Short version summary:

Steven Covey’s “The 7 habits of highly effective people” teach primary principles of character as the foundation of meaningful success. Regardless of how competent a person might be, they will not experience lasting success unless they can lead themselves, engage and collaborate with others and continuously challenge and work on their capabilities. These are elements of personal and interpersonal effectiveness.
The first three habits acknowledge inner strength, purpose and prioritising values of the individual for private victory. This inside-out” approach comprises the following habits that focus on the individual’s independence:

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with an End in Mind
3. Put first things first

After becoming independent – proactive, centred in correct principles, value driven and able to integrally execute around the priorities in life – one can choose to become interdependent following the next habits of interpersonal engagement.

4. Think win/win
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize

Following habits 4-6 an individual moves to interdependence with the capability to build meaningful, lasting and highly productive relationships with other people.
For continuous renewal in an ongoing process of preserving and enhancing the individual’s assets, habit seven focuses on creating balance and renewal.

7. Sharpen the saw.

Character Ethic and Personality Ethic:

The Character Ethic recognises fundamental principles of effective living. Things like integrity, courage, justice, patience, and simplicity. Success and fulfilment can only be achieved as these traits are implemented into basic character. In this spirit, success becomes a result of what we are not what we say or do.

In Contrast to character ethic, success in Personality Ehic is seen as a function of personality, public image, attitudes and behaviours, skills and techniques that serve the process of human interaction. This view merely focuses on the appearance using tools, short-term fixes and even manipulation. While this “playing the game” philosophy might work in the short-term, it’s battling to have permanent worth in long-term relationships, as there are no shortcuts to reaching desired goals and forming meaningful relationships.

Because no quick fix can produce the feeling of true accomplishment and no communication technique communicates as eloquently as the character.

Maturity Continuum

The 7 habits provide a sequential and highly integrated approach to the development of personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Practising these habits will enable dependent people to step in their independence and once achieved, make them combine their efforts with the efforts of others to achieve success through interdependence.

How can effectiveness be defined?

The paradigm of effectiveness is centred around what Covey calls the "P/PC" balance. P stands for the production of desired results. PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the desired results. Take a car for example. You won't be enjoying your vehicle very long, speeding and neglecting regular mechanical check-ups. On the other hand, if the asset is maintained and serviced regularly (high PC), it will reliably take you places (P), and you don’t have to worry about speeding every once in a while, (more P). Effectiveness is balance.

The seven habits of highly effective people are a principal-centred, character-based, “inside-out” approach that acknowledges inner strength, purpose and values for personal and interpersonal effectiveness.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

“I have to.” vs. “ I choose to. “ Shifting the paradigm literally changes lives.

Changing a life is easy. Turn “I have to” into “I choose to” and follow through.

We are not our feelings or our thoughts. We can observe our thoughts and view them from a different perspective. This is called self-awareness and can be practised through meditation. This ability allows us to question how we respond to a particular stimulus.

Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. We can decide within ourselves how certain things are going to affect us. Exercising this awareness requires mental and emotional discipline but it rewards us with freedom of choice. In addition to self-awareness, we can use our imagination – the ability to create in our minds beyond the present moment, conscience – an inner moral compass and independent will- the ability to act based on our pure self-awareness without any other influences.
While certain stimuli might trigger us to behave in a certain way we are not determined to respond accordingly. We can change our response. Between stimulus and response is our greatest power – the freedom to choose.

Proactivity

Proactivity goes beyond taking initiative. It means that as human beings we are responsible for our own lives. Our behaviour is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can place values above our feelings. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen. Responsibility – “response-ability” – the ability to choose your responses leads to proactivity: not blaming circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for behaviour. The behaviour is a result of conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of conditions, based on feelings. If we don’t choose our response and initiative for ourselves; we give circumstances, conditions, and people permission to choose for us. This ability can’t be taken or given away.

Victor Frankl's survival story impressively demonstrates this point: It is not what happens to us, it is our response – what we make out of it- that hurts us. Our character and our identity do not have to be hurt at all - if we choose to.

To be proactive, we must recognize our circle of influence, the things we can control, which lie inside our circle of concern. Positive energy from a focus on the things we can control enlarges the circle of influence through proactivity. Reactive people’s focus is on the circle of concern causing their circle of influence to shrink. As long as our efforts are focused on the circle of concern, we accomplish nothing and practice helplessness.

