Mastering Success: A Journey Through The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

In this article, we will be going through the gist of the Book — The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Convey — to get how the ladder of success can be climbed with ease by these habits of highly effective people. We will be going through the 7 Habits referred to in the book one by one with every habit explained with an example to make it more clear.

1. Be Proactive — The way to Response rather than React

The habit first — Be Proactive — which signifies that being in a situation we have two options either we react to the circumstances or we respond with awareness. Explaining this habit, the author also explained the circle of concern and the circle of influence.

Let’s suppose we have an annoying colleague in our office which we didn’t want to work with. Suppose a task had to be performed in a team consisting of this colleague. For most people, the focus will be always on the annoying colleague instead of on the task. Here’s the colleague who falls in the circle of concern but not in the circle of influence as we couldn’t do anything about him. So in the circle of influence is our task and other colleagues in the team. Now, being proactive we would be not reacting to the annoying colleague instead we would focus on the task assigned and we would have more productive talks with the colleague which can also bring inside our circle of influence.

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” — Dr. Stephen R. Covey

2. Begin with the End the Mind

The second habit relies on the fact that anything that had been created as reality existed in the theory first(mental picture). So, we have to create a personal mission statement for ourselves. This mission statement will act as the guide to our day-to-day action which should be aligned with the statement.

Personal Mission Statement(What we want to become) → What will be action taken in a year, week, day(today) or this moment to achieve that or to be what we want to become? Each day if we are proactive as described in the first habit we will be more aware of each action we would like to take or have taken if we are what we should.

“People are working harder than ever, but because they lack clarity and vision, they aren’t getting very far. They, in essence, are pushing a rope with all of their might.”— Dr. Stephen R. Covey

3. Put First Things First

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 we can become. Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation. Habit 3 defines the priorities of the task. Just have a look at the quadrant system explained by the author.

When we closely observe each quadrant above we see that most of the time we all work either on the task in Quad I, III, or IV never on Quad II. Actually, we have the monkey mind as explained in the previous article, which would always dedicate most of our time to Urgent important activities, or unimportant activities( Sending emails, deadline tasks, distractions from calls, scrolling phones). As we live our life day-to-day we should dedicate our 80% of time to activities that are in Quad II. Mostly Quad II doesn’t have a deadline so we just keep delaying the task and getting more indulged in Quad I and III which needs to be reduced(as they just keep us busy without the growth we require for success).

“Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.”— Dr. Stephen R. Covey

The first three habits have been mainly focused on private victory. Now, the next three habits would be more focused on public victory.

4. Think Win-Win

In this habit, when we indulge in anything with other people or any situation or any physical existence, we should think of mutual benefits. Both the parties involved should benefit from the involvement. Many people think in terms of either/or: either you’re nice or you’re tough. Win-win requires that you be both. It is a balancing act between courage and consideration.

Other than just the above four, the author has described two more types of thinking — Win and No deal(Win/Win). Win type of thinking focuses on the self-win while believing that the others secure their win. No deal had been the best approach whenever there couldn’t be a conclusion and no possibility of a win-win.

“In the long run, if it isn’t a win for both of us, we both lose. That’s why win-win is the only real alternative in interdependent realities.” — Dr. Stephen R. Covey

5. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Habit 5 seeks to communicate better with people around. We had always tried to seek to be understood by everyone without understanding the person in front. This approach has always hindered the communication between people and their relationships. So, to overcome this we had to be better listeners. We had been taught the skills to improve in reading, writing, and speaking but never about listening. Listening has been the key to communicating effectively with people and to win the person. The author describes the types of listening a person performs in communication:

1. Ignoring: We had been never listening to the person. No communication at all.
2. Pretending: We had been just pretending that we had been listening to the conversation like hmm and repeating the words said. This can be worse than ignoring as the person would be feeling more dumped because we are not even trying to get into the conversation.
3. Selective: We had been listening here to just wait for our turn to answer, Here we select the words we want the communication to be directed in. This can be worse as we are never trying to understand the person at all, which can deteriorate the relationship with the person.
4. Attentive: We had been attentive to the conversation listening and trying to get an understanding of the wording and feelings behind the words said. This listening can be more productive but not the perfect way to get the relationship better.
5. Emphatic: It’s the foremost level of listening that can impact tremendously on the relationship with the person. In this, we just keep ourselves in the shoes of someone else. We don’t listen here to answer to the person but to get into the understanding.

“If I were to summarize in one sentence the single most important principle I have learned in the field of interpersonal relations, it would be this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”— Dr. Stephen R. Covey

6. Synergize

In the last habit of public victory, we had been taught about the benefits of creative cooperation between people. Synergize is about finding a new solution and if we had a better solution we would be adding the plus points through the cooperation of other people. This follows the philosophy of “two heads are better than one”. Synergize stands to value the differences in each other’s thoughts and actions and get them together to get the best out of everything. We can have many examples of the habit of synergizing like the success of United Steels.

“Synergy is not the same as compromise. In a compromise, one plus one equals one and a half at best.”— Dr. Stephen R. Covey

7. Sharpen the Saw

In this last habit, we had been told to sharpen the saw which means to be energized in self. We had to invest in ourselves and renew our life energies. There are four types of areas for self-renewal:

1. Physical: Improving the body's health to be more active physically.
2. Mental: Improving mental health through meditation etc for having better intelligence and decision making.
3. Emotional: Improving the emotional bank through having a better relationship.
4. Spiritual: It’s way necessary to be spiritually fit as we can have better synergies with energies around us.

“Renewal is the principle — and the process — that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.”— Dr. Stephen R. Covey

Conclusion

In this article, we have gone through much-needed skills to be a highly effective person. Through the above habits, the ladder of success will be automatically in our favor. We should have more awareness in every action we perform. We can achieve more success than we ever imagined, just take everything to ourselves without making excuses for no reason. Response to every situation or action not just react.