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I'm very excited about today's book
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Your mission statement makes you the leader of your own life.
You create your own destiny and secure the future you envision.
It's this abundance mentality that is so important for creating success.
It's because most people listen with the intent to reply
not to understand.
If I can go there in the mind, I can go there in the body.
One thing that's absolutely important to creating innovation
is diversity.
Golden Nugget number 1
Be proactive
Your life doesn't just happen
whether you know it or not
it's carefully designed by you and the choices you make.
You choose to be happy, you choose to be sad,
you choose to make fast decisions and stick to them,
you choose to waver on your decisions,
you choose success, you choose failure, you choose courage, you choose fear.
Just remember that every moment, every situation
provides you an opportunity to make a brand new choice in your life.
And when you do that,
it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently
to produce more positive results.
Being proactive is about taking responsibility for your life.
You can't keep blaming everything on your parents
or on your grandparents, on your siblings.
Proactive people recognize that they are what Covey calls
response-able.
They don't blame genetic circumstances
conditions or conditioning for their behaviour.
They know they choose their behaviour.
Reactive people on the other hand
are often affected by their physical environment.
They find external sources to blame for their behaviour
if the weather is good, they feel good, if the weather is crap, they feel like crap.
All of these external forces that are outside of our mind,
that are outside of our control
they act as stimulus that we respond to.
Now, between the stimulus and the response
is your greatest power
You have the freedom to choose your response.
One of the most important things you choose
is what you say.
Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself.
A proactive person uses proactive language
I can, I will, I prefer
and so on and so forth.
A reactive person uses reactive language
I can't or I have to or if only.
Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do
they don't have a choice.
Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions
over which they have little to no control
Proactive people focus their time and their energy
on things that they can control.
The problems, challenges and opportunities we face
all fall into two areas
the circle of concern
and the circle of influence.
Proactive people, they focus their efforts, their time, their energies
on the circle of influence.
They work on the things they can do something about
their health, their children, their parents, problems at work.
Reactive people on the other hand,
they focus the majority of their efforts in the circle of concern-
things that they have very little control over.
When you gain an awareness
of the areas that you spend most of your energy
that's how you can make the first step in becoming a proactive person
Golden Nugget number 2
is based on imagination.
The ability to envision in your mind
what you can't at present times see with your eyes.
It's based on the principle that all things are created twice
there's the mental creation which is first
and then the second which is physical creation.
The physical creation follows the mental
just as a building follows a blueprint.
If you don't make a conscious effort
to visualize who you are and what you want in life
Then you empower other people and other circumstances around you
to shape you and your life by default.
And you don't want to do that.
You want to be in control
It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness
and then defining the personal, moral and ethical guidelines
within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.
Begin with the end in mind means to begin each day,
each task or each project, each relationship
with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination
and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles
to make things happen.
Golden Nugget number 3
Put first things first.
To live a more balanced life
you have to recognize that not doing everything that comes along
it's okay
There's no need to overextend yourself.
All it takes is realizing
that it's alright to say no when necessary
and then focus on your highest priorities.
Habit 1 says
you're in charge, you're the creator.
Being proactive is about choice.
Habit 2, is the first or mental creation
beginning with the end in mind. It's all about vision
Habit 3, is the second creation,
the physical creation.
This habit is where habits 1 & 2 come together.
It happens day in and day out, moment by moment.
It deals with many of the questions addressed in the field of time management
But that's not what it's all about,
habit 3 is about life management as well.
Your purpose, values, roles and priorities
what are first things to you?
Golden Nugget number 4
Think win-win
Now think win-win
it's not about being nice, and it's definitely not a quick fix technique.
It's a character based code for human interaction and collaboration.
Most of us learn to base our self-worth on comparisons and competition.
We think about succeeding in terms of someone else failing
that is, if I win you lose
and if you win, I lose.
With this type of thinking life becomes a zero-sum game.
There is only so much pie to go around
and if you get a big piece, there's going to be less for me.
It's not fair.
We all play the game,
but how much fun is it really?
Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena
not a competitive one.
Win-win is a frame of mind and heart
that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions.
Win-win means agreements or solutions
are mutually beneficial and satisfying.
A person or organization
that approaches conflicts with a win-win attitude
possesses 3 vital character traits.
Integrity, 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.
And finally abundance mentality,
believing there is plenty to go around for everyone.
To go for win-win
you not only have to be empathetic
but you have to also be confident.
You not only have to be considerate and sensitive,
you also have to be brave.
To achieve that balance between courage and consideration
is the essence of real maturity
and is fundamental to this win-win philosophy.
Golden Nugget number 5
Seek first to understand then to be understood.
Communication is the most important skill in life
you spend years learning how to read, how to write
and years learning how to speak.
But what about listening?
What training have you had that enables you to listen
so you really deeply understand another human being?
Probably none, right?
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 focus only on the words being said
not the meaning of the words.
So, why does this happen?
It's because most people listen with the intent to reply
not to understand.
You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind
what you're going to say next, the questions you're going to ask etc, etc
you filter everything you hear through your life experiences
and through your frame of reference.
You check what you hear against your autobiography
and see how it measures up.
And consequently you decide prematurely
what the other person means before he or she finishes communicating.
Golden Nugget number 6
Synergize
Now, put simply, synergy means
two heads are better than one.
Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation.
It's teamwork, open-mindedness
and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems
But it doesn't just happen on its own.
It's a process and through that process
people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table.
Together they can produce far better results
that they could not do individually.
Synergy lets us discover jointly
things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves.
It's the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
When people begin to interact together genuinely
and they're open to each other's influence
they begin to gain new insight.
Do you truly value the mental,
emotional and physiological differences among people?
Or do you wish everyone would just agree with you
so you could all just get along?
Differences should be seen as strengths not weaknesses.
They add zest to life.
Last but certainly not least, Golden Nugget number 7
Sharpen your saw.
Now sharpen the saw means
preserving and enhancing the greater 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.
Now here are some examples of different activities.
Physical: beneficial eating,
exercising and resting.
Social-emotional:
making social and meaningful connections with others, friends, family.
Mental: learning, reading, writing, teaching.
Spiritual: spending time in nature.
Expanding spiritual self through meditation,
music, arts, prayer, service.
As you renew yourself in each of the four areas
you create growth and change in your life.
Sharpen the saw keeps you fresh
so you can continue to practice the other 6 habits.
You increase your capacity
to produce and handle the challenges around you when you sharpen your saw.
Without this renewal the body becomes weak,
the mind-mechanical, emotions-raw,
the spirit-insensitive and the person-selfish.
Feeling good, it just doesn't happen.
Feeling good is something you have to work on.
Living a life in balance means
taking the necessary time to renew yourself.
Again, it's all up to you.
It's all in your circle of influence.
It's something you control.
You can renew yourself through relaxation
or you can totally burn yourself out by overdoing everything.
Just remember that every day provides a new opportunity for renewal.
A new opportunity to recharge yourself instead of hitting the wall.
All it takes
is the desire, knowledge and skill to know how to do it.
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