7 Habits of Highly Effective People [Summary & Takeaways]
Personal note from: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/habits-of-highly-effective-people-summary
– a solid framework for developing the healthy habits necessary for success in work and life — whatever that means to you.
– belief: 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.
:: perception –> ourselves –> situation
Some groundwork: foundational knowledge is necessary for successfully implementing the seven habits.
Explore: these questions/points
1. What does success mean to you?
True success is more than just achieving wealth or fame.
Instead, it necessitates personal growth and fulfillment.
2. Paradigms.
– models for perception and understanding
– it shapes how we view and interact with the world
– a paradigm shift is necessary to cultivate effective habits
3. Principles
– to live and internalize to achieve lasting success
– several principles: integrity, humility, and continuous learning, essential for personal effectiveness
:: character ethic: integrity, humility, courage,
:: personality ethic: public image, attitude, personality
4. Consider character ethic vs. personality ethic
– Pre-1920, the general view of success was based on the above principles.
Fundamental traits like integrity, courage, and patience were viewed as the basis of success.
– Post-1920, the view of success shifted, emphasizing secondary traits and skills that support a robust public image.
| 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Steven Covey)
1. Be Proactive |
– Quick solutions/shortcuts: often fail to address the root cause of the problem
– problem lies in how you perceive it.
– need to undergo paradigm shift:
— to bring about genuine and lasting change
— i.e., changing your fundamental beliefs, assumptions, and values
7 seven habits are grouped into three categories:
- Private victory (habits 1-3),
- Public victory (habits 4-6), and
- Renewal (habit 7)
Private Victory Habits
– focus on personal effectiveness
– to improve your mindset, take responsibility for your decisions, and move towards independence.
1. Be proactive.
– take the initiative
– act instead of being acted upon
– taking radical responsibility for your problems
– instead of giving energy to circumstances and things beyond your control
At a Glance
– Take responsibility for your life and decisions.
– Focus on what you can control.
– Proactive people choose how to respond to a given situation.
– Reactive people focus on the things they cannot control and cultivate a narrative of victimhood.
– Practice proactivity by making commitments to yourself and sticking to them.
To be proactive
– must focus on your Circle of Influence (what you have control over) within your Circle of Concern (everything you’re personally concerned about)
– In other words: must work on the things you can actually do something about
> the positive energy you exert will cause your Circle of Influence to expand
Reactive people
– conversely, focus on things in their Circle of Concern but not in their Circle of Influence. – leads them to blame external factors, emanate negative energy, and cause their Circle of Influence to shrink
Key Lessons
Challenge yourself to test the principle of proactivity by doing the following:
1. Replace reactive language with proactive language.
Reactive = “He makes me so mad.”
Proactive = “I control my own feelings.”
2. Convert reactive tasks into proactive ones.
e.g., battle with AI in writing
– reframed the situation by focusing on what I could do, rather than what I couldn’t.
– I could control how I approached my craft
– I could write from a first-person perspective, demonstrating my real human experience with a topic
2. Begin with the end in mind
Imagine your funeral. Think about how you want to be remembered.
– clarifying your goals and values to guide your actions
Be aware of concepts like leadership, rescripting, and being principle-centered
At a Glance
– Develop a personal mission statement
— a set of values and principles towards which you will direct your actions.
– Make sure that your actions don’t contradict your guiding principles.
– Define your goals. Use your goals as a guide to
> make decisions
> prioritize your actions.
In business:
– Being a leader involves setting an organization’s strategic vision and asking, “What are we trying to accomplish?”
– Before start setting and achieving goals
> identify your values
>> may involve some rescripting to be able to assert your values.
— recognizing ineffective scripts written for you
— changing those scripts by proactively writing new ones built on your values
— Identify your center
: the source of your security, guidance, wisdom, and power.
– strive to be principle-centered.
– identify the timeless, unchanging principles by which you must live your life
– this will guide you to align your behaviors with your beliefs and values.
