The 7 Habits
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers
A Riddle
I am easily managed - you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly what you want done and after a few lessons I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great individuals and, alas, all failures, as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a human. You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin - it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
WHO AM I?
I AM HABIT
The 7 Habits
They are...
- Be proactive.
- Begin with the end in mind.
- Put first things first.
- Think win-win.
- Seek first to understand. Then to be understood.
- Synergize.
- Sharpen the saw.
Paradigms
Try a different pair of glasses.
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Proactive, reactive
The book explains that reactive people are like a bottle of coke, and a proactive person like a bottle of water. When you shake the water, nothing happens. It just stays calm and still, like a proactive person. When you shake a bottle of coke, it explodes everywhere, like a reactive person.
Do it yourself!
Things don't just come to you by mistake, nothing is just handed over to you. You just have to gut up of your bum and grab it.
Circle of control
Habit 1 says...
YOU are the only one who can control your feelings. It is your choice to get angry, sad or be happy with somebody.
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
5 years into the future...
The whole point of this chapter is to know where you want to be, and draw up a plan of how you are going to get there.
Mission statements
Goals
When you make cookies, you know what you want them to turn out like. You also know that you need certain ingredients (this is the mission statement) But to actually get the cookies cooked you need to follow the instructions step by step, in little pieces to get the perfect bake. These are your goals.
My mission Statment
Habit 2 says...
Habit 3: Put first things first
The four quadrants
- Quadrant one is someone who does urgent and important things, the procrastinator.
- Quadrant two someone who does important but not urgent things, the prioritiser.
- Quadrant three is someone who does urgent but not important things, the yes-man.
- Quadrant four is someone who does unimportant and not urgent things, the slacker.
- The procrastinator puts off everything he or she needs to do, and does the things that are not necessarily important but urgent.
- The prioritiser makes shire they do the important things they need to do first, then the urgent things.
- The yes-man finds it hard to say no to urgent but unimportant jobs, they try so hard to please others but by taking so much on at once, they end up not pleasing themselves.
- Lastly the slacker is the person who can't be bothered to do either. Neither important or urgent, however important or urgent the job might be.