The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

A person or organization that approaches conflicts with a win-win attitude possesses three vital character traits: I* ntegrity: sticking with your true feelings, values, and commitments * Maturity: expressing your ideas and feelings with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of others * Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

If you're like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you're listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. Because you so often listen autobiographically, you tend to respond in one of four ways: Evaluating: You judge and then either agree or disagree. Probing: You ask questions from your own frame of reference. Advising: You give counsel, advice, and solutions to problems. Interpreting: You analyze others' motives and behaviors based on your own experiences.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have--you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Here are some examples of activities: Physical: Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting Social/Emotional: Making social and meaningful connections with others Mental: Learning, reading, writing, and teaching Spiritual: Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or servic

Habit 3: Put First Things First

To live a more balanced existence, you have to recognize that not doing everything that comes along is okay. There's no need to overextend yourself. All it takes is realizing that it's all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities. Use the rule of priority

Habit 6: Synergize

means "two heads are better than one." Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. Valuing differences is what really drives synergy. Do you truly value the mental, emotional, and psychological differences among people? Or do you wish everyone would just agree with you so you could all get along? Many people mistake uniformity for unity; sameness for oneness. One word--boring! Differences should be seen as strengths, not weaknesses. They add zest to life.

Habit 1 : Be Proactive

ou can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint.