7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Flashcards
How can you apply the most important principles of this book to your own life?
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1: be Proactive
The Habit of Personal Responsibility
Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. Proactive people recognize that they are “response-able.” They don’t blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they can choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather.
All these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is our greatest power—we have the freedom to choose our response. One of the most important things we choose is what we say. Our language is a good indicator of how we see ourselves.
A proactive person uses proactive language—I can, I will, I prefer, etc. A reactive person uses reactive language—I can’t, I have to, if only. Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do—they have no choice.
Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence®. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, or problems at work.
Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern™—things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, or the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies is a giant step in becoming proactive.
Key Lessons:
Challenge yourself to test the principle of proactivity by doing the following:
1. Start replacing reactive language with proactive language.
Reactive = “He makes me so mad.”Proactive = “I control my own feelings.”
2. Convert reactive tasks into proactive ones.
Habit 2: begin with the end in mind
The Habit of Personal Vision
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind is based on imagination—the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint.
If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It’s about connecting again with your uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.
Most of us find it rather easy to busy ourselves. We work hard to achieve victories — promotions, higher income, more recognition. But we don’t often stop to evaluate the meaning behind this busyness, behind these victories — we don’t ask ourselves if these things that we focus on so intently are what really matter to us.
Habit 2 suggests that, in everything we do, we should begin with the end in mind. Start with a clear destination. That way, we can make sure the steps we’re taking are in the right direction.
Covey emphasizes that our self-awareness empowers us to shape our own lives, instead of living our lives by default or based on the standards or preferences of others.
Beginning with the end in mind is also extremely important for businesses. Being a manager is about optimizing for efficiency. But being a leader is about setting the right strategic vision for your organization in the first place, and asking, “What are we trying to accomplish?”
Before we as individuals or organizations can start setting and achieving goals, we must be able to identify our values. This process may involve some rescripting to be able to assert our own personal values.
Rescripting, Covey explains, is recognizing ineffective scripts that have been written for you, and changing those scripts by proactively writing new ones that are built of your own values.
It is also important to identify our center. Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power.
Our centers affect us fundamentally — they determine our daily decisions, actions, and motivations, as well as our interpretation of events.
However, Covey notes that none of these centers are optimal and that instead, we should strive to be principle-centered. We should identify the timeless, unchanging principles by which we must live our lives. This will give us the guidance that we need to align our behaviors with our beliefs and values.
One of the best ways to incorporate Habit 2 into your life is to develop a Personal Mission Statement. It focuses on what you want to be and do. It is your plan for success. It reaffirms who you are, puts your goals in focus, and moves your ideas into the real world. Your mission statement makes you the leader of your own life. You create your destiny and secure the future you envision.
Challenge yourself to test the principle of beginning with the end in mind by doing the following:
- Visualize in rich detail your own funeral. Who is there? What are they saying about you? About how you lived your life? About the relationships you had? What do you want them to say? Think about how your priorities would change if you only had 30 more days to live. Start living by these priorities.
- Break down different roles in your life — whether professional, personal, or community — and list three to five goals you want to achieve for each.
- Define what scares you. Public speaking? Critical feedback after writing a book? Write down the worst-case scenario for your biggest fear, then visualize how you’ll handle this situation. Write down exactly how you’ll handle it.
Habit 3: Put first things first
The Habit of Personal Management
Habit 3: Put First Things First is the exercise of independent will toward becoming principle-centered. Habit 3 is the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2. Habit 1 says, “You are the creator. You are in charge.” Habit 2 is the first mental creation, based on imagination, the ability to envision what you can become. Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation.
This habit is where Habits 1 and 2 come together. It happens day in and day out, moment-by-moment. It deals with many of the questions addressed around time management. But that’s not all; habit 3 is about life management as well—your purpose, values, roles, and priorities. What are “first things?” First things are those things you find of most worth. If you put first things first, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities you established in Habit 2.
In order to maintain the discipline and the focus to stay on track toward our goals, we need to have the willpower to do something when we don’t want to do it. We need to act according to our values rather than our desires or impulses at any given moment.
quotes about time management
All activities can be categorized based on two factors: Urgent and important. Which means on the x axis urgent and not urgent and on the y axis important and not important.
We react to urgent matters. We spend our time doing things that are not important. That means that we neglect Quadrant II, which is the actually most crucial of them all.
If we focus on Quadrant I and spend our time managing crises and problems, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it consumes us. This leads to stress, burnout, and constantly putting out fires.
If we focus on Quadrant III, we spend most of our time reacting to matters that seem urgent, when the reality is their perceived urgency is based on the priorities and expectations of others. This leads to short-term focus, feeling out of control, and shallow or broken relationships.
If we focus on Quadrant IV, we are basically leading an irresponsible life. This often leads to getting fired from jobs and being highly dependent on others.
