This is a review of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. If you don't know him, he is the author of bestselling book the 7 habits of effective people.
I wanted to share this to all the people including you and all the youth out there. This review tells you why should or shouldn't read this book. For parents, having a closer relationship to their children is essential to build a loving intact family which is slowly diminishing in today’s present society.
And if you want to develop a habit to be more closer to your children there is no reason not to read this book.
If you haven't read "7 Habits" yet, it MAY NOT be time to read it now.
I have noticed that you can't or shouldn't read it until you're ready.
Let me explain that:
If you are a parent, single parent, student leader, missionary, pastor or anyone who wanted to be truly effective in your career this book is for you.
There are concepts in this book that are so powerful, that even just reading them (without consciously putting them into action) changed how I live.
For example, I continuously found myself comparing what was happening in my life to what I had just read. If someone said an insulting thing to me, my initial feeling would be anger, but on the heels of that thought would come something I'd read in 7 Habits. I'd be thinking, "Hey! That reminds me of when Covey wrote about the stimulus and response.
We have the capability to act base on the circumstances that hover around us, but being a proactive person as he said, you should not be affected with the outside factors which influence your life.
The first 3 Habits were enough to get me incredibly excited about interaction with others. You could live 1000 years and not come up with these concepts on your own.
The 4th habit was called "Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood, this helped me to become a very good "facilitator or moderator".
I could talk to people and help them not "drown for psychological air" around me. People want to be understood.
If you argue your point all the time, no one feels understood and ideas are harder to be put into action. ANY IDIOT CAN ARGUE! The whole world seems to place a huge importance on debate...and being able to destroy other people's points of view with your logic and wit.
Having learned some of his principles especially to get close to anyone especially to children, Covey said it is important that we must practice to eliminate autobiographical response which can hinder our close relationship to our children.
This autobiographical response is somewhat behind our instinct that when we get irritated with our child we immediately state the reasons based on our own past experiences which is not appropriate.
Why?
Because we are only considering our side if we use this autobiographical response to our children, and so the welfare or concern of the child has not been considered and we became the child’s enemy.
I think this is also the reason why children of today’s generation don’t usually open up problems to their parents. And this is because parents use this response; they closed the dialogue already which leads to hostility to the child.
I once shared this concept with an opinionated individual. They started yelling at me and saying I was wrong and that if you know you're right, you need to stand up for yourself and prove the other person is wrong. With a grin on my face, I replied, "Maybe you're right". LOL!
They didn't even pick up on the fact I had just done to them what I was advocating. It's amazing what happens to people when you state back to them what you think is the point they're trying to make.
You'll end up starting a lot of your sentences with: "...so, what you're saying is....".
Once you begin to show the person you're not there to argue, their backs go down; the urgency in their voice drops; they calm down; and then they listen to your point without fighting.
As Covey explains, the best way to influence others is...to be INFLUENCED.
It's such a good book and it's filled with principles that will help you in all your dealings, but I find you have to be in a position in your life to put it into action. It will work great if you can practice it every day in a setting as:
-a family member dealing with difficult situations
-a manager
-a salesperson
...or anyone who needs to deal with people day-to-day. If you feel a strong need to know how to deal with others more effectively, maybe you're ready for this book now.
That is only one lesson I mentioned and there are more of it.
The book really can transform any person who wants a personal change from within. As I practiced his lessons, I became more effective even in small little way without giving any reason to quit my personal mission without having achieving it.
It’s really very powerful transformational self-help reference book I found in my collection. At first it was just a dump in my closet since it is only given to me by my sister. But when I read it from chapter 1, I couldn’t stop until I finish the whole book reading.
As I already practiced in my life the habit number one which is being proactive this one is one habit that everyone must try to achieve everyday in order to win his life’s battle. I also shared this habit to my friends and encourage them to be proactive to win their little battles.