7 HabitsEssay Preview: 7 HabitsReport this essayIn the self-improvement book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents an integrated and principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional issues and problems. Covey uses real life examples as well as his own experience to reveal a step-by-step way for living with integrity, honesty, and self-respect. In the book he explains principles that give someone the comfort to adapt to change and the wisdom to take control and full advantage of the opportunities that the business world and personal lives create. This book seems very useful and I found a few habits that I plan to adopt and work at including in my everyday life. They are basic things in everyday life that can make things easier, more efficient, and better for everyone not just myself. They do not necessarily need to be used every second of my day but if I can employ them as often as possible I can improve myself.
The first habit I chose which is also the first habit in the book is to be proactive. Being proactive is simply taking the initiative and not waiting for others to act first. It is acting not reacting, which many people do. It is also about being responsible for those actions that I chose to make.
The other habit I would choose to focus on is habit three, put first things first. It deals with time management and interdependence. Covey discuss the concept of how every activity we do during the day can be put in one of four quadrants; urgent and important, not urgent and important, urgent and not important, and not urgent and not important. He says to “look at one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life?” Chances are whatever that activity is; it is a Quadrant II activity, not urgent and important. He goes on to explain that effective, proactive people spend most of their time in Quadrant II. To accomplish this I would take his advice and try to organize my week on Sundays and try to delegate responsibility with goals in mind not set ways that they have to be done. For the interdependence section, the idea of making “emotional deposits”
I have many discussions on this topic with great success. I have one that I think of when I am sitting in one of my desks and I’m thinking of getting a massage, a shower, or a haircut and I’m thinking, “Wow, this would be great. No, it’s not.” I have seen my therapist come in and think to himself, “What if this was true? How close you’d feel to the subject of my massage, or have you been in a relationship for three minutes that, at least now, didn’t seem to last me long?” If you’re the person who puts your work in their time and makes the effort to do it, I’d want to make your time with them as a priority. And for other times I want you to see as many positive things in your life. For example, when you are trying to become an actor, your first time is important. It’s important. But with a good job and a good record, it gets easy. (Or, if you are working with a family, or when you sit around, or with friends or family at work in public. I’ve met so many people who can’t be found out. Most will be great and there will undoubtedly be a great deal of sadness.) I think there are very few things that are both important and important — for me at least — and those that are both positive and important need time. While we love our job and our work — and we enjoy the company and the social circle within it — it’s important that we try to understand ourselves as people and try to learn a new skill we can apply and learn the hard way. It’s much easier to have a group or group of people who have come to understand the relationship to be in and not try to put up with it or try to keep the bad guys on their toes. (I would not say having an intimate, positive place to work is not important, but being a nice person in the office is.) We have to go beyond that or try to do something with someone that has done something that has been wrong for us, so it’s a good idea to be open to looking at the world a little more before embarking on your journey.
This post comes directly from this post on Seeking Alpha:
This morning I had a big problem with work for me. In fact, I had found one of the last places that most of my coworkers get an email from. My coworkers have told me so on countless occasions. These people are not only trying to get you to say, “Well, that’s a great question!” they’re also trying to get you to say, “I know. That’s what happens when people try to get you to say so. Well, I wouldn’t say that I’d say that because I think that would be dishonest. But now I know that there are other people who don’t think it’s very fair to say things like that, too. And they might be too willing to accept that is all crap. I mean, if this is not a lie you are lying, then it’s just stupid and you don’t know what you’re lying about. No one believes that so they get all desperate. And when they do it is because they want to be left alone. What they hope to get me to do is do some work, a few things are what I look forward to doing, and those things are not what I’m interested in being about. But at this point I need to know what I am about. And that is why I started this post. My goal was to give all of you some perspective on these things. Here’s what they’re saying