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Replace reactive language with proactive language:
   a. That’s just the way I am -> I can choose a different approach
   b. I must -> I prefer
2. Practice self-awareness and focus on your circle of influence. The circle of concern is filled with haves (outside-in view) whereas the circle of influence comprises bees (inside-out view).
   a. If I had more money -> I can be more resourceful
   b. If I had more time -> I can be more productive, organized and intentional with my time
3. Pause before you speak or act: Convert reactive tasks into proactive ones by placing values above your feelings.
4. Select a problem from your work or personal life that is bothering you. Determine whether it is a direct, indirect, or no-control problem. Identify the first step you can take in your Circle of Influence to solve it and then take that step. See also: minimum viable progress.

The proactive approach is to change from the inside out: to be different, and by being, to affect positive change. Read also: Choose: the power of choice in essentialism by Greg McKeown

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Journey follows destination. Destination sets courses.

If we don’t have a clear destination, we can never arrive.

“[…] almost all of the world-class athletes and other peak performers are visualizers. They see it; they feel it; they experience it before they actually do it. They begin with an end in mind”.

Once we have a clear destination, we can set the course. By keeping the end clearly in mind our actions and behaviour fall into place as they get aligned accordingly. With the help of our imagination, we can develop a vision of what we want to become and use our conscience to decide what values will guide us.

To begin with, we can start with the picture of our own funeral: What would you like the speakers to say about you and your life? What kind of husband, friend, father or working associate would you like their words to reflect? What character would you like them to have seen in you? This mental exercise touches on deep, fundamental values. You connect to your inner guidance system at the heart of your circle of influence.

It is easy to get caught up in unimportant things. We can work harder and harder to achieve things that mean little to us - It is possible to be efficient without being effective. On the other hand, if we have clarity about what is deeply important to us, keeping that picture in mind we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters making sure the steps we’re taking are in the right direction.

This is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation. Like building a home, you first create a very detailed plan before you break ground. You must make sure the blueprint, the first creation is carefully thought-out, before laying the first brick and setting the course to your destination.

First creations can be made by conscious design or by default. If we do not become responsible for our first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our circle of influence to take a lead in shaping much of our lives by default. If we surrender our choices somebody will step in and choose for us. We follow the course set by family, associates, or other’s people’s agendas. These courses are set by people, not principles.

Self-awareness, imagination, and conscience enable us to take charge of our first creations, set our course and practice personal leadership. Simply put, habit 1 says you are the creator. Habit 2 is the first creation.

Personal Mission Statement

Covey states that the most effective way to start with the first creation is to write a personal mission statement. It should focus on the following:

• What you want to be (character)
• What you want to do (contributions and achievements)
• The values these things are based on

In time, your mission statement will become your personal constitution. It guides how you make decisions in your life. By centring your life and mission statement on fundamental principles, we create a healthy core for our security, wisdom guidance and power:

• Security: We know our sense of worth and identity if we base them on correct principles that don’t change. Correct principles help you understand your own development, endowing you with the confidence to learn more.
• Wisdom: Your judgment encompasses a broad spectrum of long-term consequences and reflects a wise balance and quite an assurance. You adopt a proactive lifestyle, seeking to serve and build others.
• Guidance: You are guided by a compass, which enables you to see the direction you want to go and how you will get there. You rise above emotions and consider the whole picture. Your decisions and actions reflect both long-term and short-term considerations and implications.
• Power: your power is only limited by our understanding and observance of natural law and correct principles and by the natural consequences of the principles themselves. You become unrestricted by the attitudes behaviours or actions of others
  As principles aren’t contingent on external factors, they don’t vanish. They give you something to hold on to when you are battling to find the right direction. With a principle-led life, you can adopt a clearer, more objective worldview.

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Get in touch with your core values and desires by visualizing your own funeral. Picture who will be there. What are they saying about you? About the type of person, you have been? About the relationships you had? How would you prioritize your life if you only had 30 days left to live? Start living by these priorities every day.
2. Identify roles and goals in your life. Write down each area or capacity in which you have responsibility (e.g., individual, husband, father, businessman, etc) and the goals you have for each.
3. Write your own mission statement and review it daily.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Effective management is putting first things first. While leadership decides what “first things” are, it is management that puts them first, day by day, moment by moment. Management is discipline, carrying it out.

Exercising habit 2 you created your first mental creation based on correct principles and what’s most important to you. Habit 3 brings Habits 1 and 2 together and puts this mental image into practice: Our self-management through independent will and proactive action moves us closer to our destination. Here, prioritisation around our values and principles comes into focus.