Key Lessons
Challenge yourself to test the principle of beginning with the end in mind by doing the following:
1. Break down different roles in your life and list five goals for each.
This can include personal, professional, and community roles.
2. Define what scares you.
Public speaking? Critical feedback after writing a book?
Write down the worst-case scenario for your biggest fear.
Visualize how you‘ll handle this situation.
Write down exactly how you’ll handle it.
– set clear goals (aka daring to say, “I want this thing in life or work, and I will move towards it”), things started to change
– felt more energized
– had less friction in my personal relationships
– started to earn more money.
value and principle-led goal looked like: never writing for or promoting a product I don’t believe in or taking an unethical action for financial gain.
3. Put first things first
– the practical execution of habits one and two
> be proactive
> use your guiding principles to determine the most important activities in front of you
> execute them accordingly
At a Glance
– Be disciplined and manage your time.
– Determine important tasks and execute them.
– Prioritize important tasks over urgent but less important ones.
– Prioritize your time and energy on the essential things in your life.
– Learn to say “no” to less important things.
Urgent vs. Important Tasks
– we tend to react most to urgent matters while neglecting important activities that may not be pressing at the moment
:: Quadrant I: Important and urgent tasks
e.g., crises and deadlines
– can consume us and lead to burnout
– address these matters, but shouldn’t align your mission statement with putting out fires
:: Quadrant II: Important, non-urgent matters
– are at the heart of effective personal management
– often neglected for more urgent issues
– Important, non-urgent matters require discipline to tackle and bolster your effectiveness
:: Quadrant III: seem urgent
when, in reality, their perceived urgency is based on the priorities and expectations of others
– leads to short-term focus
– feeling out of control, and
– shallow or broken relationships.
:: Quadrant IV: Non-urgent and unimportant tasks
– are a waste of time
– it’s easy to pour energy into trivial, unimportant tasks
– we all deserve rest and pleasant activities
– but must first prioritize activities aligned with your guiding principles.
To focus your time in Quadrant II:
– must learn to say “no” to other activities
– including ones that seem urgent
– need to be able to delegate effectively
– means you’re thinking ahead, working on the roots, and preventing crises from happening
– implement the Pareto Principle: 80% of your results come from 20% of your time.
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 time management matrix to start prioritizing.
3. Estimate how much time you spend in each quadrant.
Log your time over three days.
How accurate was your estimate? How much time did you spend in Quadrant II (the most important quadrant)?
In Action
– breaking down rate increase into incremental steps (i.e., 25% increase per quarter)
– identifying the skills I’d need to justify each price increase (i.e., starting to create subject matter expert-driven content)
– reverse engineering a plan to get there (i.e., finding opportunities to gather quotes from experts for existing clients)
Public Victory Habits
Habits 1-3 enable you to develop independence,
while habits 4-6 aim to establish interdependent relationships where you can effectively work together to achieve common goals
4. Think win-win
You should seek mutually beneficial outcomes in all your interactions.
At a Glance
– Seek mutual benefit in all interactions and relationships.
– Look for solutions that benefit all parties involved.
– Grasp the paradigms of human interaction
Highlights:
– Win-Win
Mutual benefit is the best approach to achieve a satisfactory outcome for all parties involved.
– Win-Lose.
One person‘s gain is another person’s loss.
It’s a competitive approach to human interaction where one party wins and the other loses.
– Lose-Win.
Putting the needs and desires of others before your own is the best way to achieve a satisfactory outcome.
– Lose-Lose.
When two or more parties disagree, no one wins, and everyone loses.
Win.
Achieving personal success without considering the needs and desires of others is the best way to approach human interaction.
Win-Win or No Deal
If you cannot achieve a mutually satisfactory outcome, it’s better to have no deal or walking away.
– Strive for win-win situations
– Having the option to walk away prevents us from manipulating others to achieve our goals.
– consider two factors: consideration and courage.
– Abundance Mentality
— necessary to create Win-Win situations.
