Adopting the 6 Habits of Successful People – Become Highly Effective means mastering daily focus, time discipline, health, purposeful networking, continuous growth, and quick adaptability to achieve goal-driven success.
Things are not going well. Health, relationships, career, everything is getting worse. Now you have to bring about change within yourself.
If such thoughts are swirling in your brain, and you can’t figure out how to start, then keep reading today’s discussion until the end.
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Because today I will discuss Stephen R. Covey’s book “The Habits of Highly Effective People“.
Today I will discuss 6 such habits from this book which will play an important role in changing your life not only in a specific area, but also overall. Let’s start!
Habit number 1: Be Proactive
There are two types of people in this world. One group of people is proactive and the other group of people is reactive. Reactive people are those who think that everything is predetermined for them.
Or, they have nothing to do with whatever happens. That is, all the blame is on other people. It could be the country’s government or its neighbor.
That is, they blame everyone else except themselves for any bad consequences in their lives. But, on the other hand, those who are proactive think that they are responsible for everything that happens.
The difference between humans and other animals is that humans can change their preferences at will, but other animals cannot.
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If you put a piece of meat in front of a hungry dog, it will eat it. Because it has no other option to think. But if you put meat in front of a person, he can eat it or avoid it.
He has the right to think about it. Because people can make decisions freely. Reactive people spend too much time thinking about things outside their control.
For example: getting low marks in the exam. They think if the teacher had paid a little more attention to my paper, I would have gotten more marks.
Maybe their idea is correct. But they had nothing to do at that time. Instead of thinking like this, if they had focused on studying at that time, the result would have been better.
The author, Stephen R. Covey, has explained this through the circle of influence. Those who are reactive, their circle of influences is like, outside and inside.
That is, they always want to depend on others for their fortune. For example: “Ah! If my boss hadn’t been angry with me, I would have lived a better life.”
On the other hand, the influence of proactive people is that they first think about what actions will make the situation better. That is, their approach is, inside to outside.
They themselves try to bring about change within themselves.
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They think like this: “Maybe I have been slacking off at work. Maybe my work is not going well, so the boss is angry with me. “From now on, I have to work better.” So, you should be proactive.
2nd Habit: Begin With The End in Mind
If you want to build a beautifully structured house, you have to create a blueprint of that house. Similarly, to arrange life beautifully, a blueprint is also needed.
Covey called it a mission statement. Suppose you have passed away. Your relatives, well-wishers, and friends have come to bid you farewell.
They are thinking about what kind of person you are. Now, in what position do you want to see yourself? If you have done good deeds throughout your life, everyone will praise you.
But if you live a bad life, everyone will say, “That person is gone, it’s a good thing.” He caused a lot of suffering to people throughout his life, etc. Have you started doing the things you want to hear?
Have you worked today according to what they will praise you for? Or, are you doing the opposite of what you want to hear?
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As a father, you want to hear praise from your son. But you drink alcohol every day and behave badly with your son and wife. Then will you get praise?
Therefore, always move forward keeping the last day in mind. Work according to how people will praise you on the last day of your life.
3rd Habit: Put First Things First
I will start meditation and exercise from tomorrow. But it never gets started from tomorrow. The author, Covey, has divided all the work into four parts.
The first one requires immediate attention because it is important. He has called it Quadrant 1.
For example: Today is the last date to submit the assignment, so finish the assignment today, tomorrow is the exam, so study all day today, etc.
That is, those works which have a time limit. That is, if they are not completed on time, a bad consequence will have to be suffered.
The second quadrant is not urgent and important. All the good works are included in this category. These works are not very urgent but very important to organize life.
For example: exercise, diet, proper sleep, spending time with family, etc.
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These works do not have a specific time limit. But if these works are not done, bad consequences will have to be suffered in life. But unfortunately, we avoid the works of this category the most.
Because they do not have to be done in urgent times or immediate results are not seen in them.The third quadrant covers things that need to be done quickly, even though they are not essential.
Most of these are interruptions and ego-driven types. For example: if a favorite hero’s new movie is released, you have to watch the first show on the first day.
If you don’t, your friends will say, “You haven’t seen the movie yet! “So, I guess you’re not much of a fan.” Which is actually meaningless. These do not add any value to our lives.
The fourth quadrant is not urgent and not important. That is, tasks that are completely meaningless. For example: browsing Facebook for hours, chatting, browsing Instagram, etc.
The author, Covey, has said to completely abandon these tasks if possible. He encourages you to spend time in quadrant 2 and then quadrant 1. After that, he suggests following the next quadrants.
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But we do the opposite of this. We spend most of our time in quadrants 3 and 4. There are two rules to overcome this. It is possible to get out of this by following 2 rules.
Number 1 is to set priorities for your life and number 2 is to learn to say “no” politely. The tasks that are important should be done first and the tasks that are meaningless should be learned to say no to.
Habit 4: Habit of Thinking Win-Win
There is winning and losing in a football game. In this game, one team wins and the other team loses. But in the game of life, who loses and who wins is not a big deal.
Win-win situations have to be created in all aspects of life. For example: you want to watch an action movie. But your girlfriend or boyfriend wants to watch a romantic movie.
Then you should watch an action-romantic movie. Your child wants to go out, but you want him to study for 3 hours today.
In this case, you can tell him, “If you study for 3 hours today, I will take you out.”This is how a win-win situation has to be created. That is, you have to understand the needs of others.
Then, comparing your own needs, a balance has to be created between the needs of both parties. Although a win-win situation will not always be possible to create.
But if such an option comes up, then it must be chosen.
Habit Number 5: First You Have To Try To Understand, Then You Have To Make Others Understand
One of the main reasons for problems in a relationship is miscommunication. That is, misunderstandings arise because people do not listen attentively to each other’s words.
If a husband and wife quarrel, no one wants to listen to each other.
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They just keep quarreling. And if they listen, they are not listening to understand, but to speak. They are waiting for the other person to stop talking or slow down, and they can start talking.
This way the quarrel goes on. Remember one thing, to be a good speaker, you need to be a good listener first.
So, the way to overcome such a situation is to first listen attentively to the other person’s words and try to understand their statement. Then say your own words.
First you have to understand others, then you have to make them understand your words.
Habit number 6: Sharpen The Saw
Two people were given some money to start a T-shirt business. One person took the money and started the business the next day with some T-shirts.
But the other person didn’t buy T-shirts the next day. He went around the market.
He gained knowledge about what kind of T-shirts are selling more now, in which shops T-shirts are selling more, how a shopkeeper talks to his customers, etc.
After gaining good knowledge about everything, he went to the market and took the T-shirts that sold well.
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What do you think? Who will profit more? Who will be able to sell the T-shirts faster? Of course, the second person. That is, the second person went to cut the tree with a better sharpened saw!
Therefore, don’t do anything without gaining good knowledge about it. Have a clear idea about what you are going to do. You have to spend time and acquire proper knowledge first.
Successful people do that. They give more importance to acquiring all the knowledge and skills before starting any work.
