Category Archives: Discipline

Posts relating to the First Resolution:
“To overcome the restraining forces of appetites and passions, I resolve to exercise self-discipline and self-denial.”

Four Words That Make A Big Difference.

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Jerzy Gregorek is a Polish weightlifter who has won four World Weightlifting Championships and achieved a world record. Since retiring from competitive posing (sic) he has established a brand called ‘The Happy Body’ (https://thehappybody.com) serving his clientele in terms of the provision of nutritional and exercise advice.

But he is mentioned here because of a now famous quote attributed to him, which parallels the First Resolution, and which is the subject of today’s blog. The quote read:

“Hard Choices, Easy Life: Easy choices, Hard Life.” Four words, used twice, and an enormously powerful and profound truth that most of us try to avoid.

We know that eating nutritious food in sufficient quantities is good for us, but the easy choice leads us to the tasty stuff.

We know that exercise is good for us, but we park as close to the office entrance as we possibly can rather than use those dangly things hanging from our hips.

We know that doing an excellent job is the right thing to do, but if we can get away with it, we’ll do a ‘good’ job. But as Stephen Covey espoused and Jerzy agrees, the Good is the Enemy of the Best.

Hard Choices require a disciplined mental approach. They require that we look at our situation, the challenges presented, and consciously us the Gap between that stimulus and our yet-to-be-decided response and decide – what is the best thing to do, now?

Various alternatives will present themselves, and in that moment, the success or failure or ‘just get by’ is decided. To get the success – or at least the longer-term, substantial and irrevocable success – you have to make the Hard Choice.

That may only mean getting out of bed when you really want another five minutes, but that initial personal victory can have surprisingly powerful effect. It may not seem so in the gloom as you stumble for your slippers, but doing it once makes it easier to do again, and suddenly your time is being utilised better, your self-esteem expands, your results improve.

Which leads to the second truism. The Hard Choice rarely has an immediate payoff, whereas (psychologically) the easy choice provides exactly that, an outcome that doesn’t serve us at all. And you know that. You just needed reminding, like me.

What Hard Choices do you need to make, today? You’re already up so that’s one you can’t make again. But how about lunch – jacket potato, salad and beans, or a huge coronation chicken baguette? How about that difficult conversation? How about parking at the far end of the car park (unless it’s raining. I understand the practicalities of wet clothes in an office).

What can you start doing that’s better in the longer term? What can you stop doing that’s convenient but less conscientious? What are you doing that is already good, perhaps so good that you could do more of it?

Make the Hard Choice. It’s a heavy lift, but in the end you know it is the way to success in any area of life. Ask Jerzy.

For more on the subject, buy The Three Resolutions, available HERE at Amazon in paperback or Kindle format.

Or listen to this podcast

The SEAL Approach to the First Resolution

05 Thursday Aug 2021

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I am, as many are, all too guilty of not taking my own sage advice. There are days when, despite every good intention, aches, pains, tedium, circumstances and many other influences result in my thinking, “What’s the point?” I suspect this post will get two reads on LinkedIn.

Yet – here it is.

You see, the difference between ‘What’s the point’ and ‘here it is’ is measured precisely by the time it takes to stop thinking negatively, and start taking action towards execution on the plan.

So it isn’t so much the anticipated ‘bother’ that’s stops us from taking action. It’s a failure to recognise and utilise that moment productively. If, in that moment, we decide to be better (as implied in my last post), then the action flows.

Unless we re­-consider that decision.

Oh, and don’t we? I know I do. The mental effort that goes into deciding whether or not or whether or not and repeat, in relation to something I have committed to do (even if only to myself), uses up many a calorie.

Tony Robbins, personal development advocate par excellence suggests that one of the biggest influences on how we move from decision to action (and stop the routine protocol ‘decision-reconsideration-inaction’) id the emotional and/or physical state we are in when that decision is being made.

If we are happy, positive, healthy and fit, then the chances of our taking positive action towards progression of our goals is very high, indeed. Everything is a breeze, completed with a sense of flow. Lovely.

But when we are tired, ill, unfit, or plain old fed up, the chances are we’ll not do anything at all. And feeling like that is a reality for many of us, much of the time. I know I am having physical  issues that are affecting my ability (or willingness, or both) to get out on my bike.

And that, folks, is when the battle is won or lost. Overcoming those negative states of being is a discipline, and it is a discipline that serves us. And it serves us well. But it’s a drag.