This deals with questions addressed around time management as well as life management —your purpose, values, roles, and priorities. It defines the “first things” as the things that are truly important to you. If you put first things first, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities you established in Habit 2
Independent will as the ability to deliberately make decisions and choices and act in line with them goes hand in hand with our integrity – how we make and keep commitments to ourselves. The habit of self-management requires us to follow through on our goals even when don’t feel like it or favourable excuses arise. This includes cultivating the ability to say no to things that don’t align with our guiding principles (see also: the power of a graceful "no")and organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities build with habit 2.
The two factors that define any activity in management are importance and urgency:

Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent but important – all the things we know we need to do but somehow delay because they don’t have a deadline.
Focussing Quadrant II activities means considering long-term consequences over short-term pleasures. As this effectively works on the roots, it prevents most problems from happening in the first place.
Actionable Takeaways:

1. Start journaling to reflect and identify your key roles in life. For instance: Individual-personal development, spouse/parent, friend, community service, manager, co-worker
2. Select goals for each role. Think of one or two results you feel you should accomplish in each role within the upcoming week.
3. Scheduling: With your goals in mind, set time apart to achieve them. You may have specific time blogs for doing certain activities.
4. Daily adapting: Taking a view minute each morning to review your schedule connects you with your value-based decisions for the week and gives a natural prioritisation.

Habits 1-3 move an individual from dependence to independence and are essential for self-mastery. Moving further in the maturity continuum, habits 4-6 create the foundation of interdependence by establishing a team-work mentality, effective communication and synergizing cooperation. The following habits will help to build strong relationships.

Habit 4: Think win/win

Win/ Win is a philosophy that works on the root of motivation to cooperate. At its core is the idea that agreements and solutions can be both mutually beneficial and mutually satisfying. This philosophy sees life as a cooperative, not competitive area.
There are six paradigms of human interaction:

• Win/lose | Lose/win: This is a common mentality, based on a mindset of scarcity and lack of abundance. This mentality assumes success as a zero-sum game: If one side wins the other has to lose.
• Lose/Lose: This is bad for both sides but often occurs due to stubborn non-cooperation.
• Win: This one is unrelated to any relationships and cannot contribute to interdependence in a meaningful at all. This selfish paradigm provides no value to others.
• No deal: Neutral relationship, if there is no solution both sides can benefit from then it’s a no deal.
• Win/win: There is a mutual benefit because there is enough for anybody; with an abundance mindset nobody has to lose.

As Win/win is not a technique that can be learned to quick-fix relationships. It is the fruit of principle-centred personal leadership. Accordingly, it builds on proactive initiative and the security, guidance, wisdom, and power derived from correct principles. This builds up the courage to create these mutual benefits and break common paradigms of win/lose that are deeply scripted in other parties.

To effectively adapt this philosophy there are five dimensions of Win/win.

1. Character: The traits of Maturity and the Abundance mentality are essential, building the root of the mutually beneficial paradigm. If we deeply know what constitutes a win, what goes in harmony with our innermost values and act accordingly we build an integral foundation for trust. Maturity comes from expressing one's feelings and convictions while considering other thoughts and points of view. The Abundance mentality is the perception that success is no zero-sum game and there is plenty for everyone.
2. Relationships: We use the foundation of character, to build our relationships. Trust, in other words, your emotional bank account with others is the essence of win/win.
3. Agreements: Clarify and manage expectations by making desired goals, guidelines, resources, accountability and consequences explicit.
4. Win/win performance agreements: These agreements focus on results and release enormous human potential and create a healthy balance of P/PC.
5. Processes: To arrive at Win/win it is necessary to separate the person from the problem, to focus on interests rather than positions, to invent options for mutual gain, and to insist on objective criteria.

Actionable takeaways:

1. Think about an upcoming interaction where you'll be attempting to reach an agreement or solution. Write down a list of what the other person is looking for. Next, write a list next to that of how you can make an offer to meet those needs.
2. Identify three important relationships in your life. Think about what you feel the balance is in each of those relationships. Do you give more than you take? Take more than you give? Write down 10 ways to always give more than you take with each one.
3. Deeply consider your interaction tendencies. Are they Win-Lose? How does that affect your interactions with others? Can you identify the source of that approach? Determine whether this approach serves you well in your relationships. Write them down.

Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Communication is the most important skill in life. In practice, we spend the most time on how to express ourselves in words and writing. Listening on the other hand is often neglected as a form of communication.

Everybody sees the world differently through their own perception and opinions. If we seek to communicate effectively these highly individual perspectives must be understood by empathically listening. All advice or suggestions however well intended, will not reach fertile soil if we do not seek to understand another person's thoughts and feelings.

Empathically listening is not a technique. It is a principle-centred character in action. If we deeply value, the other person’s uniqueness, we can create openness and trust. From this core, you’ll naturally want to engage and listen to people without making them feel manipulated. While most people tend to read their own biography into other people’s lives, an emphatic listener steps in another person's shoes to understand their feelings and their paradigms.

