The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: The Infographics Edition

by Stephen R. Covey

MONEY CENTEREDNESS. Another logical and extremely common center to people’s lives is making money. Economic security is basic to one’s opportunity to do much in any other dimension. In a hierarchy or continuum of needs, physical survival and financial security comes first. Other needs are not even activated until that basic need is satisfied, at least minimally.

WORK CENTEREDNESS. Work-centered people may become “workaholics,” driving themselves to produce at the sacrifice of health, relationships, and other important areas of their lives. Their fundamental identity comes from their work—“I’m a doctor,” “I’m a writer,” “I’m an actor.”

POSSESSION CENTEREDNESS. A driving force of many people is possessions—not only tangible, material possessions such as fashionable clothes, homes, cars, boats, and jewelry, but also the intangible possessions of fame, glory, or social prominence. Most of us are aware, through our own experience, how singularly flawed such a center is, simply because it can vanish rapidly and it is influenced by so many forces.

PLEASURE CENTEREDNESS. Another common center, closely allied with possessions, is that of fun and pleasure. We live in a world where instant gratification is available and encouraged.

In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, “licking the earth.”

FRIEND/ENEMY CENTEREDNESS. Young people are particularly, though certainly not exclusively, susceptible to becoming friend-centered. Acceptance and belonging to a peer group can become almost supremely important.

“Why have you made this administrator the center of your life?” I asked him. He was shocked by the question. He denied it. But I pointed out to him that he was allowing one individual and his weaknesses to distort his entire map of life, to undermine his faith and the quality of his relationships with his loved ones.

CHURCH CENTEREDNESS. I believe that almost anyone who is seriously involved in any church will recognize that churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality.

SELF-CENTEREDNESS. Perhaps the most common center today is the self. The most obvious form is selfishness, which violates the values of most people. But if we look closely at many of the popular approaches to growth and self-fulfillment, we often find self-centering at their core.

The ideal, of course, is to create one clear center from which you consistently derive a high degree of security, guidance, wisdom, and power, empowering your proactivity and giving congruency and harmony to every part of your life.

A PRINCIPLE CENTER By centering our lives on correct principles, we create a solid foundation for development of the four life-support factors. Our security comes from knowing that, unlike other centers based on people or things which are subject to frequent and immediate change, correct principles do not change. We can depend on them.

Principles don’t react to anything. They don’t get mad and treat us differently. They won’t divorce us or run away with our best friend. They aren’t out to get us. They can’t pave our way with shortcuts and quick fixes. They don’t depend on the behavior of others, the environment, or the current fad for their validity. Principles don’t die.

principles are bigger than people or circumstances,

By centering our lives on timeless, unchanging principles, we create a fundamental paradigm of effective living. It is the center that puts all other centers in perspective.

Personal responsibility, or proactivity, is fundamental to the first creation. Returning to the computer metaphor, Habit 1 says, “You are the programmer.”Habit 2, then, says, “Write the program.” Until you accept the idea that you are responsible, that you are the programmer, you won’t really invest in writing the program.

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.

I took out my organizer and hammered it out. It took several hours, but I felt a sense of clarity, a sense of organization and commitment, a sense of exhilaration and freedom.

I find the process is as important as the product. Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs.

Writing forces thinking

left hemisphere is the more logical/verbal one and the right hemisphere the more intuitive, creative one.

people tend to stay in the “comfort zone” of their dominant hemisphere and process every situation according to either a right or left brain preference.

But if you’re proactive, you don’t have to wait for circumstances or other people to create perspective-expanding experiences. You can consciously create your own.

There are a number of ways to do this. Through the powers of your imagination, you can visualize your own funeral, as we did at the beginning of this chapter. Write your own eulogy. Actually write it out. Be specific.

I have done similar visualization exercises with some of my university classes. “Assume you only have this one semester to live,” I tell my students, “and that during this semester you are to stay in school as a good student. Visualize how you would spend your semester.”

The dominant, central theme of their activities, the underlying principle, is love. The futility of bad-mouthing, bad thinking, put-downs, and accusation becomes very evident when they think in terms of having only a short time to live. Principles and values become more evident to everybody.

Personal leadership is not a singular experience. It doesn’t begin and end with the writing of a personal mission statement. It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things.

Personal accountabilty

Ph.D. in the field of psychology and study the characteristics of peak performers.

One of the main things his research showed was that almost all of the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it; they feel it; they experience it before they actually do it. They begin with the end in mind.

see it clearly, vividly, relentlessly, over and over again. Create an internal “comfort zone.” Then, when you get into the situation, it isn’t foreign. It doesn’t scare you.

Affirmation and visualization are forms of programming, and we must be certain that we do not submit ourselves to any programming that is not in harmony with our basic center or that comes from sources centered on money-making, self interest, or anything other than correct principles.

Just as breathing exercises help integrate body and mind, writing is a kind of psycho-neural muscular activity which helps bridge and integrate the conscious and subconscious minds.

When you feel the right option but cant word it

An effective goal focuses primarily on results rather than activity. It identifies where you want to be, and, in the process, helps you determine where you are. It gives you important information on how to get there, and it tells you when you have arrived.

Roles and goals give structure and organized direction to your personal mission. If you don’t yet have a personal mission statement, it’s a good place to begin. Just identifying the various areas of your life and the two or three important results you feel you should accomplish in each area to move ahead gives you an overall perspective of your life and a sense of direction.

go into greater depth in the area of short-term goals. The important application at this point is to identify roles and long-term goals as they relate to your personal mission statement.

Many families are managed on the basis of crises, moods, quick fixes, and instant gratification—not on sound principles.

Symptoms surface whenever stress and pressure mount: people become cynical, critical, or silent or they start yelling and overreacting. Children who observe these kinds of behavior grow up thinking the only way to solve problems is flight or fight.

By getting input from every family member, drafting a statement, getting feedback, revising it, and using wording from different family members, you get the family talking, communicating, on things that really matter deeply. The best mission statements are the result of family members coming together in a spirit of mutual respect,

Mission statements are also vital to successful organizations. One of the most important thrusts of my work with organizations is to assist them in developing effective mission statements.

there is a real difference, all the difference in the world, in the effectiveness of a mission statement created by everyone involved in the organization and one written by a few top executives behind a mahogany wall.

when people become more mature and their own lives take on a separate meaning, they want involvement, significant involvement. And if they don’t have that involvement, they don’t buy it.

Then you have a significant motivational problem which cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it.

Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of this chapter.

Take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them. Are you satisfied with that mirror image of your life?

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. GOETHE

Habit 3 is the personal fruit, the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2.

Habit 1 says, “You’re the creator. You are in charge.”

“That’s an unhealthy program I’ve been given from my childhood, from my social mirror. I don’t like that ineffective script. I can change.”

Habit 2 is the first or mental creation. It’s based on imagination—the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see with our eyes;