7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Our personality, basically, is a combination of our habits.
This is because they are reliable, often cataleptic patterns; habits continually articulate our personality and produce our efficacy. In any condition, our ordinary human reaction is to look for likeness to experiences we have encountered beforehand. In doing this, we fail to be aware of the position we are essentially in and we also fail to distinguish chances and challenges given to us. This means, to begin with first with one’s self, even more basically, to begin with the most inside elements of one’s self. These components include your philosophy, your values, your motivation and your disposition. Altering our behavior to develop what we are can be an excruciating process.
It should be aggravated by a higher reason, and by the readiness to subordinate what you believe you want now for what you know you would desire later (Liszikam 69). We all have, and can expand further, a variety of assets. This view encourages broader acknowledgment of these assets and their preservation. Once we take for granted a successful working rapport, we cease to actively uphold it, the consequence could be a decrease in the efficiency of the affiliation and, therefore, of a very vital asset. The key is equilibrium between employment of any asset and its maintenance. One of the habits is being proactive.
Being a proactive human means being accountable for you own life. By being proactive means acknowledging the conscientiousness to make things ensue. The people who end up with the good jobs are those who seize the enterprise to do whatever is required, steady with correct doctrines, to get the job done. It is about considering your areas of control, as well as your areas of unease. Seek to increase your areas of control in relation to your areas of unease. Though we pick our dealings freely, we cannot choose their outcomes, which are overseen by natural law, out in our loop of distress.
The proactive approach to a slip-up is to admit it instantly, correct it, and gain knowledge out of it. (Liszikam 103) A good example would be one of my experiences here in this University. Being swept by the crowd while you are in such a large institution is quite easy. This happened to me. I would follow the crowd and do what everyone else was doing because it was ‘cool’.
Whatever principles or philosophies they held I would just follow suite. Eventually, I got tired of getting lost in the crowd and decided to grasp life with the jugular and direct it in the path I wanted. What did I want? I wanted to be a good student, a good basketball player and, most importantly, a good and useful person to the society. I took all of these opportunities that presented themselves by the neck. The initiative that I took has served me well as I was able to grab various opportunities that presented themselves to me (Ramsey 69). To begin with the conclusion in mind is to propose that we have some knowledge of the end itself, yet frequently this is not the situation.
It is believed that if you have no idea where you are going, how will you discern that you have reached? To be alert, or even to have a mental picture of the objective or end, is to use those human traits of thought and self-awareness. To begin with the result in mind, to have a mental picture, is to evaluate whether that vision is practical, as well as to devise ways of actually attaining that end. This method is appropriate, whether we are organizing and leading others, or whether we are looking to perk up our self-management. One of the most effective ways to beginwith the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement. It highlights what you want to be, what you want to accomplish, and principles.
Because each person is inimitable, a special mission statement will mirror that uniqueness, both in content and outline. It is very ordinary for one’s life to be centered around other people, or around wealth, or on one’s occupation. The solution to individual efficiency is to be value-centered, to be comprehensible about your principles and standards and to function according to them. Being derailed from important things in life by your peers is quite easy. This is especially easy for a freshman, as he is the one who is looking to do things in order to be seen. This was the case with me.
I would just move do something without a care and without worrying about the consequences or the future (Ramsey 74). The third habit is to put first things first in everything that we do. This will ensure that we have the right priorities. This entails self-headship and self-organization: putting first things first. Leadership chooses what the important things are, and management is the obedience to carrying out your agenda.
Having decided the areas on which to focus, it is vital to avoid the limitation of previous time organization tools and approaches. The solution is not to prioritize what is on your schedule, but to schedule your precedences. Time management has always been an issue for me. During my first year in school I was bamboozled by the increasing freedom and so many co-curricular activities (Pope 122).The next habit is to seek to understand then to be understood afterwards.
We consequently need to really understand a state, or a person, as fully as achievable, before we can judge how we react. One of the important talents in this area is empathic listening. This involves much more than recording, reflecting, or even comprehending the terms that are said. In empathic listening, you pay attention with your ears, but you also pay attention with your eyes and your heart. You listen for sentiment, for significance. You listen for conduct.
