What is that one habit that you want to change for yourself? That one thing which holds you back and you want to overcome it?

Dr. Stepehen R.Covey’s, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is as relevant and timely today as it was when it was first published 25 years ago. This book is helpful when we read it and use what it says.

So here is my small attempt to bring out these 7 Mind-blowing habits in a summarised form to you for the 7 days starting today. I hope this will save some time and give you something meaningful 🙂

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Habit 1 – Be Proactive

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a self-improvement book, which emphasizes our perceptions about everything around us and how it affects a situation, a person, and how we must be open to change them.

A Brief Summary:

Can you look at yourself almost through you were someone else? How would you describe yourself? Can you detach you from self and then try to describe you?

This divine ability is called “self-awareness” which we are blessed with. This is how we can be a constant learner from all our rich and lame experiences in our life.

Self-awareness not only enables us to see ourselves from a different perspective but it also helps us to evaluate how we see other people around us.

In short, in order to be effective one must be proactive.

Usually we are too reactive to situations and people, and we lose our stance. We lose control of ourselves and our thought process.

Covey defines responsibility as the ability to choose how you will respond to a given stimulus or situation, “response-ability”.

This chapter talks about stimulus, response, independent will, conscience. It is not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us. We have all known individuals in very different circumstances, perhaps with a terminal illness or physical injury, who maintains magnificient emotional strength.

It talks about how our circle of concern and circle of influence is responsible for our own degree of proactiveness. How are positive energy enlarges the circle of influence.

Key Lessons:

We are responsible for our own effectiveness, for our own happiness, and ultimately , for most of our circumstances.

1.) We can start replacing reactive language with proactive language.

2.) We can focus on our positive energy.

3.) We can choose to be more self-aware.

4.) Review you past and present sitaution, how reacting differently would have put you in different situation.

5.) Know that you are responsible, “response-able”.

I will share the next effective habit soon.

Much love and gratitude

Priyanka Nair