7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: Persuasive Analysis of Parts 1 & 2

Sean Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is meant to be a guide for teenagers around the world to get their life together through, well, seven habits.

The first concept Covey touches is called “paradigms.” Paradigms are basically beliefs you have about the world and about yourself, and their importance can be summarized nicely in a quote by Wayne Dyer I once heard:

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

If you think you’re bad at sports, you’re never going to want to play sports, for example, and you’re going to miss the chance to get good at them. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Then he explains another concept he calles “principles.”

He explains that people tend to center their lives and identities around a specific aspect of them, such as school or a boyfriend/girlfriend. Doing this is risky and wrong, because you could lose those things at any minute, and then you would feel completely lost. He explains that the only thing which is healthy to center your life around are principles. He says these are abstract concepts that you really value. You can’t go wrong if you center your life around honesty and creativity, for example. You’re never going to loose those things.

These two ideas are the key to developing the following seven habits that he will talk about, because you need to be in the correct mindset in order to develop them. As I read the book, I started getting really motivated and nodding along to everything the author was saying.

The first habit is proactivity. He explains that there are two types of people: proactive and reactive. Reactive people just let things happen to them, and their feelings depend on other people’s actions. Proactive people, on the other hand, believe that they have control over themselves.

Suddenly, my motivation dropped as I came upon this sentence towards the end of the chapter:

“So let me ask you, are you in the driver’s seat of your life or are you merely a passenger?”

It was at that exact moment, that exact sentence, that the book was ruined for me.

And the reason it was ruined was because everything I had just read was really one big cheesy, overused clichéd line. It’s silly to get bothered by that, but it really bothered me, for some reason, and I started losing respect for the book.

I thought to myself, Wait a minute. This is stupid. Of course other people can affect how you feel. We’re not made of stone.

I uninterestedly moved on to the next habit, which was to start with the end in mind. Obviously you have to start with the end in mind, I thought. What kind of person needs to be reminded of that? I have the opposite problem; I need to keep reminding myself not to focus too much on the end.

Then the third habit: Put first things first.

Okay, now this is just ridiculously, painfully obvious. This book really isn’t providing insight into anything I didn’t know before.

Hopefully the second half of the book will change my mind.