I’ll repeat a quote I believe I have used before, one of a US Navy SEAL trainer. It’s the counter to the negative mental and physical obstacle to achieving what it is you want to achieve. Just for today. (and again tomorrow and the next day, but today – for now.)

EMBRACE THE SUCK

Yes, how you feel means that what you don’t want to do, sucks.

But your progress depends on how much suck you can embrace.

It sucks that so few people seem to read and comment on these posts.

Well, that’s okay. Their loss. I’m getting something from it.

I’m getting better.

Unwanted service? Do it anyway.

29 Thursday Jul 2021

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I write regularly for LinkedIn, the professional Facebook. (Although the lines continue to blur….) Owing to the fact I will not pay LinkedIn £30 a month for services I won’t use, I suspect that what I am writing isn’t getting the airtime my magnificence deserves. Alternatively, sobering as it is, I might equally have to accept that what I am writing isn’t being read – not for any particular reason, but perhaps for no better reason that people haven’t the time.

My ego says, “Why bother, then?” BUT the Third Resolution requires me to provide that service in any case. And it occurred to me this week that the simple truth, for an individual as much as a business is – you can’t force people to subscribe to your services.

You can market, you can advertise (different, apparently), you can beg and cajole, but no-one can be forced to accept what you have on offer, even if HMG is moving slowly from ask to cajole to enforce in terms of the vaccine. (Conspiracy, moi?)

Particularly if you can’t convince them that they need what you’re offering. (Although convincing people they need something that costs more than they earn is whole other level of begging.)

Which I think is odd, because – and I’m going out on a limb here – most people know that they could be better than they are. We can all be better, and we all know it. But we pretend otherwise, and we certainly (and in monetary terms, perhaps justifiably) resist investing money and time in closing the Gap between what and where we are, and what and who we want to be.

Some people – yes, you know someone like it – would even violently (verbally or physically) fight anyone who suggests they could be calmer, more restrained individuals.

How big is YOUR Gap – the distance between your current emotional, physical, financial, spiritual and mental state, and your ideal? I digress. Mull over that question  later but, for now, let me get back on point.

Despite the fact that people don’t want your services today, or ever, there is great personal gain in carrying on trying. In maintaining professional and personal relevance, in keeping up with technologies and thinking in your field.

(Did you know, all thought leaders pretty much think what their predecessors have thought? They just put it differently. Fair dos, so do I.)

If you do that, the moment you are called upon to provide a service – you’re ready. You’re not embarrassed by ‘having to look something up’, to buying some piece of kit that supports your efforts.

As you may be aware, I teach advanced driving. You may appreciate that for the past 18 months that hasn’t been possible. So rust could set in. meanwhile, my qualification to do that is up for renewal next week. In preparation for that, I figured that I would hit the books and prepare. So I did.

And I discovered that I knew it for the simple reason that I practice it. It’s not just something I teach, it’s something I do. As I read the books I realised ‘I know this stuff’ because I review it constantly, not just before an examination process. (In fact, three years ago I got a call from a tester about a due retest, and he said, “How about tomorrow?” I was ready. I just drove as I now routinely drive. It wasn’t an exam as much as it was a demo.)

Keep up your service standards. You may get the opportunity to provide them sooner than you expect.

For more on this subject, read The Three Resolutions, available at AMAZON in paperback and Kindle formats.

Add a (Little) Discipline…..

24 Thursday Jun 2021

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My recent absence from this site is explained by my going on holiday, and I before I went I elected to impose a new discipline upon myself. It wasn’t and isn’t intended to be a long term project, but it was just a ‘see if I could’ idea. The objective was to see if I could go for a 1 mile run as soon as I got out of bed for the 6 mornings away. Seems easy?

For some. For me, I haven’t run a meaningful distance since about 2016 because of recurring leg-related injuries that don’t lend themselves to pounding pavements, (I did a 3-miler a while ago to see if I could – I could, but it caused a week of limping.) added to my discovery of the ‘joys’ of road cycling as a means to exercise and control weight, meant that running is not pleasant. Nor is getting out of bed.

I did it. As soon as I rose each morning, I shaved, dressed and ran out of the door. One morning, because of that day’s plans, I was out by about 6.30AM.

It was hateful, painful even. Some mornings, particularly the latter ones after experiencing the pain from the earlier days, I lay there desperately trying to justify largesse. And, every morning, I remembered two pieces of input. One was that of speaker Mel Robbins, who advises the 5-second countdown to action – decide what to do, and then give yourself 5-4-3-2-1 GO. It can be quite effective.

