‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ is a business and personal development book written by Stephen R. Covey. It is a book that had a profound impact on the way I approached many aspects of my own life, so I thought I would summarise it here for you (although I would absolutely recommend that you check it out for yourself!).

In the book, Covey explains 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 themselves and other people.

Covey explains that although we are not always in charge of what happens to us, we ARE able to choose how we react to it (think – when someone cuts you off in traffic).

Covey believes that we can become more effective by following his ‘7 Habits’.

It has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide since its first publication in 1989. The audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in U.S. publishing history to sell more than one million copies.

Habit 1 – Be proactive (not reactive):

We each have 2 circles in our lives, the outer, bigger circle is called the ‘circle of concern’. These are things that we are concerned about but cannot really control. Taxes, terrorism, Brexit negotiations, whether your parents gave you enough attention as a child – the list goes on. The reactive person likes to dwell on things they CANNOT control, they become defeated, they think things like, ‘why bother’ and ‘that’s just the way I am’.

A proactive person focusses on the smaller inner circle, called the ‘circle of influence’. They accept that some things are largely out of their control and think ‘ok, that sucks, but how can I make the best of how things are’. Things such as their health, education, career and relationships.

Focus on the things you CAN control.

Habit 2 – Begin with the end in mind:

Imagine you are at a funeral, but this one is different to any funeral you have been to before, because this is your funeral. You look into the coffin and you see yourself. What do you have to say for yourself? Are you doing the things in your life now which are aligned with what you want to be remembered for? Do you want to be able to say that you were a good partner/husband/wife/parent/friend? If so, do your daily actions reflect that or do you work long hours in a job that drains you so that you feel stressed when you get home and get into petty arguments with your family about things that don’t matter?

If you are 30 years old and HATE your job, you may need to take a few steps backward to change your career to something you really want to do, but you could be working for another 40 years! Better for your ladder to be leaning against the right wall.

I have a client who was offered a promotion with a payrise, but it would have meant spending 3 nights per week away from home. My client has 2 young boys who play football and he is a coach for their club, but he would have to give that up to take the job. My client declined the promotion, for now, because in the end, he wants to have played an active part in their childhood, if he had taken the payrise, the extra money would have been nice, but in years to come his boys won’t remember the material detritus that replaced that precious time together.

Habit 3 – Put first things first:

So many of us are busy fools, jumping from urgent task to urgent task. Habit 3 encourages us to prioritise things that are important – rather than urgent. If you focus on things that are urgent, you will never get to the important stuff.

I once heard someone say ‘If you don’t focus on what’s important to YOU, then life will drag you around with your pants around your ankles’!

When you get home from work, what do you prioritise? That urgent email from your boss, or the important family time with your partner/children?

Habit 4 – Think ‘Win-Win’:

It is in our ‘Darwinian’ human nature to approach life with a Win/Lose attitude, meaning that for YOU to win, someone else must lose. But it doesn’t have to be that way, we aren’t trying to survive anymore, we are trying to thrive!

I could decorate my own house, it would save me the cost of paying for a decorator! But I don’t have the necessary equipment, even if I did it would take me far longer than it would take the decorator and truth be told I would probably make a mess of it. Far better to pay a professional. OK there will be a cost involved but I could invest the time saved into my own work which will ultimately pay for the decorator anyway. I save time and get my house decorated by someone who knows what they’re doing, they earn some money and have an opportunity to build their business/enhance their reputation = Win/Win.

Habit 5 – Seek first to understand, then to be understood:

When we are children we are taught how to speak. Then we are taught how to read….but we are never taught how to listen!

If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And 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? 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 next, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. Consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before they even finish speaking.

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
― Epictetus

Habit 6 – Synergise:

To put it simply, synergy means “two heads are better than one.” Synergy is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness in an attempt to find new solutions to old problems. Together, we can produce far better results than we could individually. Synergy is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Synergy is abundant in nature too, for example, a bee gets its food from a flower’s nectar and the nectar is fertilized by pollen carried by the bee during pollination (this is also a Win/Win!).

Think of who you could collaborate with to solve a problem or create a mutually beneficial proposition.

Habit 7 – Sharpen the saw:

This is my favourite Habit and is all about preserving and enhancing your greatest asset, YOU! This happens by taking care of yourself; physically, spiritually, mentally, and socially.

It is best explained with a little story:

A man is in his garden trying to saw down a large tree, he has been at it for hours when his neighbour pops his head over the fence and says ‘Hey, you know that if you sharpen that saw you will be able to cut it down a lot faster’. The man replies, ‘But it will take time for me to sharpen it!!’.

Blunt saw = 10 hours of cutting.

Sharp saw = 6 hours of cutting + 2 hours of sharpening.

You ARE the saw! Make sure to keep it sharp.  The sharper the saw, the easier it will be to cut down the tree.

Remember, you can always email me at planning@claritylfp.co.uk to let me know what you think or to ask any questions.

Until next time…

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