If you want to achieve optimum of success and want to achieve excellence in personal & professional life this article is for you!
Personal effectiveness means making the most of all your personal resources at our disposal-our personal talents, energy & time related to what is important to us.
If you really want to achieve success highlight your strength areas, work on strength, work on your potential which will take you very far in life and make you successful. Don’t constraint the area of your weaknesses because that will not take you to the success.
Habit brings personal effectiveness so lets understand about habit.
What is habit? – We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle
Habit is what we do over and over again. Right from the time we are born. We are not born with habit but we have been doing something over and over again. Repeatedly doing something makes it a habit.
Habit forms 3 things. First there has to be desire, second, a need and third, want. There has to be skills, learn how to do this and knowledge, what and why. Well these 3 things are there then habit is formed. If any of these three things are missing, habit will not be formed. So, for habit to be formed all three things are important.
How exactly is habit formed?
Were we born with habits? Not exactly.
We didn’t really work consciously for getting habit formed. They happened gradually over the period of time. Ultimately, they become ingrained in our mind. Brain links specific behavior with rewards and that’s the beauty of it. As we work more urgent and more immediate, the better and stronger rewards the brain gets. Repeating the reward will reinforce the action and that’s how the habit is formed.
Start forming great habits.
Character & Personality
Let’s talk about iceberg. We can only see the tip of the iceberg. That is only 10% of iceberg what we actually see. The remaining 90% which is under the water which we don’t really see. Let’s understand above image as symbol of human beings.
What we see in human beings is only 10% of the personality of individual. What we see about the person is his attire, his clothing, his success, his car, his bungalow etc…that is what person wants us to see.
But what we don’t see about the person is the 90% which is hidden inside the person, his ethics, his character, his moral, his values, his principles and this is the area where the person struggles hard and achieves a lot of success and this is the area where habits are formed. What we don’t see is that 90% and what we see is the 10%.
Paradigm Shift & Mind Maps
What is paradigm? A paradigm is your assumption. It’s the way you think. It’s very important that if you want to change at core level then we need to question our paradigm. Paradigm is something that we have formed over a period of time and they really don’t go away easily. Human being is basically lazy by nature. We love to be in a comfort zone. We don’t really question our comfort zone. The moment we are kicked out from comfort zone, it becomes uncomfortable for us. Well if you want to achieve success you need to have paradigm shift.
Now what exactly paradigm means?
- It’s frame of reference
- A perception & assumption
- Judging & interpreting things
- A mental MAP
It’s a perception that you have and its assumption what you have. Two people in the same situation might have different perception about the same thing. It you want to change your paradigm you need to change your core level.
A paradigm is a mental map. If you want to achieve something and if you want to reach somewhere then you have to have map of that place. Don’t you? And now we have specific map which helps us to reach anywhere in life.
Specific map is so essential to reach anywhere in life. If you are holding wrong map in your hand, you will reach wrong destination. So it’s important that to reach at right destination, you need to have proper mental map in your hand.
Judging & interpreting things the way we want to, that’s the paradigm. So if you want to change the paradigm we need to change it at its internal level. There has to be inside outside approach to change.
7 habits
- Be proactive
- Begin with the end in mind
- Put first things first
- Think WIN-WIN
- Seek first to understand and then to be understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the saw
Habit number 1,2 & 3 is for focus on self-mastery & private victory. We are able to move from state of dependence to independence.
Habit number 4,5 & 6 help us to have team player skills, better communication skills and collaboration skills. Through these 3 habits we move from state of independence to state of interdependence.
And last habit is the 7th habit which help us to achieve the height of success. In this 7th habit, we are actually continuously improving ourselves. Well we all move through all 3 stages from dependence to independence to interdependence.
Habit 1: Be Proactive
- Being responsible for your life choices.
- Not blaming external situations, genetics, conditionings etc.
- Reactive people affected by their physical environment.
- Proactive people – language used – “I CAN, I WILL, I PREFER”
- Reactive people language used – “I CAN’T, I WON’T, I HAVE TO”
- Be more appreciative rather than the critics.
Being proactive means, you need to be responsible for life choices. There are two types of people. Reactive people always blaming circumstances, condition and everything else which is beyond their control. They always stay in the state of self-deny and they never accept the way things are.
