to audiobooks. I discover that I am truly grateful for the chance to “learn” on this trend. (Like many of us, the previous decade has destroyed my consideration span and talent to learn for lengthy intervals.)

I am at the moment studying Stephen R. Covey’s traditional The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. (5 stars on Amazon in 5672 opinions!) I learn the guide as soon as lengthy, way back — someday in the course of the mid-Nineties. I’ve referred to it at times because the years have passed by, however largely I’ve forgotten its classes.

Or so I believed.

In actuality, it seems that a lot of my private philosophy is much like the precepts Covey covers. It is stunning, actually, simply how a lot of my private and monetary philosophies align with these offered in Seven Habits. I have not consciously or intentionally emulated his teachings, however I’ve wound up in the identical place nonetheless.

For these unfamiliar, The Seven Habits of Extremely Efficient Individuals are as follows:

1. Be proactive. Take accountability in your personal life. Take the initiative and do not merely settle for what you are given. (Listed below are my ideas on becoming proactive.)
2. Start with the top in thoughts. Have a plan in your life. Know the place you need to go — and why. Like me, Covey is a proponent of writing a personal mission statement.
3. Put first issues first. Kind out your priorities (which is far simpler to do when you’ve an finish in thoughts). Focus your consideration on the issues which can be pressing and essential. Covey’s “big rocks” metaphor comes from this part.
4. Assume win-win. When attainable, search mutually useful options to issues. Do not be adversarial. Assist others obtain their goals as you obtain yours.
5. Search first to undertand, then to be understood. Do not be in a rush to be proper. Take heed to what others are saying. (Actually pay attention.) Follow empathy. I really feel like it is a seldom-practiced talent in fashionable society, which is why I urge folks to practice financial empathy.
6. Synergize. Discover methods to work with others with a purpose to obtain mutual goals and attain issues that you just could not do alone.
7. Sharpen the noticed. Find time for private renewal. Hold your way of life balanced. Pursue self-improvement.

It is also price noting that apparently Covey is accountable for coining the phrases “abundance mindset” and “shortage mindset”. (That is what Wikipedia says, anyhow. I would must do additional analysis earlier than I truly accepted this as a reality.) I too imagine strongly that every of us ought to foster an abundance mindset, when attainable.

Whereas there’s a lot that is the identical between my philosophy and Covey’s, issues aren’t utterly equivalent.

Covey talks about dependence and independence, as I do, however he takes issues to a different degree by discussing interdependence. I like this. Independence, Covey says, is superior to dependence. It is higher to be self-reliant than to depend upon others to meet your wants. However, he says, it is even higher to work collectively to realize widespread goals. The entire is larger than the sum of its elements.

I agree with him, however I have not (but) integrated this perception as a part of my life philosophy. Maybe I’ll within the close to future.

Covey goes down some rabbit holes that I do not discover notably essential. (I simply listened to a half-hour section on the values that make up our private “facilities”. Meh.) Plus, he frequently praises human beings as totally different in “type” from different animals versus totally different “in diploma”. I disagree with him 100%. (I imagine that people are simply one other animal, and there is nothing notably outstanding about us aside from we’re at the moment the dominant species on the planet.)

Small quibbles apart, I am discovering The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to be a outstanding guide exactly as a result of its philosophy is so aligned with my very own. Once I learn it at age 25, I dismissed it as self-help pap. I used to be fallacious. Or, extra exactly, I wasn’t able to understand its knowledge.

I am undecided how my philosophy ended up so carefully aligned with Covey’s. It’s extremely attainable that studying this guide 25+ years in the past planted seeds in my unconscious which have grown through the years and now have produced fruit that resemble his. But it surely’s additionally attainable that my beliefs are merely a by-produce of age and expertise, that many individuals attain these identical conclusions in time.

Anyhow, I am keen to complete my work right now on the household field manufacturing unit. As soon as I run payroll and meet with our accountant, I will drive again to Corvallis. And after I do, I will pay attention to a different 90 minutes of Seven Habits. I can not wait!