Habits and Foundations

 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Ah, who hasn’t heard of this book? According to the latest (on Wikipedia), Steven R. Covey sold over 25 million copies in 40 languages. Chances are, it’s not new to you.

But, while I’ve heard the title thousands of times and heard it referenced just about as often, I’d never actually looked at what those 7 habits were. It’s not too surprising that most of the advice sounded like things I’d heard before, but that’s because the book was published when I was about six years old  and has influenced generations since.

So what are those 7 special habits?

1)     Be Proactive

2)    Begin With the End in Mind

3)    First things first

4)    Think win-win

5)    Seek first to understand, then to be understood

6)    Synergize!

7)    Sharpen the Saw

Basically, have a plan and start doing it, weed out distractions in your life, play well with others and repeat! Okay, that was extremely basic, but still meaningful.

I’ve practiced listening and not just jumping in with my premade opinions and I have historically worked well on a team, looking to get the best from and for everyone; and I take time to relax and recharge on my own and with my family and friends. But those go with habits 4-7 and I completely skip over the first three.

I’ll take care of anything that needs to be done, but if it doesn’t need to be done, I don’t usually give it much attention. I’m still working on getting that picture of what I want for my life, so I find myself being carried along by the current with no clear idea of where it’s taking me. And, I get bogged down in the minutia of life and forget to focus on my priorities. So, do habits 4-7 do me much good without 1-3? It’s better than if I didn’t employ any of them, but I lose most of the benefits by skipping the first three. It’s like trying to build a house by starting with the attic.

Steven R. Covey, who wrote the book, categorizes habits 1-3 as habits of independence and necessary precursors to the following habits. It’s putting your oxygen mask on first so you don’t pass out trying to help someone else with theirs. Habits 4-6 are those of interdependence, which focus on working with others for everyone’s mutual betterment, and habit 7 is for continual improvement.

So, what do I do now? I think that I continue with the habits I’ve already cultivated, but putting first things first, I should start to figure out the end I want to have in mind by being proactive (see what I did there?). Even if I don’t know exactly where I want every aspect of my life to end up, I can start taking actions that put me in the general direction. Hey, I guess that’s what I did when I signed up for the BYU Pathway Connect program. Here I am, three years later, a sophomore at BYU-I majoring in business management. I don’t know exactly what I want to do with my degree, but I’m making progress toward a general end and I’m closer now than I was when I started.

It looks like this might just work after all.