A person who seeks to understand uses all senses rephrasing content and reflecting feelings to show deep interest and meet the other's persons vital needs. Therein, people know instinctively to trust you and will open up. If we want to be understood and prescribe a solution to a problem, we must understand the problem first.
Expressing ideas and seeking to be understood takes courage. Using consideration for the other person’s point of view that we have gained by empathic listening, we present our own ideas clearly and combine them with a deep understanding of other people’s views and concerns. Hereby, you build competence for your point by expressing the idea with logos (backing and proof) and pathos (emotions and beliefs) and your idea’s ethos will become more credible.

Actionable Take-aways:

1. Observe conversations: Next time you have an opportunity to watch people communicating, try to watch their mimic and actions. What emotions are being communicated?
2. Share the concept of empathy with someone close to you. Tell them you want to work on empathically listening for a period and ask for detailed feedback on their emotions and you made the person feel.
3. Select a relationship of yours that might have an overdrawn emotional bank account. Try to understand the situation and relationship from the other person’s view and write it down. Next time you meet listen for understanding and compare what you are hearing with your notes. How valid were your assumptions? Did it help to understand your opposite?

Habit 6: Synergize

Synergy means the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There is additional value in interdependence. Synergize is the habit of creative teamwork. Its essence is to value differences – to respect them, build on strengths, to compensate for weaknesses. Synergy is a creative process that requires trust, openness, and communication to balance differences and thus create new possibilities.

All nature is synergistic. The interplay of pumpkin, corn, and beans, for instance, demonstrate how the strengths and weaknesses of parts are perfectly balanced and their interplay results in additional benefit for the whole.

Synergy allows the creation of new creative alternatives - mutually beneficial solutions. It requires vulnerability, openness, and communication. It means balancing the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between a group of people. Thus, it establishes new paradigms of thought between the group members.

Synergy builds from individual character to the paradigm of win/win and seeking first to understand and then to be understood. When we get on the same side as a person or as a group looking at the problem with the desire to create benefits for everyone and an understanding of all needs, creativity in the process uncovers new opportunities. We seek first to understand, and then we find strengths and utility in those different perspectives to create new possibilities and Win-Win results. Synergy is effective interdependence and as such the ultimate form of cooperation.

Actionable Takeaways:

1. Think about a person who typically sees things differently. Can you think of ways in which those differences might be used as stepping-stones to third-alternative solutions? Perhaps you could ask for his or her perspectives on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear.
2. Make a list of people who irritate you. Do they represent different views that could lead to synergy if you and greater intrinsic security valued the difference?
3. Think of a situation where you desire great teamwork and synergy. What conditions would your need (trusting atmosphere, win/win agreements…) to exist to support synergy? What can you do to create those conditions?

Habit 7: Sharpen the saw

Habit 7 is about protecting and enhancing your greatest asset - you. To stay effective, we need a balanced program to constantly renew ourselves in the four areas of life: physical, mental spiritual and social/emotional. These areas are quadrant 2 activities. Continuous renewal synergistically affects our ability to practice each habit.
The four dimensions of our nature must be exercised regularly and kept in sync with each other:

Physical dimension: Caring effectively for our physical body provides high - leverage to our lives. Comprising of Exercise, Nutrition and Stress management we need to be proactive to act on our physical well-being.

Mental dimension: This aspect aims to expand the mind, and explore new ideas and concepts to sharpen the mind. Good literature, journalling and planning/organizing aspects of life represent mental renewal practices which fall under quadrant II activities.

Spiritual dimension: Renewing the spiritual dimension provides leadership to our lives and commits us to our value system. In prayers, meditation, time spent in nature or immersing ourselves in great literature and music we connect and reinforce our inner moral compass.

Social dimension: Social renewal strengthens meaningful relationships. This dimension is closely related to seeking mutual benefits, empathic communication and effective cooperation of habits 4,5 and 6. To renew this dimension we need to exercise service, empathy and contribution. It provides us with a feeling of connection, security and meaning.

“Renewal is the principle – and the process- that empowers us to move on an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement."

Actionable takeaways:

1. Make a list of activities that would help you get in good physical shape, that would fit your lifestyle, and that you could enjoy over time.
2. Select one of the activities and list it as a goal in your personal role area for the coming week. At the end of the week evaluate your performance. If you didn’t make your goal, was it because you subordinated it to a genuinely higher value? Or did you fail to act with integrity to your values?
3. Similarly, make a list of your spiritual and mental dimensions. In your social dimension think about the relationships you want to improve with help of Habits 4-6. Select one in each area to list as a goal for the week. Implement and evaluate.