Developing Personal Effectiveness -Part 02
Stephen Covey’s the 7 habits of highly effective people
This is the extended article of my previous article “Developing Personal Effectiveness -Part 01”. My previous article provides an introduction to this article.
Quick Summary of My previous article: “Developing Personal Effectiveness -Part 01”:
1. What does personal effectiveness mean?
2. What exactly is a habit?
3. What are the 3 things that need to be there to form a habit?
4. How exactly is a habit formed?
5. The 7 habits of highly effective people
6. The benefits of using these 7 Habits etc.
So go check out my previous article: “Developing Personal Effectiveness -Part 01” before reading this article.
The article “Developing Personal Effectiveness -Part 02” discusses Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people in a detailed manner.
Let's go through this article to see more details about the 7 habits of highly effective people.
What exactly do we mean by proactive?
Being proactive means, you need to be responsible for your life choices.
Well, there are two types of people:
- Reactive people
- Proactive people
- Reactive people are always blaming everything beyond their control. They always stay in a state of self-denial and they never accept the way things are.
- Proactive people on the other hand take responsibility for their actions. These are the people who always use positive language as I can, I will and I will do it. However reactive people use languages like I can’t, I won’t be able to. If you are a proactive person you will always be less critical and more appreciative of people.
How to be proactive?
Here you can see two circles,
- Circle of concern: which is the outer circle
- Circle of influence: which is the inner circle
Proactive people always spend more time in the circle of influence, the inner circle. The circle of influence is things you can influence, things that are under control (Internal Influences). For example mood, health, decisions, work-life balance, family, etc.
The things which are beyond your control lie in the circle of concern (External Influences). As an example other people, climate, government, economy, etc. People who are reactive try to focus more on the circle of concern and they are wasting their time & energy on that circle.
Focus on the things that you can change or influence rather than things that you have no control over.
Moving into our new habit, the 2nd habit “Begins with the end in mind”.
Well, what we are really trying to say is that everything gets created twice.
- First in our minds
- Second in a physical state
Secondly, it's important to understand that we need to have a direction in life. If we don’t have a direction in life we do not really know where we are going.
So it's important to know the final destination and have the map of your destination in hand. It's very essential to have a mission and vision for your life.
This is closely related to time management. Time management tells us we need to have a schedule and we need to have priorities in life. It is essential to have discipline & management of your life as per the direction you want to take.
This habit differentiates from urgent and important aspects of our life. It is important because it helps us to avoid panic situations. We don't want to be in a state of rush all the time.
So focus on the important rather than urgent things in life. The key is not to prioritize your schedule but to schedule your priorities.
There are 6 ways that help you to achieve this time management or putting first things first.
1. Connect to a Mission
2. Review Roles
3. Identify Goals
4. Organize weekly
5. Exercise Integrity
6. Evaluate
It’s important to connect to a mission. You need to know where you are going and connect your life to that.
Secondly, review roles, we all play a lot of roles in our life as students, a parent, employees, and bosses. whichever role in your life you may be, it's important to understand these are the roles of your life and you need to satisfy each and every role in your life in a good manner and a proper manner.
Thirdly it's important to identify the goals which are closely linked to the mission of your life.
Organized weekly, as much as you can. Try and have a weekly schedule for yourself.
Exercise integrity and evaluate your choices and life every month or every quarter, so that you know where you are going and whether it is the correct way to go.
Getting into habit no 4 “Think win-win”.
This is a very important habit because it helps you to understand there is enough for everybody in the world. Thinking win-win means having an attitude that everything is therefore everybody.
It's important to have competition but to have healthy competition. Don’t try to put others down by winning over them. Win-win is a commitment that allows everyone to win. Well, we are going to discuss 3 more strategies around win-win.
1. I Lose — You Win
2. I Win — You Lose
3. I Lose –You Lose
So the first one is “I Lose- You Win”. If you allow others to win over you, you will end up treating you badly and that is not a good strategy.
So secondly “I Win & You Lose” here you always try to win and make sure you make others lose. Again is not a good strategy.
The third is “I Lose You Lose”. Again is not a good attitude to gain.
Win-win is a situation that allows you to win and as well as the opposite person to win. Win-win is a situation that will help you to have mutual relationships and mutual human interactions and that will really help you to be successful in life.
How many times has it happened that you complete other people's sentences for them? We don’t really listen to them.
It’s important to have empathetic listening and try and listen to others. Try and put yourself into their shoes and understand things from their perspective.
It's important that you listen first to understand and then you will be better understood.
Well getting into our next habit, habit number 6 is “Synergize”.
Synergizing is all about teamwork, and communication with each other.
When working we working in an organization we are meeting people with different thoughts and opinions. So it's important to value each one. Don’t ever think that your point of view is higher than other people. They are right in their own ways.
It's important to accept the differences with an open mind and accept them the way they are. Working together takes time but also it produces long-term relationships and results. People bring all their personal experiences and expertise to the table. So it's important to listen to everyone and it's important to be a good team member.
Differences should be seen as a strength and not as weaknesses.
Getting into our last habit, habit number 7 means “Sharpen the saw”.
When you have understood all these 6 habits the 7th habit is the master of all the habits. It means that you need continuously improve yourself. Here we are talking about renewal in 4 aspects or dimensions of life. It's important that this habit keeps you fresh as long as you keep practicing other habits.
It’s also important that if we don’t work on ourselves, our minds become robotic and we lose the passion to live. So it is important to keep upgrading our skill sets if we really want to be successful in life.
How do we upgrade our skill sets with the help of 4 dimensions?
Let’s quickly check these 4 dimensions :
- Physical: It’s important to have good energy, good stamina also exercise because a healthy mind is a healthy body. So learn to renew yourself physically.
- Social/Emotional: Connect with people and try as much as you can for the community.
- Spiritual: Try and do a lot of self-study and meditation which will help you to overcome problems and have a balance work life.
- Mental: Try and do much as reading as you can visualization, planning & writing.
Next, I would like to leave you with this personal development plan.
On one side you can see development objectives, so you can write down which area of your life you like to develop yourself into.
Prioritize yourself based on the objective you entered. Whether it is low priority, medium, or high priority for you.
Under activities to be undertaken, write down the activities you need to do to follow those objectives to get fulfilled.
Also, you have to add a target date for achieving the objectives. Because if you don’t guide yourself or timeline yourself you never are able to achieve something. Enter the actual date of achievement and lastly review date, when have you actually reviewed yourself.
To conclude this article : Personal effectiveness by saving that it is important to know that you need to win, if you want to win you have to change yourself. Don’t expect something to change when you don’t change internally.
Thank you so much for reading this article.
Let’s meet with another exciting article.
See you soon !!!! Bye !!!