— the belief that there is enough of everything to go around, including resources, opportunities, and success
— People with an abundance mentality tend to be more open-minded, flexible, and creative
— fosters collaboration and cooperation, allowing people to work together and achieve success for all parties
– Scarcity Mentality
— the belief that there is a limited amount of everything, and one person’s success must come at the expense of another
— Most people operate with this mentality, and it leads to feelings of envy, unhappiness, and victimhood.
— limits a person’s ability to see opportunities and makes solving for win-win scenarios nearly impossible.
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.
The spirit of win-win can’t survive in an environment of competition.
As an organization, we must align our reward systems with our goals and values and have systems in place to support win-win.
Key Lessons
Get yourself to start thinking win-win with these challenges:
1. Reaching an agreement or solution
– write down what the other person is looking for
– consider how you can meet those needs
2. Identify three important relationships in your life and consider their balance.
Do you give more than you take?
Write down ten ways to give more than you take in each relationship.
In Action / Case study
– One of the hardest things about raising your rates is the impact it has on your existing client roster.
– Some of your clients simply can’t afford to renew your services at an increased rate
– Gave a clear timeline and advanced notice of when my rates would increase.
– Committed to finishing any work before that timeline at my existing rate.
– Offered to help them find, vet, and onboard a new writer at a rate they could afford at no extra charge.
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
– requires you to listen actively and empathetically before communicating your own views.
– Simply put: Listen with the intent to understand, not to respond
> can cultivate trust and respect with others
– requires being open-minded and nonjudgmental while avoiding imposing your biases and assumptions on others.
> The result is improved communication, deeper relationships, and more effective collaboration.
At a Glance
– Listen empathetically.
– Seek to understand others’ perspectives before expressing your own.
Reflective Listening
– a technique to practice to understand others’ perspectives
> involves paraphrasing the other person’s message
> checking for accuracy to ensure you understand their perspective correctly
Autobiographical Listening
– means listening with our perspective in mind.
When we do this, we tend to respond in one of four ways.
— Evaluate. Agree or disagree with what is said.
— Probe. Ask questions from our frame of reference.
— Advise. Give counsel based on our own experience.
— Interpret. Try to determine the person’s motives and behavior based on our motives and behavior.
If we instead focus on empathetic listening, we see dramatic results in improved communication.
The second part of Habit 5 is “ … then to be understood.”
– is equally critical in achieving win-win solutions
– present your ideas clearly,
> in the context of a deep understanding of the other person’s needs and concerns
> significantly increase your credibility and effectiveness.
Key Lessons
Here are a few ways to get yourself in the habit of seeking first to understand:
1. Watch the emotion: what might not come across through words alone?
2. Root your presentations in empathy.
Begin by understanding the audience‘s point of view.
What problems are they facing? How is what you’re about to say offering a solution to their problems?
In Action
– listened to their concerns
– genuinely had empathy for my clients
– really listened, in a way that showed I cared about what they had to say
– I want to understand their perspective
– I repeat their worries them to make sure I understood
– Only once I was sure I understood did I suggest a solution
6. Synergize
– emphasizes the power of collaboration
– encourages you to look for opportunities to collaborate
> to create outcomes greater than the sum of your parts
The key to synergy and collaboration
– valuing people’s differences
> seek ways to combine strengths to reach more significant outcomes than you could achieve alone
At a Glance
– Work collaboratively with others to achieve goals.
– Working collaboratively helps you create more significant outcomes than any individual could achieve alone.
Several principles for achieving synergy:
– Value differences
> Recognize and appreciate the unique abilities, experiences, and perspectives of others.
> Seek to combine people’s different strengths to achieve collaborative success.
– Create a third alternative.
> Look for solutions that go beyond simply compromising between two opposing viewpoints.
> Find ways to create new solutions that address everyone’s needs.
– Listen to understand.
> We must empathetically listen to understand and value others’ differences.
> Listen to understand, not to respond.
