7 Habits of Highly Effective People

    Have you read the book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey? 

Well, I got a little snippet of it and let me tell you, it is exactly what I needed. I was just talking with my friend about how to find the real me. Who I am as opposed to who I want to be. What Stephen Covey does is give you 7 tips on how to do just that. The 7 habits he lists are as follows: 

        Habit 1 - Be proactive

        Habit 2 - Begin with the end in mind    

        Habit 3 - Put first things first

        Habit 4 - Think win/win

        Habit 5 - Seek first to understand, then to be understood

        Habit 6 - Synergize

        Habit 7 - Sharpen the saw

    I've been asked to relay which habit is the most meaningful to me. To be honest, there is a part of his book that is in between habit 3 and habit 4. He calls it Public Victory. This one opened my eyes a bit. Covey says, "You can't be successful with other people if you haven't paid the price of success with yourself first." 

Ouch. Guilty. Guilty as charged. You see, I have always had a low self-esteem. I've never really thought highly of myself. I am super happy with the things that I have learned and accomplished in my life but in the back of my head I hear the negative self-talk of how I could have done it better. It's never good enough. I'm never good enough. It's a learning trait that is ingrained in your brain when you grow up in an abusive household like I did. So, how do I get over that? How do I become the person I really want to be? Well, I guess I need to start being proactive. Stephen R. Covey says it is my choice if I want to be proactive or reactive. But where do I start? How am I supposed to know what to do? Luckily, he also lists a few things that can help us "Make deposits into (y)our Emotional Bank Account." 

1. Understanding the individual. What may be a deposit to one person may be nothing or even a withdrawal to another. Therefore, you need to get to know the individual.
2. Attending to the little things. In relationships or associations, the big things are really the little things - courtesies and small acts of kindness. Little forms of disrespect can make large withdrawals if you're not careful. 
3. Keeping commitments. Keeping a promise is a very large deposit, breaking a promise is the largest withdrawal it's possible to make. People tend to build their hopes around promises. 
4. Clarifying expectations. The cause of many problems is simply conflicting or ambiguous expectations. There, it's vital in any new situation to get all expectations tabled so they can be discussed and covered. This may take courage on the part of all parties involved. 
5. Showing personal integrity. Integrity is the basis of many kinds of deposits, while lack of integrity undermines almost all other efforts to make deposits. Honesty is telling the truth or conforming our words to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words or keeping promises and fulfilling expectations. One important way to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present, as that communicates consistency. Integrity means you treat everyone by the same set of rules. 
6. Apologizing sincerely when you make a withdrawal. This requires a great deal of strength of character. 

Now, this might not make any sense to you at all, which is why I am leaving a link to buy the book here, so you can understand it! I'd like to leave you with another quote from Stephen R. Covey that helped me understand what it is that I truly want to become, and how to get there. He says: 

            "The 7 habits proved an incremental, sequential, integrated approach to the development of personal effectiveness moving us progressively from dependence (on others) to independence (take care of ourselves) to interdependence (looking after others and combining strengths)."