7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE - (ENGLISH) BOOK SUMMARY

 

Hey friends ✋

No matter how many motivational videos you watch or read, your motivation and excitement level will fade away after some time and in the end, you will again start doing things according to your “habits” as humans are creatures of habits and it is really difficult for us to change them, but before that, we should know what habits we have to change or develop in ourselves. Because getting our habits right can mean the difference between success and failure not only in our personal lives, but in our professional lives, and in the communities in which we live. 

Today I am going to share with you the 7 habits that will make you an effective person

so let's begin 👉

Habit 1: be proactive

 At a restaurant, a cockroach came and sat on a lady, she started screaming in fear, with a panicked face and trembling voice, she started jumping with both her hands trying to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction was contagious which made everyone in her group also panic. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but it landed on another lady in the group now it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue, in the relay of throwing the cockroach next fell upon the waiter instead of screaming or panicking stood firm composed himself and observed the behaviour of the cockroach on his shirt when he was confident enough he grabbed the cockroach with his finger and threw it out of the restaurant

Now we can relate this story with the concept of proactive and reactive people.

Here the waiter was a proactive person because he did not react to the situation which came to him unlike the ladies did but instead, he handled it with proper thinking and action There is a great difference between proactive and reactive people. Reactive people love to play the blame game according to them all the problems happening to them is because of the government, their boss, other people etc according to them things are not in their control but the hands of other people or circumstances. They think the problem is "out there" - but in reality, that thought is the problem.

Reactivity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and reactive people feel increasingly victimized and out of control. They usually say things like: "There's nothing I can do."

"That's just the way I am." "He makes me mad". 

On the other hand, proactive people take the control of their feelings into their own hands instead of giving someone else. They take 100% responsibility for their actions and behaviour. They don’t blame the situations but rather think of solutions instead. So To be proactive, we must focus on the Circle of Influence that lies within our Circle of Concern - in other words, we must work on the things we can do something about and not focus on things we can't do anything about like the reactive people usually do.

Habit no 2 Begin With The End In Mind

Now imagine you are at a funeral but this one is different from any other funeral you have ever attended as you come to know that it is your funeral.

Now stop and think what are the things you would like others to say about you or what would you like to say about yourself at that time. for example, do you want to be remembered as a great friend then are you behaving as a great friend right now which will make your friends say that?

Do you want to be remembered as a person who added a lot of value to society and helped many people in need if yes then are you working on it right now? Are your actions aligned with the goals, you want to accomplish Ask yourself what are the things that you want to achieve before you die and start working on them, don't just do things without any clue of the end.

Habit no 3: Put first things first

How many times do we catch ourselves scrolling our Facebook feed, watching YouTube videos or tv? when we have a lot of other important things needed to be finished. This is one of the most common habits which wastes so much of our time and holds us back from going above the average it is simple yet really hard to develop this habit but to manage ourselves effectively we must put first things first, we must prioritize our day. today action is based on what is the most important and not what is most urgent, all the habits in this book are related to each other. so when you decide your end goals properly and then work to complete those goals, you must put things that will help you to complete your main goal in the first place never let less important things keep you away from doing things which are of most important time is very precious so be stingy with your time rather than money.

Habit no 4: think win-win

Suppose you think of starting your own business. you make a plan thinking all about your profits, growth and create a product which is not that helpful to your customers but still with your great marketing team and persuasion skills, you sell it to a lot of people and start making profits .now do you think you will make it big by doing this and get long term results. Of course, you won't because by doing this you are creating a win loose situation. To make it big, you should always think of a win-win outcome for everyone. you should think more about adding values and benefits that you can bring to your customer doing this will automatically make your profits and hence yourself big. I see a lot of people having the mentality that for them to win someone else has to lose. which is called the Scarcity Mentality (in other words which means, if you get it, I won’t) but in reality, there is plenty out here for everyone. we just need to develop the mentality which is called abundance mentality and always try to create win-win outcomes in any situation business or agreement for the best results.

Habit No 5: seel first to understand then to be understood

Let’s say you go to an optometrist and tell him that you’ve been having trouble seeing clearly, so he takes off his glasses, hands them to you and says, you should try these - they’ve been working for me for years!” So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse. Now, What are the chances you’d go back to that optometrist?

Yet in our everyday interactions with others, we do the same thing. We prescribe a solution before we diagnose the problem. We start criticizing people without understanding their feeling. we focus on what the other person said and react thinking how can he say that when our main question should be why did he say like that and what were the real feelings behind it. So Before you can offer advice, suggest solutions, or effectively interact with another person anyway, you must seek to deeply understand them and their perspective through empathic listening. You should not listen with the intent to reply but rather understand. the most important point is that the person should feel you understood. when you will start doing this people will also start understanding you.

Habit No 6: synergy

If you put two plants close together, their roots will co-mingle and improve the quality of the soil, so that both plants will grow better than they would have on their own. principle of synergy encourages us to team up with people rather than fighting or trying to take each other down. For example, there was a tree with apples on it two men were trying to pick apples from it but they were too short to reach them so one man got above the second and picked all the apples .this was the use of synergy.. like this example if we synergize with other people. we can obtain better results, increase our capabilities tremendously and have a much better chance of reaching our goals.

Habit no 7: sharpen the saw

Once a man was trying to cut down a tree but even after putting a lot of effort he was not able to complete his task .. there was a lumberjack who was watching him and after understanding his struggle he came to him and gave him an advice that he should first sharpen the saw .as his saw was not sharp enough to cut down the tree. after listening this the man replied but will take time. now you might find the reply stupid but we are also somewhat like this man only. we cant take out 30 min off our day to exercise so that we can have good health, we cant read a book for 15 minutes to improve our knowledge and then we shamelessly complaining that why we have such a kind of life.

Habit 7 is focused on improving ourself, or taking time to “sharpen the saw.”One of the best things you can do with your time is to spend it on improvising ourselves continuously. To be effective, we must devote our time to improving ourselves physically, spiritually, mentally, and socially.. which will help us to practice the remaining 6 habits as It surrounds all of the other habits and makes each one possible by preserving and enhancing the greatest asset we have –ie ourself.

These concepts are taken from the book 7 habits of highly effective people which is again one of my favourites. 

 If you found the habits effective comment your views, share to spread the knowledge and keep visiting my profile for getting more habits that will help you to become an effective person. 

Finally thanks for reading 💗