Seven habits of highly effective people - Stephen R. Covey [25]
The net effect of opening the "gate of change" to the first three habits --the habits of Private Victory
--will be significantly increased self-confidence. You will come to know yourself in a deeper, more meaningful way --your nature, your deepest values and your unique contribution capacity. As you live your values, your sense of identity, integrity, control, and inner-directedness will infuse you with both exhilaration and peace. You will define yourself from within, rather than by people's opinions or by comparisons to others. "Wrong" and "right" will have little to do with being found out. Ironically, you'll find that as you care less about what others think of you; you will care more about what others think of themselves and their worlds, including their relationship with you. You'll no longer build your emotional life on other people's weaknesses. In addition, you'll find it easier and more desirable to change because there is something --some core deep within --that is essentially changeless.
As you open yourself to the next three habits --the habits of Public Victory --you will discover and unleash both the desire and the resources to heal and rebuild important relationships that have deteriorated, or even broken. Good relationships will improve --become deeper, more solid, more creative, and more adventuresome.
The seventh habit, if deeply internalized, will renew the first six and will make you truly independent and capable of effective interdependence. Through it, you can charge your own batteries. Whatever your present situation, I assure you that you are not your habits. You can replace old patterns of self-defeating behavior with new patterns, new habits of effectiveness, happiness, and trust-based relationships.
With genuine caring, I encourage you to open the gate of change and growth as you study these habits. Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it's holy ground. There's no greater investment.
It's obviously not a quick fix. But I assure you, you will feel benefits and see immediate payoffs that will be encouraging. In the words of Thomas Paine, "That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only which gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods."
Part Two
Private Victory
Habit 1: Be Proactive --Principles of Personal Visio I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
--Henry David Thorea
As you read this book, try to stand apart from yourself. Try to project your consciousness upward into a corner of the room and see yourself, in your mind's eye, reading. Can you look at yourself almost as though you were someone else?
Now try something else. Think about the mood you are now in. Can you identify it? What are you feeling? How would you describe your present mental state
Now think for a minute about how your mind is working. Is it quick and alert? Do you sense that you are torn between doing this mental exercise and evaluating the point to be made out of it?
Your ability to do what you just did is uniquely human. Animals do not possess this ability. We call it "self-awareness" or the ability to think about your very thought process. This is the reason why man has dominion over all things in the world and why he can make significant advances from generation to generation.
This is why we can evaluate and learn from others' experiences as well as our own. This is also why we can make and break our habits.
We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we "see" ourselves --our paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people.