The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

by Stephen R. Covey

the attitudinal, or our response in difficult circumstances such ...

A serious problem with reactive language is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, by determining which of these two circles

is the focus of most of our time and energy, we can discover much about the degree of our proactivity. Enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase.

Direct control problems are solved by working on our habits. They are obviously within our Circle of Influence. These are the “Private Victories” of Habits 1, 2, and 3.

Indirect control problems are solved by changing our methods of influence. These are the “Public Victories” of Habits 4, 5, and 6.

I would challenge you to test the principle of proactivity for thirty days. Simply try it and see what happens. For thirty days work only in your Circle of Influence. Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge.

You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you’ve thought everything through.

Put another way, Habit 1 says, “You are the creator.” Habit 2 is the first creation.

Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

In developing our own self-awareness many of us discover ineffective scripts, deeply embedded habits

Habit 2 says we don’t have to live with those scripts. We are responseable to use our imagination and creativity to write new ones that are more effective,

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Security represents your sense of worth, your identity, your emotional anchorage, your self-esteem, your basic personal strength or lack of it.

Guidance means your source of direction in life.

These four factors—security, guidance, wisdom, and power—are interdependent.

Security and clear guidance bring true wisdom, and wisdom becomes the spark or catalyst to release and direct power.

When these four factors are present together, harmonized and enlivened by each other, they create the great force of a noble personality, a balanced char...

You are basically dependent on circumstances or other people, things over which you have no direct control. At the top end you are in control.

A mission statement is not something you write overnight. It takes deep introspection, careful analysis, thoughtful expression, and often many rewrites to produce

it in final form.

concise expression of your innermost values and directions.

you will want to review it regularly and make minor changes as the years bring additional insights or changing circumstances.

your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measu...

it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs.

You have a sense of mission about what you’re trying to do and you are excited about it.

creating a personal mission statement because the two unique human endowments that enable us to practice Habit 2—imagination and conscience—are primarily functions of the right side of the brain.

brain dominance theory.

findings

left

right...

tends to specialize in and preside over different functions, process different kinds of information, and deal w...

the left hemisphere is the more logical/ verbal one

the right hemisphere the more intuitive, creative one.

The...

deals with...

the right with p...

the left with parts and ...

the right with wholes and the relationship be...

The left deals with analysis, which means ...

the right with synthesis, which means to...

The left deals with sequential thinking; the right with simultaneous and holistic thinking. The left is time...

one side or the other generally tends to be dominant i...

the point here is that we are capable of performing many different kinds of thought processes and we barely tap our potential.

keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things. And in that effort, your powerful right brain capacity can be a great help to you on a daily basis as you work to integrate your personal mission statement into your life. It’s another application of “begin with the end in mind.”

Dr. Charles Garfield has done extensive research on peak performers, both in athletics and in business.

he had a doctorate in mathematics, he decided to go back and get another Ph.D. in the field of psychology and study the characteristics of peak performers.

main things his research showed

almost all of the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it; they feel it; they experience it before they actuall...