You utilize your right part of the brain, as well as the left. Empathic listening is so influential, because it gives you precise data with which to use, facilitating you to evade the ambush of responding to what you are listening to according to your own script. I can relate to this as in my experience as a student, there were different situations in which friends required us to listen in to their problems and provide solutions. In some situations where I was not empathetic enough, I ended up losing friendship and trust. The next vital habit, think win/win, involves making vital deposit in another individual’s emotional life: finding means by communication can profit both of you. It is a framework of mind that continually seeks reciprocated benefit in all human being exchanges (Pope 83).
This means that accords or solutions are equally advantageous and jointly fulfilling. With this answer, all individuals feel content about the result and feel dedicated to the action arrangement. This habit sees life as a supportive place, not cutthroat arena, it is based on the perception that there is plenty for all and sundry, that one person’s victory is not achieved at the cost or prohibition of the accomplishment of others. The main beliefs of win/win embrace five mutually dependent scopes like: integrity, which is working in relation to your own profoundly held principles. The dimension; next up is maturity. This can be defined as achieving a sense of balance between bravery and deliberation.
Another very important aspect is abundance mentality. This is the idea or perception that everybody can aaccomplish something. Vital sections such as win relationships can be broken down as keeping up relationships, based on understanding and confidence. Agreements are also considered. They are comprehensible accords, which spell out preferred results, guiding principles/ constraints, wherewithal available, responsibility and penalties. It is common law that in order for a student to obtain some kind of emotional bank, then he must deposit some in his colleague’s bank.
As a learner and a person in a large institution with many kinds of people like I am in, this habit is very important. Next is synergizing. Synergy means that the whole is superior to the summation of its parts. It means that the affiliation, which the fractions have to each other, is an element in and of itself. It is not only an element, but also mainly catalytic, the most authoritative, the most amalgamative, and the most exhilarating part.
The implementation of all the other habits gets us ready for the habit of synergy. Appropriately understood, synergy is the main activity of life. Through synergy, we generate new, unexploited options, stuff that didn’t yet subsist. We let loose people’s utmost powers. We make a whole superior to the summation of its parts. The creative process is also frightening, because you don’t recognize precisely what’s going to occur or where it’s going to guide us to.
You leave the comfort zone of base camp and confront an entirely new and unknown wilderness. You become a pioneer. The basis of synergy is that two individuals can differ, and both can be correct. It’s not rational. It’s psychosomatic (Covey 147).There is always strength in numbers; I can relate this to my freshman year using a certain experience that befell me.
There was a situation where my friends and I were being bullied in the vicinity of the school by a bunch of jobless hoodlums. There were more of us than of them, we realized this. We were then able to overcome them, though they were individually quite powerful than we were. This was a very important lesson that we learnt and we endeavored to continue with this mentality that continued to help us even in our academic lives (Ramsey 118). Self-renewal is taking time to preserve oneself.
It inspires all the other habits, for the reason that it is the habit which makes all the others achievable. This preservation helps safeguard and improves the utmost asset you have – you. It is about refurbishing the four scopes of one’s nature –bodily, spiritual, psychological, and societal/emotional. We try to improve the physical part by exercising regularly, superb nutrition that will enable the body to have strength and manage stress-this section is especially important. We augment the spiritual by involving ourselves in principle clarification, study and rumination.
The mental dimension needs to be improved by the following activities: comprehension, preparation, writing and envisaging. The social and emotional dimension needs to be fed by communication with others, compassion and synergy (Covey 134). I am well-versed with this situation in which the body becomes tired and can not be able to carry out all the habits that will ensure that one is successful and efficient. Good rest and feeding the body with positive is important in order to achieve the highest of highs in terms of efficacy. I applied this last habit before, during a trying time that I was involved in school work and co-curricular activities.
It proved really helpful as I would soon after regain energy and carry out the other habits effectively.
