Habits that follow are the brainchild of Stephen Covey, a business management guru. Synopses are mine, written for a small portion of my psychology final.
I do not find anything particularly ‘deep’ about Covey’s observations, but they do represent a nice chunk of wisdom and have at least modest philosophical value. I figure it can’t hurt to post them and see if they take us anywhere.
Cheers.
Habit #1 (be proactive) demands, in the existential and humanist traditions, you take charge of your own life, opposed to allowing other things - or other people - to determine your fate. While passivity certainly has its place, there is little doubt the fruitful and enjoyable life is one in which you call the shots, both figuratively and literally. It is the difference between standing idly as life passes by and creating a life best suited to your needs and desires.
Habit #2 (begin with the end in mind) is the habit of ‘personal leadership’ - directing yourself toward your own goals. Perhaps all too often people find themselves blindly following a predetermined path, set either by parental figures or society at large, when indeed, in this infinite and ever-complex reality, the goals we seek ought be determined only by ourselves. Once such a goal is determined, one that we ourselves have selected, to never lose sight of it, to drive ourselves toward it with relentless persistency, is the blueprint to real success.
Habit #3 (put first things first) is an exercise in personal standards. We are certainly most aware of what is truly important; yet we are prone to treat these things with only a subtle taste of significance, allowing much less important things to distract us. To never lose sight of what is important, and to live with those things close to mind, allowing them - not the mundane or trivial - to dictate our focus.
Habit #4 (think win-win) centers around the concept of cooperative effort. There is always room for compromise, if only in a limited sense, whereby both (or many) parties may experience something of a positive outcome; assessing a circumstance and identifying how all involved may benefit can only be viewed as a positive attitude.
Habit #5 (seek first to understand and then to be understood) highlights the pet peeve of many: those who listen without hearing; those who ‘wait to speak’ or take in only a marginal portion of what is being said, opposed to making the concentrated effort toward real understanding. Covey argues successful people are constantly in the process of serious effort toward understanding others prior to making any effort toward being understood themselves.
Habit #6 (synergize) is the habit of creative cooperation, whereby the contributions of all are considered to there greatest degree to elicit their full potential. Playing to the cliché, ‘two minds are better than one’, those who utilize this habit are prone to greater success than single-minded thinkers.
Habit #7 (sharpen the saw) entails never losing sight of the fact our minds and bodies can be strengthened through exercise. We ought seek to be in a constant state of development; our intelligence, personality and overall consciousness is not static, but perpetually ripe for expansion and improvement.
=D>