The other input was my own. I have a mantra that I have discovered makes it easier to do the difficult. In a pre-2021 exercise developed by the late Jinny Ditzler, author of ‘Your Best Year Yet’ (see www.byypro.com) , I identified several ‘rules’ that related to past successes and behaviours that had served me. I recommend it, but use the book – the site, while excellent, is an expensive luxury.

The particular guideline I used to get out of bed and run was ‘I Make, and Act Upon, the Hard Choices.’* Just remembering it can get me going. It gets me going because I came up with it, and past experience tells me that it works. So lying there bemoaning the commitment, I recalled my own advice and got up. 10 paces in, it was all old news, anyway.

So here’s my advice.

Decide upon a short-term imposition o yourself that requires self-discipline. Even if it’s not intended to last it will firm up your discipline ‘muscle’ for those things that will require more effort. It could be ‘drink only water for 7 days’, or ‘no chocolate for a week’, or it could be more ambitious depending on your situation and your particular need. If you’re already slim, cutting out things you rarely use anyway is hardly a stretch. Be bold.

Find something you don’t enjoy, something in respect of which doing it will serve you, even for a short period. And carry out that commitment.

It is yours, after all.

*I’ve used that for a lot of hard decisions, lately.

For more on self-discipline, get the book The Three Resolutions from Amazon HERE – only £9.80 for 300 pages…..

Listening requires Discipline, too.

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One competency that people often lack is the ability to listen. I recall as a husband and as a school pupil the accusation that ‘you never listen’, but I don’t recall the lessons in listening that accompanied literacy and numeracy. Do you? Do you remember being taught attention management as a listener rather than as a teacher? Nope? Me neither.

Listening is a skill. The ability to not just hear what is being said, but also to see how it is being said and to understand why it is being said are the three elements of good listening. They are summarised in the expression that good listening requires HEART – an ART of using the EAR to HEAR what’s in the HEART. Yes, I know – ouch. Yet perfectly apt.

The ability to truly understand through listening is therefore a competence, one that can be studied, learned and finally applied. But all of that competence requires something else, something that underpins all learning.

Discipline.

Not just discipline required to apply oneself to the learning of the competence, though. That’s only half the story.

Discipline is also required to actually apply that learned skill at the appropriate moment. It means pausing in the gap between hearing someone say, “I want to tell you something” and the knee-jerk “Not now, I’m busy” which we tend to apply.

Not as easy as learning about how to listen, I’m afraid. We all live in our own world, and other people’s need to intrude upon our inner peace (i.e. while watching Line of Duty) tends to lie secondary to what we have ‘going on’ in our own heads. It takes discipline to decide to be present for another person. Until that discipline can be applied, all the listening training in the world won’t make you a great listener.

It’s easier to pause and listen to someone important to you in an intimate sense – immediate family, best friends, and so on. It’s also arguably easier to listen at a time of crisis, because the crisis is salient, it’s ‘in yer face’ and can’t be avoided.

But there are times when someone needs to be heard, but there is no obvious sense of urgency and so the moment is missed because the intended listener hasn’t developed the skill, and discipline, to be (a) willing to listen and (b) able to see that listening is needed now.

Next time someone seeks to attract your attention, pause and ask yourself – am I ready and willing to take the time to understand why this person wants me at this moment? That pause will inevitably result in better communication, even if the result is to arrange a better time for the conversation – the individual knows they have been and will be heard if the counsellor actively acknowledges that there is a conversation required.

Not easy.

But try.

Win-Win NEEDS the Three Resolutions

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You are familiar with the expression Win-Win, are you not? It’s a management go-to term when you are engaged in some kind of negotiation. Of course, in most negotiations the term is interpreted to mean that ‘I will win most and you will win some’. For example, the nice double-glazing salesman my father played, whose opening gambit for doing our whole house was £10,000, but when he wasn’t getting anywhere with that dropped straight to £6,000, at which my Dad suggested the salesman had (a) just tried to con £4k out of him and (b) better leave while he still could.

Another example – when someone with a purpose on television says ‘we need a debate’ may imply they are seeking a win-win solution to the issue at hand, but what they really mean is they want a debate where the other side does what they want done. My evidence – politicians stating that the other side should ‘show leadership’ by doing what they’re told.

