For the next 7 days, I will start to go over Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people. These habits are extremely important for achieving our goals. They are the foundation for success. First, let’s look at Habit 1 –be proactive.
Being proactive is taking initiative to influence your surrounding. It is the principle of saying “I am responsible” for whatever happens in my life. This belief is very powerful. It means I cannot blame others for my lack of money, lack of social life, lack of an idea job, or whatever that is not appearing in my life. I cannot even complain about my luck, my birth, or even God. It is I who will take the responsibility to make things happen. It also means I cannot passively wait for things to change. They will most likely not change unless I take actions. By saying “I’m responsible” I start to shape my own life, and not leaving it to chance.
This principle is also very scary. By taking responsibility, we can no longer blame others for our failure. We also do not have excuse for living a non-ideal life. If it is not ideal, it is up to us to take action. Such actions require courage, self-discipline and a lot of initiatives.
Being proactive is taking actions within our circle of influence. By focusing on things and people we can directly influence, we will be more effective. It is to resolve not to spend energy on things ourside our influence, such as gossips of celebrity, fires in a remote region, and things beyond our control.
As we take more responsibilities, our circle of influence will expand.
To create influence, we must be able to influence people around us. The way to achieve this is understanding and meeting others’ need. Only then we can gain trust and good will. Covey gave an example of how a person wins the support of a vice president by presenting information he looks for. What Covey didn’t mention here (but will mention in later chapters) is that you also need to get your need satisfied. It has to be win-win, not lose-win. Asserting our own need is the core to preserve our circle and expanding that circle. If we give up our own need, our circle of influence will shrink. Actively meeting other people’s circle, and asserting our need (circle), we allow both circle to expand. This is win-win.
The key is to have a strong understanding of our own need and a strong understanding of others’ need, and then take diligent work to ensure that both parties’ needs are satisfied. Failing to satisfy either one is the failure of this interaction. This requires strong courage and assertiveness to preserve our own need, and empathy and maturity to meet others’ need. This comes back to the core value– integrity that Cover mentioned in the earlier chapters. With strong integrity, we know that we will not hurt ours and we will hold our own promise. It is much easier to feel assertive in this way because we know we are not being selfish.
