The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
Stephen R. Covey
20131119
About This Book
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is based on an Inside-Out Approach to becoming a more effective people. The Inside-Out Approach means that give our first energies to our own character development before we focus on techniques or how to be more effective with others. What we really need is the Character Ethic rather than Personality Ethic. Let’s focus on what’s really happening, not what’s appearing to happen.
The 7 Habits
The essential purpose of The 7 Habits is to learn how to lead our life in a truly effective way. The 7 Habit is a process of personal and interpersonal growth and development. This requires not only our continuing effort, but also our patience. Real growth and development cannot take place overnight. We must pay the price over an extended period of time to reap the benefit of these 7 habits.
By applying these efforts, we can expect to increase our capacity to achieve personal and professional goals, develop better working relationships, and become more effective.
Sow a thought, reap an action;
Sow an action, reap a habit;
Sow a habit, reap a character;
Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Our habits form our character.
We first make our habits, then our habits make us.
The 7 Habits are based upon principles, natural laws. A principle is the actual reality of the way things are. We control our actions, but the consequences that flow from those actions are controlled by principles.
The 7 Habits Paradigm
The 7 Habits Paradigm shows the relationships and the sequence among the habits. It refers to a process leading to growth and development and a continuous incremental natural of growth and progress.
There would be 3 basic levels from low to high. The first level is dependence with attitude of “you”, which means that you need others to get what you want. The second level is independence with attitude of “I”, which means that you get what you want through your own effort. The third and highest level is interdependence with attitude of “we”, which means that cooperate together to accomplish what we want. Interdependence is a choice that only independent people can make.
Private Victories must precede Public Victories.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Habit #1: Be Proactive
Habit #2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit #3: Put First Things First
Habit #4: Think Win-Win
Habit #5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit #6: Synergize
Habit #7: Sharpen the Saw