In his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” , Stephen Covey describes how you can be happier and more effective in life. It is one of the best Personality Development book I ever read. The book provides an answer to central Question – ‘ How do you give a direction to your life in a constructive and effective way?’

Lets discuss , what are those 7 habits that Mr. Stephen Covey has mentioned in this book.

1. Be Proactive

More than just taking initiate , being proactive means taking responsibility for your life. Where reactive people are driven by feeling, proactive people are driven by values. The clearest manifestation of proactivity can be seen in your ability to stick to the commitments you make to yourself. By setting small goals and sticking to them, you gradually increase your integrity , which increases your ability to take responsibility for your life.

2.Begin with the end in mind

To better understand this habit, Covey invites you to imagine your funeral. He asks you to think how you would like your loved ones to remember you, what you would like them to acknowledge as your achievements, and to consider what a difference you made in their lives. Engaging in this thought experiments helps you to identify some of your key values that should underpin your behavior.

• Covey states that most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to create a personal mission statement. It should focus on following:
• what you want to be (character)
• what you want to do (contribution & achievement)
• the values upon which both of these things are based.

3.Put first things first

Your integrity is synonym with how much you value yourself and how well you keep your commitments. Habit 3,concerns itself with prioritizing these commitments and putting most important things first. This means cultivating the ability to say no to things that don’t match your guiding principles.

4. Think win/win

To adopt win/win mindset, you must cultivate the habit of interpersonal leadership. This involves exercising each of following traits when interacting with others- self awareness, imagination, conscience , independent will.

5.Seek first to understand , then to understood

The ability to communicate clearly is essential for your overall effectiveness, as its most important skill you can train. While you spend years learning to read, write and speak, Covey states that little focus is given to training the skill of listening.

Empathic listening allows you to get a clearer picture of reality. When you begin to listen to people with the intent of understanding them, you will be amazed at how quickly they will open up. Once you think , you’ve understood the situation, the next step is to make yourself understood.

6. Synergize

When synergy is operating at its fullest, it incorporates the desire to reach win/win agreement with empathic communication. Its the essence of principle-centered leadership. Synergy is a creative process that requires your vulnerability, openness and communication . It means balancing the mental , emotional and psychological differences between group of people.

7. Sharpen the saw

It means improving the greatest asset you have yourself. Spend some time to improve (sharpen) yourself in the 4 areas of your life everyday.

• Physical : healthy diet, exercise and enough rest
• Spiritual: Read, listen to music, meditate, Spend time in nature
• Mental: Read, write, organize and make plans, teach
• Social/ emotional: learn to understand others , serve others, volunteer

Without knowing these main areas of yourself, you will stagnate, your saw will get blunt.

I will rate this book 5/5 and strongly prefer to read this to everyone who is reading my blog. I am sure , if you choose to read it, you will end up with a better personality and a huge new vocabulary. (Note: Before reading Download any dictionary app in your phone)