Readers of the classic Seven Habits of Highly Effective People will know that a true Win-Win means that both sides seek out a solution that is better than either of them foresaw when they began the relationship, or they just don’t do the deal. That takes courage and consideration – the courage to stand for what you believe while also being considerate of the other’s needs and perspectives. It’s not surrender – it’s a deeper discussion.

It also means applying all of the Three Resolutions. It takes self-discipline to not blindly default into seeking what you want at the other’s expense, and it means denying yourself your initial victory in preference for consciously seeking a better one. It takes character (knowing what you value and being unwilling to compromise your principles) and competence (specifically the intellectual capacity to negotiate, to understand conceptually within the practices and legalities which cover the matter at hand, and the technical ability to do what is agreed). And it requires that you know your purpose and are willing to serve the other party and their stakeholders as much as you wish to serve your own.

This isn’t just a business related idea. This applies to all interpersonal transactions, from deciding on a family holiday to getting a stubborn teenager to clean her room. (That adjective was redundant, really, wasn’t it? They’re all stubborn.)

It means being proactive. It requires a momentary pause between the stimulus of getting your needs met and starting to demand them, instead using the pause to ask ‘how important is this relationship’? It means deciding that you want to consider your ultimate objective from the broader perspective of a whole-life view and any future dealings. It means giving thought to how you want the project to progress, and whether carrying it through is ethical, and won’t compromise your values and external principles.

Nope. Negotiating from a desire for all involved to benefit is definitely not easy. But it all starts with your being the kind of individual who is conscious of the above principles, and sufficiently proactive as to notice when they need to be applied. Instead of jumping straight to the default ‘win’ programming that we tend to adopt as we grow up – and learn from our ‘betters’.

Next time you want something that involves someone else, ask yourself – “Am I disciplined, congruent, competent and service-orientated enough to take the time to find out how I can be a part of making this a mutually beneficial project?”

If the answer is No, even in the moment, then decide to wait until you are.

The results will be truly extraordinary.

For more on The Three Resolutions, got to Amazon and buy the book.

Tidy up, before you kill someone.

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I don’t know many successful people – and by that I mean people I respect and who deserve their success – who surround themselves with clutter. It might be an amusing comedic meme for a character in a film or programme to be successful and yet live in a pile of clothes and dirty dishes, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen that in reality.

The successes I respect tend to exists in an organised environment, indeed often minimalistic. One place for recording everything that requires a decision, immediate referential filing for items once read and digested, immediate planning for an action resulting from input, in the appropriate place and for rediscovery at the appointed time.  A clean, tidy, organised and clutter-free workspace, usually paralleled by an equally open personal space.

I wish I had that.

Unfortunately, like most people I live with others. Others who have not delved as deeply into the benefits of self- and space-organisation as I. Those whose idea of being organised means having just the one pile – in each room – of ‘whatever it is they might ever need’. But it’s in the one place so they’ll find it if they have to.

#except they don’t, because they forget which pile/room they left it in.

And at the risk of talking out of turn, the people who live like that tend to be indisciplined, overweight, unfit and flighty. Everything last minute, and everything an inconvenience. That may not be abundantly clear with young people whose metabolism is yet to disappoint, but after 40 all that indiscipline suddenly manifests itself around your waistline.

Which raises the question – which came first, the disorganisation or the indiscipline? It’s a good one.

But there is a chap called Peter Walsh who opines that fat people are fat because they hoard stuff. Caveat – he’s not saying that is the primary or only reason but hear ‘him’ out through me. He does suggest that when we hoard, we create an environment that owns us, rather than an environment that we own. As the less disciplined see their environment take charge of their lives, they surrender to it. When it finally takes command, their preferred coping mechanism is – you guessed it, comfort eating.

It’s hardly scientific, but he has demonstrated on Oprah how finally regaining control of the environment they lost, resulted in losing the weight they had gained. (I am particularly proud of that sentence. 😊 )

I am engaged in clutter clearance now. And it is fun watching how quickly I decide to dump something, while others’ stuff awaits assessment – for days. And how the moment I clear four square feet of space, one of my children needs something stored ‘just for a bit’ and it gets filled again.

Keeping an ordered environment takes discipline, but there are peripheral effects on your physical and mental health – and that of the people around you who, like me, wish to heaven that you’d get your ‘arris in gear and throw some cr4p out.

Rant over.

