My key takeaways from 7 Habit of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey:
- The 7 Habits are:
- Be proactive
- We can take ownership over our lives – we must act or be acted upon
- Choose to be proactive – not reactive; essentially don’t wait back – go out and live the life you want.
- Begin with the end in mind
- Have clearly define values, when we know our values we can look beyond short-term setbacks towards our long-term goals and dreams
- Focus proactivity on your long-term goals
- First things first
- Prioritize; focus your actions on things you can actually influence
- Think win/win
- Focus on actions and deals where both parties are better off
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- Approach conversations with a genuine interest in learning and growing
- Seek to understand other people and fight the urge for personal validation
- Synergy
- Independence and interdependence are both important
- A team should seek to produce more than the sum of the individual actors
- Sharpen the saw
- We must examine ourselves often – and seek to continue growing each day of our lives; we must seek personal growth.