Quadrant II is at the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things like building relationships, long-term planning, exercising, preparation — all things we know we need to do but somehow seldom get around to actually doing because they don’t feel urgent.
In order to focus our time in Quadrant II, we have to learn how to say “no” to other activities, sometimes ones that seem urgent. We also need to be able to delegate effectively.
prioritization quotes
Plus, when we focus on Quadrant II, it means we’re thinking ahead, working on the roots, and preventing crises from happening in the first place! This helps us implement the Pareto Principle — 80% of your results come from 20% of your time.
We should always maintain a primary focus on relationships and results, and a secondary focus on time.
“Think effectiveness with people and efficiency with things.” —Stephen Covey
Key Lessons:
Here are some ways you can practice putting first things first:
1. Identify a Quadrant II activity you’ve been neglecting. Write it down and commit to implementing it.
2. Create your own time management matrix to start prioritizing.
3. Estimate how much time you spend in each quadrant. Then log your time over 3 days. How accurate was your estimate? How much time did you spend in Quadrant II (the most important quadrant)?
Habit 4: Think win-win
The Habit of Mutual Benefit
Think Win-Win isn’t about being nice, nor is it a quick-fix technique. It is a character-based code for human interaction and collaboration.
Most of us learn to base our self-worth on comparisons and competition. We think about succeeding in terms of someone else failing—if I win, you lose; or if you win, I lose. Life becomes a zero-sum game. There is only so much pie to go around, and if you get a big piece, there is less for me; it’s not fair, and I’m going to make sure you don’t get anymore. We all play the game, but how much fun is it really?
Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good!
Covey explains that there are six paradigms of human interaction:
1. Win-Win: Both people win. Agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying to both parties.
2. Win-Lose: “If I win, you lose.” Win-Lose people are prone to use position, power, credentials, and personality to get their way.
3. Lose-Win: “I lose, you win.” Lose-Win people are quick to please and appease, and seek strength from popularity or acceptance.
4. Lose-Lose: Both people lose. When two Win-Lose people get together — that is, when two, determined, stubborn, ego-invested individuals interact — the result will be Lose-Lose.
5. Win: People with the Win mentality don’t necessarily want someone else to lose — that’s irrelevant. What matters is that they get what they want.
6. Win-Win or No Deal: If you can’t reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial, there is no deal.
The best option is to create Win-Win situations. With Win-Lose, or Lose-Win, one person appears to get what he wants for the moment, but the results will negatively impact the relationship between those two people going forward.
The Win-Win or No Deal option is important to use as a backup. When we have No Deal as an option in our mind, it liberates us from needing to manipulate people and push our own agenda. We can be open and really try to understand the underlying issues.
In solving for Win-Win, we must consider two factors: Consideration and courage.
To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathic, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, but you also have to be brave. That balance between courage and consideration is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win.
Another important factor in solving for Win-Win situations is maintaining an Abundance Mentality, or the belief that there’s plenty out there for everyone.
Most people operate with the Scarcity Mentality — meaning they act as though everything is zero-sum (in other words, if you get it, I don’t). People with the Scarcity Mentality have a very hard time sharing recognition or credit and find it difficult to be genuinely happy about other people’s successes.
When it comes to interpersonal leadership, the more genuine our character is, the higher our level of proactivity; the more committed we are to Win-Win, the more powerful our influence will be.
To achieve Win-Win, keep the focus on results, not methods; on problems, not people.
Lastly, the spirit of Win-Win can’t survive in an environment of competition. As an organization, we need to align our reward system with our goals and values and have the systems in place to support Win-Win.
Key Lessons:
Get yourself to start thinking Win-Win with these challenges:
1. Think about an upcoming interaction where you’ll be attempting to reach an agreement or solution. Write down a list of what the other person is looking for. Next, write a list next to that of how you can make an offer to meet those needs.
2. Identify three important relationships in your life. Think about what you feel the balance is in each of those relationships. Do you give more than you take? Take more than you give? Write down 10 ways to always give more than you take with each one.
3. Deeply consider your own interaction tendencies. Are they Win-Lose? How does that affect your interactions with others? Can you identify the source of that approach? Determine whether or not this approach serves you well in your relationships. Write all of this down.
Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood
The Habit of Empathic Communication
Communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read, write, and speak. But what about listening? What training have you had that enables you to listen so you really, deeply understand another human being? Probably none, right?
If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. In doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. So why does this happen?
We can’t simply use one technique to understand someone. In fact, if a person senses that we’re manipulating her, she will question our motives and will no longer feel safe opening up to us.
“You have to build the skills of empathic listening on a base of character that inspires openness and trust.” — Stephen Covey
To listen empathically requires a fundamental paradigm shift. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. At any given moment, they’re either speaking or preparing to speak.
Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. Consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before they finish communicating. Do any of the following sound familiar?
You might be saying, “Hey, wait a minute. I’m just trying to relate to the person by drawing on my own experiences. Is that so bad?” In some situations, autobiographical responses may be appropriate, such as when another person specifically asks for help from your point of view or when there is already a very high level of trust in the relationship.
When we’re able to present our ideas clearly, and in the context of a deep understanding of the other person’s needs and concerns, we significantly increase the credibility of your ideas.
Key Lessons:
Here are a few ways to get yourself in the habit of seeking first to understand:
1. Next time you’re watching two people communicating, cover your ears and watch. What emotions are being communicated that might not come across through words alone? Was one person or the other more interested in the conversation? Write down what you noticed.
2. Next time you give a presentation, root it in empathy. Begin by describing the audience’s point of view in great detail. What problems are they facing? How is what you’re about to say offering a solution to their problems?
Habit 6: synergize
The Habit of Creative Cooperation
To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.” Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn’t happen on its own. It’s a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table.
Together, they can produce far better results than they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty—you name it.
By understanding and valuing the differences in another person’s perspective, we have the opportunity to create synergy, which allows us to uncover new possibilities through openness and creativity.
The combination of all the other habits prepares us for Habit 6, which is the habit of synergy or “When one plus one equals three or more and the whole is great than the sum of its parts.”
When people begin to interact together genuinely, and they’re open to each other’s influence, they begin to gain new insight. The capability of inventing new approaches is increased exponentially because of differences.
Valuing differences is what really drives synergy. Do you truly value the mental, emotional, and psychological differences among people? Or do you wish everyone would just agree with you so you could all get along? Many people mistake uniformity for unity and sameness for oneness. One word—boring! Differences should be seen as strengths, not weaknesses. They add zest to life.
After all, if two people have the same opinion, one is unnecessary. When we become aware of someone’s different perspective, we can say, “Good! You see it differently! Help me see what you see.”
We seek first to understand, and then we find strength and utility in those different perspectives in order to create new possibilities and Win-Win results.
Synergy allows you to:
Value the differences in other people as a way to expand your perspective
Sidestep negative energy and look for the good in others
Exercise courage in interdependent situations to be open and encourage others to be open
Catalyze creativity and find a solution that will be better for everyone by looking for a third alternative
Key Lessons:
1. Make a list of people who irritate you. Now choose just one person. How are their views different? Put yourself in their shoes for one minute. Think and pretend how it feels to be them. Does this help you understand them better?
Now next time you’re in a disagreement with that person, try to understand their concerns and why they disagree with you. The better you can understand them, the easier it will be to change their mind — or change yours.
- Make a list of people with whom you get along well. Now choose just one person. How are their views different? Now write down a situation where you had excellent teamwork and synergy. Why? What conditions were met to reach such fluidity in your interactions? How can you recreate those conditions again?
Habit 7: Sharpen the saw
The Habit of Daily Self-Renewal
Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have—you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.
As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish. Not a pretty picture, is it?
You can pamper yourself mentally and spiritually. Or you can go through life oblivious to your well-being. You can experience vibrant energy. Or you can procrastinate and miss out on the benefits of good health and exercise. You can revitalize yourself and face a new day in peace and harmony. Or you can wake up in the morning full of apathy because your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone. Every day provides a new opportunity for renewal—a new opportunity to recharge yourself instead of hitting the wall. All it takes is the desire, knowledge, and skill.
Habit 7 is focused around renewal, or taking time to “sharpen the saw.” It surrounds all of the other habits and makes each one possible by preserving and enhancing your greatest asset — yourself.
There are four dimensions of our nature, and each must be exercised regularly, and in balanced ways:
Physical Dimension: The goal of continuous physical improvement is to exercise our body in a way that will enhance our capacity to work, adapt, and enjoy.
To renew ourselves physically, we must:
Eat well
Get sufficient rest and relaxation
Exercise on a regular basis to build endurance, flexibility, and strength
Focusing on the physical dimension helps develop Habit 1 muscles of proactivity. We act based on the value of well-being instead of reacting to the forces that keep us from fitness.
Spiritual Dimension: The goal of renewing our spiritual self is to provide leadership to our life and reinforce your commitment to our value system.
To renew yourself spiritually, you can:
Practice daily meditation
Communicate with nature
Immerse yourself in great literature or music
A focus on our spiritual dimension helps us practice Habit 2, as we continuously revise and commit ourselves to our values, so we can begin with the end in mind.
Mental Dimension: The goal of renewing our mental health is to continue expanding our mind.
To renew yourself mentally, you can:
Read good literature
Keep a journal of your thoughts, experiences, and insights
Limit television watching to only those programs that enrich your life and mind
Focusing on our mental dimension helps us practice Habit 3 by managing ourselves effectively to maximize the use of our time and resources.
Social/Emotional Dimension: The goal of renewing ourselves socially is to develop meaningful relationships.
To renew yourself emotionally, you can:
Seek to deeply understand other people
Make contributions to meaningful projects that improve the lives of others
Maintain an Abundance Mentality, and seek to help others find success
Renewing our social and emotional dimension helps us practice Habits 4, 5, and 6 by recognizing that Win-Win solutions do exist, seeking to understand others, and finding mutually beneficial third alternatives through synergy.
“Not a day goes by that we can’t at least serve one other human being by making deposits of unconditional love.” -Stephen Covey
As we focus on renewing ourselves along these four dimensions, we must also seek to be a positive scripter for other people. We must look to inspire others to a higher path by showing them we believe in them, by listening to them empathically, by encouraging them to be proactive.
The real beauty of the 7 Habits is that improvement in one habit synergistically increases our ability to improve the rest.
Renewal is the process that empowers us to move along an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.
Key Lessons:
1. Make a list of activities that would help you renew yourself along each of the 4 dimensions. Select one activity for each dimension and list it as a goal for the coming week. At the end of the week, evaluate your performance. What led you to succeed or fail to accomplish each goal?
2. Commit to writing down a specific “sharpen the saw” activity in all four dimensions every week, to do them, and to evaluate your performance and results.
Introduction of the book
What habits do highly effective people have?
The book opens with an explanation of how many individuals who have achieved a high degree of outward success still find themselves struggling with an inner need for developing personal effectiveness and growing healthy relationships with other people.
Covey believes the way we see the world is entirely based on our own perceptions. In order to change a given situation, we must change ourselves, and in order to change ourselves, we must be able to change our perceptions.
In studying over 200 years of literature on the concept of “success,” Covey identified a very important change in the way that humans have defined success over time.
In earlier times, the foundation of success rested upon character ethic (things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule). But starting around the 1920s, the way people viewed success shifted to what Covey calls “personality ethic” (where success is a function of personality, public image, attitudes, and behaviors).
character-ethic-vs-personality-ethic-definition-habits-effective-people-sidekick-content.png
These days, people look for quick fixes. They see a successful person, team, or organization and ask, “How do you do it? Teach me your techniques!” But these “shortcuts” that we look for, hoping to save time and effort and still achieve the desired result, are simply band-aids that will yield short-term solutions. They don’t address the underlying condition.
“The way we see the problem is the problem,” Covey writes. We must allow ourselves to undergo paradigm shifts — to change ourselves fundamentally and not just alter our attitudes and behaviors on the surface level — in order to achieve true change.
That’s where the seven habits of highly effective people come in:
Habits 1, 2, and 3 are focused on self-mastery and moving from dependence to independence.
Habits 4, 5, and 6 are focused on developing teamwork, collaboration, and communication skills, and moving from independence to interdependence.
Habit 7 is focused on continuous growth and improvement and embodies all the other habits.
Why did R covey write his book?
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey is a self-improvement book. It is written on Covey’s belief that the way we see the world is entirely based on our own perceptions. In order to change a given situation, we must change ourselves, and in order to change ourselves, we must be able to change our perceptions.
What habits do highly effective people have?
The book opens with an explanation of how many individuals who have achieved a high degree of outward success still find themselves struggling with an inner need for developing personal effectiveness and growing healthy relationships with other people.
Covey believes the way we see the world is entirely based on our own perceptions. In order to change a given situation, we must change ourselves, and in order to change ourselves, we must be able to change our perceptions.
In studying over 200 years of literature on the concept of “success,” Covey identified a very important change in the way that humans have defined success over time.
In earlier times, the foundation of success rested upon character ethic (things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule). But starting around the 1920s, the way people viewed success shifted to what Covey calls “personality ethic” (where success is a function of personality, public image, attitudes, and behaviors).
character-ethic-vs-personality-ethic-definition-habits-effective-people-sidekick-content.png
These days, people look for quick fixes. They see a successful person, team, or organization and ask, “How do you do it? Teach me your techniques!” But these “shortcuts” that we look for, hoping to save time and effort and still achieve the desired result, are simply band-aids that will yield short-term solutions. They don’t address the underlying condition.
“The way we see the problem is the problem,” Covey writes. We must allow ourselves to undergo paradigm shifts — to change ourselves fundamentally and not just alter our attitudes and behaviors on the surface level — in order to achieve true change.
That’s where the seven habits of highly effective people come in:
Habits 1, 2, and 3 are focused on self-mastery and moving from dependence to independence.
Habits 4, 5, and 6 are focused on developing teamwork, collaboration, and communication skills, and moving from independence to interdependence.
Habit 7 is focused on continuous growth and improvement and embodies all the other habits.