Exercise the First Resolution on your personal and professional environments. I guarantee you’ll feel better, unless you live with a hoarder. Then it’s a case of controlling any homicidal tendencies you may have.

Make the Hard Choices

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When I set out my plan for what is my 60th year, one of the tenets I elected to live by was the expression “Make the Hard Choices.”

What is a hard choice? In a nutshell, a Hard Choice has to be made when, in Three Resolutions terminology, one often has to choose between a short term preference, or a ‘fight or flight’ kind of response, where the immediate temptation is to take the easy option. Or one really thinks about it.

I have made several hard choices over the fairly recent past. Two stand out because the first impacted the latter. In 2019, I was accused in my workplace of some thought crimes. One was a silly joke I made, which in the current climate really was silly. The rest of them – well, let’s just say I dispute either the recollection, or the existence of the event. My Hard Choice was – fight, or flight? During the internal hearing, where the number of pages exceeded the number of days I’d worked, I found myself wondering if the next allegation would be that my striped tie was phallic in nature. I decided that the relationship between the people involved was such that, for the sake of the organisation, I would resign. I didn’t need the money, nice as it was. The organisation didn’t need the bother and, quite frankly, neither did I. So I left.

Two years later, an agency with which I am registered asked me if I wanted a role with that organisation. As I am lockdown-bored, I suggested that if they’d have me, I was willing. The agency said they’d contacted them and they were okay with me, “Would you like an interview?”

I actually panicked. I had the shakes, concerns about ‘them’, concerns about the work.  My blood rushed to my head; I was mentally all akimbo. And then my mantra kicked in – “Make the Hard Choice.” I replied, “Yes.”

During my interview it became clear that my past hadn’t been passed on. So I told the interviewers (as an answer to the question as to whether I’d ever made a difficult choice, ironically enough). No point in hiding what they needed to know, after all.

Those examples represented the making of a ‘hard’, Hard Choice. But I have made another one every morning this week. To get out of bed and exercise first thing, or (weather permitting) to go out on long/hard road cycling expeditions. Some people love doing that – I am less enamoured. But as I lay there in the morning gloom (roll on Summer), I remind myself – Make the Hard Choice, and I rise, dress, set up my tablet and watch Talk Radio and other videos as I use up the calories I will take on later in the day.

You may have a range of Hard Choices to make. Divorce, marry, date, dump. Take or refuse an opportunity. Eat a salad or a cake. Give up a vice or accept the consequences. Write that e-mail, or delete it once drafted.

Of course, some of your hard choices may affect others. Promotion/resignation affects those who rely on you for survival, after all. Facing or escaping a danger may result in the difference between saving a life or making sure you stay around for your loved ones. (I’ve often wondered why, when they DON’T leap into danger, coppers are often criticised. If it’s courageous to throw yourself into a river to save a stranger, it is ‘normal’ and expected NOT to.)

What Hard Choices do you make? If there aren’t any, are you living to your full potential? There is no doubt in my mind that it is the Hard Choices that bring out the best in us. And sometimes, that choice may seem self-centred – but might actually contravene our values in preference to the needs of other people.

Even the ones who tell tales about you.

You’ve Fallen – What Now?

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“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.” Mary Pickford

Every now and then, even the best have a poor day. An actor fluffs a line, a singer misses a note, Tiger Woods misses a road. These days of woke, a slip of the tongue causes offence and you are the one in the wrong, undermining hundreds of years of basic law about intent being the important element of a crime, not the ‘feelings’ of the other party. People are losing jobs because of momentary lapses of judgment that have nothing to do with their actual job performance – and often because the ‘offendee’ has an agenda (newspaper sales, TV ratings, they want your job, etc.), and not because they were genuinely offended.

And you’re cast down. Do you stay there?

It’s entirely up to you.

Here’s some advice for those who fall. Get up and start again from the First Resolution. Re-establish the disciplines that made you the success you were until only moments ago. Address the mistake by deciding either to never repeat it or to stand by it. Depending on your perspective and the nature of the event – you decide. If you were guilty, in part or in full, accept your tort and never do it again. If you weren’t, be steadfast and step away from the situation before it worsens.

Then look at the Second Resolution: revisit your sense of character, a massive element of which is Integrity. What does your conscience say about your ‘offence’? Was it wrong – if so, decide never to do it again. If not, conclude others were in the wrong and move forward. Examine your professional competencies: which ones weren’t what they could have been – if personalities were involved, what did you miss? Who did you fail to judge accurately? What nagging doubts (‘yellow alerts’) did you ignore? What action did you fear to take? It is rarely your professional competency that fails – it is almost always relationship-related – people, in other words.

