Quotes 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Cliff Notes
7 Habits Of Highly Effective People
Quotes 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People
Stephen Covey Quote

During his 25 years of working with successful individuals in business, universities, and relationship settings, Stephen Covey discovered that high-achievers were often plagued with a sense of emptiness. In an attempt to understand why, he read several self-improvement, self-help, and popular psychology books written over the past 200 years. It was here that he noticed a stark historical contrast between two types of success.

Before the First World War, success was attributed to ethics of character. This included characteristics such as humility, fidelity, integrity, courage, and justice. However, after the war, there was a shift to what Covey refers to as the “Personality Ethic.” Here, success was attributed as a function of personality, public image, behaviors, and skills. Yet, these were just shallow, quick successes, overlooking the deeper principles of life.

Covey argues it’s your character that needs to be cultivated to achieve sustainable success, not your personality. What we are says far more than what we say or do. The “Character Ethic” is based upon a series of principles. Covey claims that these principles are self-evident and endure in most religious, social, and ethical systems. They have universal application. When you value the correct principles, you see reality as it truly is. This is the foundation of his bestselling book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Hire yourself and start calling the shots.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Quotes #1 ″As Marilyn Ferguson observed, ‘No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw” My Favorite Top 26 Quotes from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” ― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as.

What Are the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People?

Covey’s seven habits are composed of the primary principles of character upon which happiness and success are based. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People puts forward a principle-centered approach to both personal and interpersonal effectiveness. Rather than focusing on altering the outward manifestations of your behavior and attitudes, it aims to adapt your inner core, character, and motives.

The seven habits in this book will help you move from a state of dependence, to independence, and finally to interdependence. While society and most of the self-help books on the market champion independence as the highest achievement, Covey argues that it’s interdependence that yields the greatest results.

Interdependence is a more mature, advanced concept. It precludes the knowledge that you are an independent being, but that working with others will produce greater results than working on your own. To attain this level of interdependence, you must cultivate each of the seven habits laid out in the book. The seven habits are as follows:

Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win/win
Seek to understand first, before making yourself understood
Learn to synergize
Sharpen the saw

Quotes 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Cliff Notes

This 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book summary will look at each of these habits and show you how to put them into action to become more successful in whatever you want to achieve.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

The first and most fundamental habit of an effective person is to be proactive. More than just taking the initiative, being proactive means taking responsibility for your life. Consequently, you don’t blame your behavior on external factors such as circumstances, but own it as part of a conscious choice based on your values. Where reactive people are driven by feelings, proactive people are driven by values.

While external factors have the ability to cause pain, your inner character doesn’t need to be damaged. What matters most is how you respond to these experiences. Proactive individuals focus their efforts on the things they can change, whereas reactive people focus their efforts on the areas of their lives in which they have no control. They amass negative energy by blaming external factors for their feelings of victimization. This, in turn, empowers other forces to perpetually control them.

The clearest manifestation of proactivity can be seen in your ability to stick to the commitments you make to yourself and to others. This includes a commitment to self-improvement and, by extension, personal growth. By setting small goals and sticking to them, you gradually increase your integrity, which increases your ability to take responsibility for your life. Covey suggests undertaking a 30-day proactivity test in which you make a series of small commitments and stick to them. Observe how this changes your sense of self.

Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind

To better understand this habit, Covey invites you to imagine your funeral. He asks you to think how you would like your loved ones to remember you, what you would like them to acknowledge as your achievements, and to consider what a difference you made in their lives. Engaging in this thought experiment helps you identify some of your key values that should underpin your behavior.

Accordingly, each day of your life should contribute to the vision you have for your life as a whole. Knowing what is important to you means you can live your life in service of what matters most. Habit two involves identifying old scripts that are taking you away from what matters most, and writing new ones that are congruent with your deepest values. This means that, when challenges arise, you can meet them proactively and with integrity, as your values are clear.

Covey states that the most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to create a personal mission statement. It should focus on the following:

What you want to be (character)
What you want to do (contributions and achievements)
The values upon which both of these things are based

In time, your mission statement will become your personal constitution. It becomes the basis from which you make every decision in your life. By making principles the center of your life, you create a solid foundation from which to flourish. This is similar to the philosophy Ray Dalio presents in his book, Principles. As principles aren’t contingent on external factors, they don’t waver. They give you something to hold on to when times get tough. With a principle-led life, you can adopt a clearer, more objective worldview.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

To begin this chapter, Covey asks you to answer the following questions:

What one thing could you do regularly, that you aren’t currently doing, that would improve your personal life?
Similarly, what one thing could you do to improve your business or professional life?

Whereas habit one encourages you to realize you are in charge of your own life, and habit two is based on the ability to visualize and to identify your key values, habit three is the implementation of these two habits. It focuses on the practice of effective self-management through independent will. By asking yourself the above questions, you become aware that you have the power to significantly change your life in the present.

Thus, having an independent will means you are capable of making decisions and acting on them. How frequently you use your independent will is dependent on your integrity. Your integrity is