Dear daughter,
Here you will find a book summary that I made for you. The book title is “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by Steven R. Covey.
The book gives you guidance on to become more effective and achieve more.
The author divides the 7 habits he describes as necessary to be highly effective in private and public victory.
These are the 7 habits:
- Private victory:
- Be proactive
- Begin with the end in mind
- Put first things first
- Think win-win
- Public victory
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the sword
1- Be proactive
This habit makes people recognize that is important to take initiative.
Also, when you are proactive, you understand that it is you have responsibility for the choices you make.
When you get this habit, you don’t react depending on your mood or on what is happening around you. You act depending on your principles and what is happening. A good example of what you don’t do when you are proactive is that you won’t follow the herd mentality.
2- Begin with the end in mind
Every time you start something, first think and decide what you want to achieve.
Answer what is the purpose of what you are doing.
After you understand what the purpose is of what you want to do, start doing it and always keep the result as your main guide.
This will help you to keep the course of whatever you do, without being distracted by all the things you will find along the way.
3- Put first things first
This habit is about knowing what to prioritize.
Human beings can get distracted easily. Sometimes, we also try to postpone everything that we don’t really like.
This habit is about avoiding that. Don’t postpone important things just because you don’t like them.
Learn to prioritize and do the most important things first.
There is a nice book that is all about prioritizing the most important things no matter how unattractive they are to you. The book title is “Eat that frog”. Just by reading the title, you get a feeling of how is life. No matter if you like it or not, do what you must do.
4- Think win-win
All the habits mentioned by the author are important and very useful.
This one, I read it several times because I think there is a total lack of it in our current society.
In short, every time you do something, you and the rest of the people involved should have a gain.
Never think about doing something that only you will win. It doesn’t work that way, and if it works, it won’t be sustainable.
New generations want to get things quickly and mostly, without effort. Quick and without effort usually brings no benefits to someone else. So, avoid those things.
If you focus on creating value for others, you will get benefits for yourself. This is a win-win situation. You win, others win.
That is a key behavior to becoming successful.
5- Seek first to understand, then to be understood
This is the first habit categorized under public victory.
The reason is public is because it is based on your interaction with others.
I’ve seen a lot of people who do the opposite of this habit. I’m sure you too. These people, when they are in a conversation, they don’t listen. While you are talking or explaining something, they are thinking about what they are going to say after you finish to make their point. Most of the time, they don’t even wait until you finish to start talking.
So, when you are in a conversation, pay full attention to what the other (s) is (are) saying. If you don’t fully understand, ask questions, and ask clarifications. Only when you fully understand the other point of view, give yours.
This will make your social and work interactions better; it will make them more useful for you and the people you share time with.
Also, it contributes to building trust and relationships. And people will be more open with you.
6- Synergize
This habit is about finding common ground when you don’t agree with others’ points of view.
Remember we are all different, with different experiences that shape the way we think and behave.
So, every time try to find common ground and compromise on some things to get a common understanding and be able to move on.
This is about respecting everyone’s opinion.
Remember what we learn at school, differences are the basics for development.
Accept the people who think and behave differently than you do for what they are, not for what you like. Then, find a common ground and stick to it. This will show people you respect them, and they will have respect for you in return.
This is especially helpful in marriage. But I found out myself that is helpful in all areas of our lives.
Be problem-solving-oriented, don’t try to impose your criteria and point of view on other people.
7- Sharpen the sword
This habit is about always improving yourself.
Learning is not something you do once and you are done.
Sharpening the sword is about being always an active learner. Never think you know enough. Our life is too short to learn everything there is out there to learn, everything that will add value to our lives.
Dear daughter, this is one of the things I always ask you to do. Study more and learn new things. A great way to do it is to read books, then you will learn what others did, what worked for them and what didn’t. And that is the reason why I’m creating these book summaries for you.
This summary gives you an idea of the main points, but it is not a substitute for all the great examples and explanations from the author of the book. I encourage you to read the book, so you get a deeper understanding of the 7 habits of highly effective people.
Once you read it, we can share our experiences and own examples, but most important, how we will grow these great habits in our lives.
Love you, Dad.
I share the letters I write to my daughter so more people can benefit from them. If you want to buy this book, you can check it out on Amazon using this link.