– Be open to feedback.
> Welcome feedback from others without involving your ego.
> Use feedback to improve your ideas and actions.
– Build relationships with trust and respect.
> Trust and respect are essential for achieving synergistic outcomes.
– Strive for honesty and openness as the foundation of your relationships.
> Create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing their ideas, exchanging feedback, and collaborating.
Key Lessons
1. Make a list of people who irritate you.
How are their views different? Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine how it feels to be them.
Next time you disagree with one of those people,
> try to understand their concerns
> try to understand why they disagree.
The better you can understand them, the easier it will be to change their mind — or yours.
2. Make a list of people with whom you get along well. How are their views different? Next, write down a situation where you had excellent teamwork and synergy. Why? What conditions were met to reach synergy? How can you recreate those conditions again?
In Action
– had to learn fast.
– If you want your team to be open to and feel safe receiving feedback from you, first show that it works both ways.
– Every time I released new guidelines or workflows, I emphasized that I didn’t just want but welcomed genuine feedback from the team.
> Questions about the guidelines? No sweat. Ask ‘em, and I’ll clarify, then amend the documents.
> The workflow doesn’t sit quite right? Cool. Let me know why and how, so we can work together to improve them.
– At the end of the day, documentation has to be crystal clear for all involved.
– Workflows have to work for
> the folks implementing tasks and
> those overseeing them.
>> By making this a collaborative activity, I built trust and respect within the team.
Renewal
7. Sharpen the saw
– continually honing your personal development through deliberate actions
> that renew and recharge your energy.
> The result is a happy, holistically healthy, and effective individual.
At a Glance
– Take time to renew and improve yourself for continued success.
– Renew yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
– It’s easy to get caught up in your work and responsibilities and neglect to prioritize yourself.
> must take the time to “sharpen our saw” to remain effective
THE CRUX:
– Prioritize self-care
> if you aren’t healthy and happy, you won’t be able to help others.
4 categories of renewal
A. Physical Renewal
– Exercising: walking, running, playing sports, lifting weights.
– Eating healthy: eating fresh fruits and vegetables and being mindful of processed foods and sugar.
– Staying hydrated.
– Spending time in nature.
– Getting enough sleep.
B. Mental Renewal
– make concerted efforts to prioritize renewing your mental energy
– consider some activities that stimulate and calm the mind:
> Meditation.
> Reading books.
> Learning new things: attend classes, workshops, or seminars.
> Pursuing hobbies and interests.
> Playing an instrument.
> Watching a documentary.
– crucial for maintaining a positive outlook
– crucial for staying sharp in an increasingly digital world that always seems “on.”
C. Spiritual Renewal
– involves reflecting and solidifying your values and beliefs
– while cultivating a sense of purpose in life
– include engaging in things like:
> Meditation.
> Prayer.
> Volunteering.
> Journaling.
> Self-reflection.
> Silence and gratitude.
> Fasting.
– Taking the time to look after your spiritual health makes you more empathetic, balanced, and effective.
D. Social/Emotional Renewal Habits
Humans are social, emotional beings.
– Spending time with loved ones.
– Hanging out with friends.
– Going to a concert.
– Having a meaningful conversation.
– Practicing empathy.
– Hosting a dinner party.
– Distancing yourself from toxic people.
Sharpening the saw
– crucial for maintaining success with the previous six habits
Key Lessons
1. List renewal activities you enjoy and sort them according to the above categories.
Make it a goal to do one renewal activity from each category per week.
2. Identify the essential areas of renewal for your personality.
For example, some people are extroverted and might need to focus more on social renewal.
That said, others might need to prioritize physical renewal over the rest.
In Action
– yoga: helps me balance work-life stress.
– don’t have much time: Yoga With Bird offers accessible and quick flows to start your day on the right foot.
Turning Habits Into Action
– try out some of the exercises listed above
– once you find a habit that works for you, make sure to practice it regularly so it sticks.