By Steven Covey –
The Seven Habits represent a holistic, integrated approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.
1. P.18 If we want to change the situation, we must first change ourselves. And to first change ourselves, we must first change our perceptions.
2. P.27 Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right.
3. P.37 To relate effectively…we must learn to listen. And this requires emotional strength.
4. P.43 Be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it.”
5. P.44 TS Eliot: “We must not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.”
6. Habit: the intersection of knowledge (what to do and why), skill (how) and desire (want/motivation).
7. P.51 If I am intellectually interdependent, I realize that I need the best thinking of other people to join with my own… Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.
8. P.60 No one can persuade another to change…
9. P.61 Be patient with yourself. You can replace old patterns with new – if you really want to. The 7
Habits:
A. Be proactive
B. Begin with the end in mind
C. Put first things first
D. Think win/win
E. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
F. Synergize
G. Sharpen the saw — renewal
10. P.70/1 Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. Victor Frankl: Freedom to choose. We all have response ability, the ability to respond.
11. P.72 Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can hurt you without your consent.”
12. P.75 What matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life.
13. P.76 The difference between people who exercise initiative and those who don’t is literally the difference between night and day.
14. P.83 Proactive people focus…on the things they can do something about.
15. P.88 Proactive people aren’t pushy. They’re smart, they’re value driven, they read reality, and they know what’s needed.
16. P.89 Any time we think the problem is “out there”, that thought is the problem.
17. P.90 If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control – myself.
18. P.92 The power to make and keep commitments to ourselves is the essence of developing the basic habits of effectiveness.
19. P.93 Knowing that we are responsible – response able – is fundamental to effectiveness and to every other habit of effectiveness.
20. P.96 “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared with what lies within us.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
21. P.101 Peter Drucker and Warrne Bennis: “Management is doing things right/well. Leadership is doing the right things.”
22. P.106 The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. Visualize the goal, the end.
23. P.137 An effective goal focuses primarily on results rather than activity.
24. P.143 Without involvement there is no commitment.
25. P.149 Organize and execute around priorities. Prioritize!!
26. P.154 Peter Drucker: “Effective people are not problem-minded. They are opportunity-minded.”
27. P.194 The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.
28. P.239 We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.
29. P.244 The amateur salesman sells products; the professional sells solutions to needs and problems.
30. P.245 Constant probing is one of the main reasons parents do not get close to their children.
31. P.265 As a teacher, I have come to believe that many truly great classes teeter on the very edge of chaos.
32. P.270 An effective attitude is: “If a person of your intelligence and competence and commitment disagrees with me, then there must be something to your disagreement that I don’t understand, and I need to understand it.”
33. P.277 The key to valuing differences is to realize that all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are”… “The person who is truly effective has the humility to recognize his own perceptual limitations.
34. p.301 Goethe taught: “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”
35. There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is, you are in charge and control of yourself. The bad news is, you are in charge and control of yourself; there are no excuses.