Finally, consider the Third Resolution: can you still follow through on your sense of purpose, even if it is in a different way? Who can you serve, instead? What skills do you have that haven’t been compromised or lessened by your fall, that can be put to good, or even better use?

This* happens. But only death can really stop you doing something meaningful with your life. Anything else is a temporary distraction if you decide that to be so. The world is full of recovery stories – write your own if you need to. Use the philosophies available through the many books on purpose, discipline, and so on. Discover an alternative route to the end that what you lost was intended to provide.  

Apply The Three Resolutions.

Get Better. BE Better.

Starting the moment you get over what happened.

*An anagram

Seven Habits Review: Day 0. Introduction.

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

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I have written before about how many people confuse The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People with being a business book. It isn’t, never was. What it is, is a book about living effectively as an individual and as part of any relationship. It is not about fame or success, per se, but about living a principled life, which in turn can lead to those things – if they are what you want. But let’s be frank – most of us don’t want them or don’t see them as important as being a good person doing good work for the people they care about, while enjoying life – which this book promotes in spades.

I recall once attending a meeting of personal development teachers preparing to deliver the Seven Habits material to schools with the overall aim of teaching ‘leadership’, and I opined that what we would be teaching was  self-leadership, and this was even more important because while everyone has the potential to be ‘a success’ and a ‘boss’ the vast majority of young people would be the staff, the workers, the led – and they should be trained to be the best they could be at those things, too. Leaders – self-leaders – make great followers.

The Seven Habits are (and I quote) A principle-centred, character-based, inside-out approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness.

Let’s break that down a bit.

Principle-Centred. We like to think we can control events, but while we can control what we do, principles (sciences, incontrovertible truths, systems) decide the results. I’ll get deeper into that in future articles but for now I’ll explain that it means that instead of letting fame, wealth, family, church, peers, friends, pleasure, friends, enemies or work dictate how we think and behave, we let principles lead our decisions and resulting actions.

Character-Based. Our personality is what we show other people deliberately, but our character is what we really are. Personality tends to make us follow fashions and popular thought and ‘the latest thing’ so that we can fit in and benefit from that fitting in. Character, on the other hand, requires sacrifice, work and effort. But it lasts well beyond fashion, fame and money.

Inside-Out Approach. There is a tendency for folks to wait for their external world to change so that it suits them, instead of either changing it for the better themselves by changing their approach towards the changes needed. In 2020 we see protest after protest of people demanding other people change to suit their agenda – then they go home and wait for it to happen instead of engaging those in power in an effort to persuade and influence the change they want. The Inside-Out Approach is about looking into yourself and deciding what you need to change in yourself and how you need to change your approach, in order to achieve what you seek. Waiting for ‘them’ to change is ineffective.

Personal and Interpersonal Effectiveness. Effectiveness is not ‘just ‘success. Effectiveness is getting the results you want in such a way as to get them consistently – not once, but as long as they are needed. And it is not just about ‘you’ – it’s about effectiveness with and through other people, too. I have often said ‘Everything we do, we do with, for or because of other people – everything.’ So relationships are important enough to pursue with diligence. Including those we have with ourselves.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, then, are about taking responsibility for making things happen for the benefit of all those you love or serve, including yourself, while acting with good character and respecting the realities of the world.

Over the next 17 days (long story*) I intend to expand upon Stephen Covey’s work with a view to encouraging any reader to take up their own study of The Seven Habits so that they can benefit, as I have, from a better self-understanding and an improved recognition of what is going on around them, how they can respond to the challenges of the modern world – and do so without offending or being offended.

A word of warning, though – as you understand the lessons Covey taught you will start to recognise how many people are trying to tell you how to live. Covey’s main lesson is that you have that choice and it need not be imposed upon you. Reading the book will make you aware of how the world is trying to condition you – not necessarily out of malice but out of a desire to make you agree with ‘them’. After reading it, you may still agree with ‘them’. But it will be a conscious rather than popular agreement.

In the end, a major tenet of this book is this.

You can live your life or your life can be lived for you.

I hope you enjoy the work to follow.

 

(* Michael Heppell, personal development coach, has proposed a 17 day project for his Facebook Group and this is mine. That wasn’t as long a story as I thought.)