Proactive people on the other hand, take responsibility of the actions. These are the people who always use positive language like I can, I will and I will do it. However reactive people use language like I can not, I won’t and I won’t be able to.
It’s important to be more appreciative rather than being critical. And if you are proactive person you will be more appreciative and less critical person.
How do we be proactive?
Being proactive is not rocket science. There are two circles. Circle of influence(COI) and circle of concern (COC). Proactive people spend more time in the circle of influence (COI). COI means the things you can influence. Things which are under your control. For example, yourself, your family, your health etc…
Things which are beyond your control lie in the COC. Here I give the example, government, terrorists, tax, laws, traffic etc… Are these under your control? Not really. You can rely on them but you can not take decision out of them. These are things beyond your control.
Proactive people try and focus a lot of energy on “COI” where as people who are reactive focus on “COC”. Hence they are wasting lot of time and energy in that circle. It is important to understand that focusing on things that you can change or influence are more important than those things which you have no control over.
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
Everything is created twice- first in our mind, in mental state and second, in physical state of mind.
so it is:
- Based on principle that all things are created twice
- There is mental creation and then a physical creating
- Need to decide the direction of your life
- If you don’t know where you are going then how will you know when you get there.
- Having a vision & mission is important. Draft yours today.
- If you don’t know were you are going then how will you know when you get there.
Habit 3: Put first things first
It is closely related to time management. Time management means we need to have a schedule, we need to have priorities in life when we are the master of first 2 habits then we are really able to manage our time and relationship with ourselves.
- Discipline and management of your life as per the chosen direction.
- This habit differentiates between urgent and important.
- It helps to avoid panic situation.
- Guarantee better control over life and work life balance.
- Living effective life in quadrant number 2
- The key is not to prioritize your schedule but to schedule your priorities.
Six steps of time management
- Connect to a mission
- Review roles
- Identify goals
- Organize weekly
- Exercise integrity
- Evaluate
Habit 4: Think WIN-WIN
Thinking WIN-WIN means having and attitude that everything is for everybody. So don’t try to play a competition. Don’t try to put others down by winning over them. It’s important to have competition but the healthy one.
- WIN-WIN is commitment that allows everyone to win.
- I loose-You win, I Win-You loose, I loose- You loose.
- Seeking mutual benefit in all human interaction.
Habit 5: Seek first to understand and then be understood
How many times it happens that we don’t allow people to complete their sentence? We don’t really listen to them. God has given two ears and one mouth. Reason behind this is to listen more and speak less. And what we do is exactly opposite. We talk more and listen less to each other.
So it is important to listen someone empathetically.
- Communication is the most important skill in life
- Empathetic listening is the crux of any conversation.
- Difference between hearing and listening.
- If you listen first to understand then you will be better understood.
Habit 6 : Synergy
Synergy is all about team work & communication with each other when you are working in the organization. We meet different people, their thoughts process and opinions. It’s important to value each one. Don’t think that your point of view is higher than the other person. They are right in their own way.
It’s important to
- Synergize means two heads are better than one.
- Accept differences with open minded
- Working together cooperatively takes time but produce long term results.
- People bring all their personal experience & experts to the table
- Differences should be seen as strengths not weaknesses.
Habit 7 : Sharpen the Saw
If you have understood all 6 habits then 7th habit is the master of all habits. Sharpening the saw means continuous upgradation of the skill. It’s important to understand that if you want to go ahead in your life you need to keep working on yourself.
It’s important to
- Having balanced program for self renewal in 4 dimension of life.
- Means to preserve and enhance your greatest assets.
- This habit keeps you fresh so as to keep practicing the other habits.
- Need to renewal otherwise body become week, mind mechanical, spirit incentive.
How do we upgrade ourselves to live passionately?
We need to work on 4 dimensions.
Physical – exercise nutrition, Stress Management
Social/Emotional – Service, Empathy, Synergy
Spiritual – Value, Commitment, Study & Meditation
Mental – Reading, Visualizing, Planning & Writing.
Personal Development Plan
| My development objective | Priorities | Activities to be undertaken | Target date for achieving objectives | Actual date of achievement | Review date |
It’s important to know that if you want to win then you have to change yourself. Don’t expect others to change. Change internal paradigm and you will surely win in your life.
*Content from book : 7 habits of highly effective people
