Last month marked the start of a new MBB series to highlight transformational books for women called Transformational Book Series – Our Picks. This month we’re excited to continue the series by sharing with you our next transformational book in the series – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.

We have adopted his principle-centered, holistic approach to efficiency in our programs, and it is highly attributive to our culture and operations here at MBB.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People outlines seven habits everyone must have in order to navigate life effectively. We all know that there is an order to things in this life, but what the author has done in this book is to orchestrate the order and clarify its components. He has established timeless principles that have proven effective to millions of people around the world, and women have used them to transform their lives enormously.

So what are these 7 habits of highly effective people?

Habit.1) Be Proactive

Habit.2) Begin with the end in mind

Habit.3) Put first things first

Habit.4) Think win win

Habit.5) Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Habit.6) Synergize

Habit.7) Sharpen the Saw

Be Proactive

As we continue to emphasize in all our programs here at MBB, you must remain proactive in all your endeavors. People who are proactive accomplish more with less time, and are proven to be happier than people who are reactive – accomplishing less with more time. In reactive living one focuses on the things he or she cannot control and continuously complain about it – uselessly, while the proactive lifestyler focus on what he or she can control and influence, and using those things to improve their situation.

Begin With The End in Mind

This approach serves us well when applied to everything we set out to do. And that is why it is so deeply engraved in everything we do here at MBB. When you visualize your end goal, you end up having a strategic vision for yourself or your business. You will then set and implement SMART goals with each task aligning and moving you closer to that vision being accomplished. That vision of your end goal will keep you anchored, and the strategic steps you’ve laid out in your goal book will simplify the process encouraging you to keep going as you move forward and the end becomes closer and clearer in view. If you don’t know what you want, you will not know how to get it, and if you don’t know where you’re going, you will not know how to get there.

Put First Things First

In our modern day super busy lifestyle, if we’re not careful we can run ourselves into the ground “busy doing everything” but accomplishing very little in the process. And so this habit is designed to help us prioritize. Prioritizing how we use our most important resource – time, is paramount if we are to live efficiently – using less time to get more. This habit is divided into four quadrants where you will layout all your dealings or things to do in order of priority. They are: Quadrant 1 – important and urgent, Quadrant 2 – important but not urgent, Quadrant 3 – urgent but not important, and Quadrant 4 – not urgent and not important. This setup allows us to live our lives according to the values we choose for ourselves, and enable us to consciously use our time to focus on those things that are taking us closer to our goals in quadrant 1, with the rest of our time spent in quadrant 2 improving ourselves.

Think Win Win

For the most part, we all want to win when we compete. And for a lot of things such as sports competition, someone has to lose in order for the other to win. In many things however, such as in business, a person or company does not have to lose in order for another to win. We can entertain what Stephen Covey calls the Win Win approach – which means finding ways to build interdependent relationships and make business deals that are mutually beneficial to all involved. Thinking win win can only happen when parties involved are approaching the relationship from an abundance mentality rather than a scarcity mentality. The abundance mentality as the name suggests, is having the world view that that there is plenty of “success” out there for everyone to have, while the scarcity mentality will put you in a “zero-sum” mind-frame which says, “If you get it, I don’t.”

Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood

This is huge! Your important relationships could benefit from this. Many times in relationships we end up escalating discourse that could have been simply resolved, into big “OOC” arguments that many times causes hurtful words to be introduced that are relationship-killing. We each so deftly want to be understood, that no effort is made to understand the other party. Imagine, if we listen to understand, instead of listening only to respond. This principle can also be applied to religion, race, countries. Can you imagine what would happen if we all seek first to understand, then to be understood?

Synergize

We love synergy here at MBB! What this habit means is to engage in teamwork so openly and so well that even disagreements and differences of opinion can somehow lead to finding new ways of approaching a problem or even solving them. When members in a team are thinking win win and seeking first to understand each other, it will have no alternative but to lead to synergy, aligning on the same side with the same goals, and finding creative solutions despite the earlier disagreement in managing the project. This habit if adopted by everyone, could change our world for the better. No more wars, killings, fightings – just synergizing and basically finding common ground.

Sharpen the Saw

Yes, we cannot become so complacent that we stop learning, improving, and growing. Sharpening our Saw means taking the time to ensure our minds, bodies, and spirits are ready to take on the challenge of constant improvement. However, this cannot happen unless we take a step back from our hectic, ever demanding schedules in order to rest, reflect, read and fill our spirits, and spend quality time with our loved ones doing the things we all enjoy doing – at regular intervals. To remain highly effective, we must constantly recharge and restore our body, mind and spirit.

We have adopted these principles here at MBB, in addition to many others that we have harnessed over the years, and if you are a client of ours we have already passed them on to you through one or more of our many programs and workshops here. But for those of youwho are reading this and it’s new to you, go ahead and get this book, read it, and apply these habits and principles to your life. We have just narrowly touched the surface of this book in this blog post, and there is so much more for you to experience and grasp from Stephen R Covey himself in his book.

Stephen R. Covey is a mastermind, and this book is a masterpiece. Get this book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People By Stephen R. Covey, read it, implement the strategies in your life, and we promise you – you will NEVER be the same again! In a good way!

With love, gratitude, and empowered attitude,