7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Is One of the Best known Self Development books ever written in history by Stephen covey.
In this book, Stephen Covey told about 7 Habits Of Highly Effective people, which every successful people have in common.
In simple terms, these are 7 Habits that everyone needs to incorporate in their life to succeed in life.
Today, I’ll explain to you A Brief Summary Of 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People With the help of a story so that you can understand better.
Table Of Contents
Brief Summary Of 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People:
Let’s start with number one.
1. Be Proactive.
I remember My grandma’s favourite story was about how everything cost two cents when she was young.
But now, everything constantly got more expensive.
And it was all because of the government.
These leaders didn’t know how to control prices.
And when I was privileged enough to hear this story, her complaining would last for hours and hours.
And that’s exactly what reactive people do.
They always focus on the things that they cannot control.
It’s not possible that a concept like inflation would exist.
And if it did exist, it’s impossible that they wouldn’t know about it!
On the other hand, proactive people realize, “Look, even if my complaints were completely objective, It doesn’t help me. So I’m going to focus on what I can control”.
If a proactive person owns a business where he sells a product, Instead of focusing on how people these days don’t appreciate good products anymore and how the government has horrible regulations.
He focuses on, “How can I improve my products so my customers can’t live without them?”
Do you realize how much responsibility, How much dedication, How much hard work comes along with asking that question?
And what do you think our effort-minimizing the brain is going to pick as default?
And that is exactly why most people focus on the things that they cannot control, rather than focusing on the things that they can.
Habit number 1 is Be Proactive.
2.Begin With The End In Mind.
Now imagine you’re at a funeral, but this one’s different from all the funerals you’ve ever been to.
You’re standing over the casket, and you see yourself.
What do you have to say about yourself?
This is one of the most powerful questions you could ask.
Are you doing the things in your life, which are aligned with what you want to be able to say?
Like, Do you want to say that you were a good spouse?
If that’s the case, how does coming home and instantly being negative towards your spouse affect that?
Do you want to be remembered as a person who added value to society?
If that’s the case, are you doing the things that will allow you to say that, or Are you scared of failure and choose comfortable mediocrity instead?
Almost every one of us will have to readjust how we live when we ask that question.
Habit number 2 is Begin With The End In Mind.
3.Put First Things First.
Now, if I were to ask you, “What are the most important things to you?”
The most common answers I would get would
be Either your wellbeing or your relationships, your family, your spouse, your children.
You would never ever say, “Organizing papers or watching TV….”
But how many of us spend more time organizing papers and watching TV, Than planning our nutrition and going to the gym, or cultivating a healthy family environment?
There’s a horrible disconnect between what we say and how we actually allocate our time.
Habit number 3 is Put First Things First.
4.Think Win-Win.
Now imagine you’re an author, and I’m an author.
And We both write interesting books, and we both have access to an audience of about 100,000 people.
I read your book, and I love it.
So I decided to share it with my audience.
And as a result, You now have 1,000s of people buying your book and reading your ideas.
You see this and think, “Who is this guy?
Let me take a look at his book.”
You start reading my book and think I have ideas that are valuable.
So you decide to share it with your audience.
And as a result, I now have 1,000s of people buying my book and reading my ideas.
Notice how different this is from my creating a little creepy Amazon account, Finding your book and leaving a bad review.
Hoping that this will deter a few people from buying your book, Which will, in turn, somehow get them to buy my book.
Habit number 4 is Think Win-win.
5. Seek First To Understand Then To Be Understood.
Stop thinking of everything as a zero-sum game.
For you to win, another person does not have to lose.
Something I want my readers to do is to comment on this blog and share it with their friends and family members.
But you will never hear me say, “Well, I worked really hard, guys. I dedicated so many hours to this. Please Comment and Share.”
Look, who cares if I worked hard?
Who cares if I’ve spent days creating this Blog post?
The real questions are, does it offer value to you, And Why should you dedicate your time to Comment and Share this Blog Post, When you could be doing anything else that you want?
Habit number 5 is something that I try to use every single day.
With every interaction that I have, and with every comment that I reply to, and it is this: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood.
6.Synergize.
Now imagine there are two people and a tree with five apples on it.
They are both too short of reaching the apples, but if one of them sits on the other’s shoulders, He can reach all five of the apples.
This is called synergy.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that you can’t achieve this with everyone, But you should always be looking for opportunities to create synergy.
With every synergistic opportunity you create, you can gather many more apples than you otherwise would by yourself.
Habit number 6 is Synergize.
7. Sharpen The Saw.
A man has been trying to cut down a tree for Hours.
And after a while, his neighbour can’t take it anymore.
He goes over and says, “You know, if you sharpen the saw, you’ll be able to cut it down faster.”
And the man replies, “But sharpening the saw is going to take time.”
Now we might laugh at this story, but we do the same thing all the time.
We can’t find 30 minutes a day, 4 times a week, to go to the gym.
Our health deteriorates to a point where we’re physically incapable of being effective.
We can’t read a book for 15 minutes a day and mentally stimulate ourselves. No! These things take too much time!
And then we have the audacity to ask for little tips and tricks on how to be effective.
It’s like telling your engineer, “Don’t worry about the foundation. Where can we get the magic bricks that will float in the air?”
Habit number 7 is Sharpen The Saw.
Also Read:4 Productive Things To Do At Home In Your Free Time.
Conclusion:
This is the Brief Summary Of 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People.
These are highly effective if you build these habits in your life. They could literally change your life and drive you towards success.
Let’s quickly recall these 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People:
1. Be Proactive.
2. Begin With The End In Mind.
3. Put First Things First.
4. Think Win-Win.
5. Seek First To Understand Then To Be Understood.
6. Synergize.
7. Sharpen The Saw.
I hope you follow at least one of these 7 Habits and change your life positively.
Which habit of these 7 would you like to include in your life?
Tell me in the comments below. I would love to know.
Peace✌️.