7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

I’d like to discuss how to create and set up highly effective habits. The book that comes to mind and that I highly recommend and will be taking from and then expounding my ideas with is “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey. This book was first published in 1989 (and re-released several times since, in various formats and editions) and it definitely withstands the test of time.

The 7 habits include…

1) Be Proactive – Principles of Personal Vision

Don’t wait until you find yourself in the position of having to react to a situation; move forward on your own behalf and make things happen.

2) Begin with the End in Mind – Principles of Personal Leadership

What is the goal you wish to achieve with the actions you are taking? Think about this in every area of your personal and business life. You may discover something more in what you are doing that can open doors for you, or at least allow you to be seen by others in a new or different light than has previously been the case.

3) Put First Things First – Principles of Personal Management

It is said that the shoemaker’s children sometimes go barefoot. What do you need to take care of on the home front that has been forgotten or neglected over time? What about tasks and activities that are relevant and crucial for your business? I often connect with new and newer authors and entrepreneurs who are working on projects in various areas. Many, many times they have not spent the time and made the effort to lay the proper foundation.

A case in point is that of a woman who had created a product, but did not have a blog or other page where visitors could sign up to join her list. We were on a call with Joe Vitale and he gave out the links to each of our sites. More than a thousand people opted in to my list when he sent them to my blog. The other woman only had a sales page for her product and two people purchased that evening. Everyone else disappeared because she had not set up a way for anyone to opt in. This was a hard lesson for her and one I will never forget.

4) Think “Win/Win” – Principles of Interpersonal Leadership

Leaders are made, not born. How can you make what you do in your life and business a win/win for others? Be creative as you think of ways to boost other people’s products, courses, books, and reputation. Something I enjoy doing is sharing a recent blog post from people in my community with others. This is a way for them to get their message out to a much larger audience and I am proud and honored to be a part of this with them. Sometimes the people share me with their audiences and it ends up being a win/win no matter what occurs.

5) Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood – Principles of Empathic Communication

The word empathic means showing an ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Communication is something I work on every day because it was a struggle for me during my younger years. How can we communicate with others in a way that shows we understand and share the other person’s feelings? I believe this is an area that is worthy of further study.

6) Synergize – Principles of Creative Cooperation

In my world there is no such thing as true competition; instead, we prefer to cooperatively compete and we refer to this as “coopetition.” Think about any kind of business, such as a grocery store or fast food chain and you will see that they engage in coopetiton regularly. That’s why it’s not uncommon to see a Burger King and a McDonald’s on opposite corners of the same intersection.

7) Sharpen the Saw – Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

If you only have five minutes to saw down a tree, spend three of them sharpening the saw. We must work on our mindset every day and I am able to achieve this goal more days than not. Every human is in the process of becoming the person they want to be throughout their lifetimes. While I worked as a classroom teach the children often expressed their disappointment in not achieving something that was important in their lives. I encouraged them to keep moving forward and impressed upon them that they were still in the process of becoming who they would be in their later years.

It is my sincere hope that you are now inspired to read Covey’s book and begin implementing his 7 habits of highly effective people in your life.

I’m bestselling author, marketing strategist, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and I would love to connect further with you to help you to achieve your goals. If you are interested in learning how to optimize the syndication of your content, please take a look at my popular Syndication Optimization training course and consider coming aboard to increase your visibility, credibility, and profitability.