Tag Archives: Habit 2

Seven Habits – Day 11 – What’s at Your Centre?

11 Saturday Jul 2020

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Where do you centre your life? I bet most people would answer ‘Family’ but my experience suggests that work always comes first if you have a job. My reason – the hours my colleagues spent earning overtime. We used to have a joke that Daddy spent so much time earning overtime to feed his (family’s) lifestyle that the kids would ask, “Who’s that man in your bed, mummy?” The kids would have all the gadgets, but never what they wanted. Attention from Dad. (BTW, that’s just as applicable to Mum, nowadays.) What’s going on?

Centres. Stephen Covey suggested we have a tendency to see things (paradigms) through the lens of our most important (to us) Centre. This Centre was the focus of our Security, Guidance, Wisdom and Power. The Centre gave us Security because it was a reliable source of our identity, self-esteem and strength. When asked about yourself, we all tend to mention our job, first. Guidance means that the work provides us with direction – for example, if you are Church-centred your religion’s demands dictate your mission. Wisdom – your experiences as provided (for example) by your friends dictates how you think. And Power – your ability to act is based on your ‘centring’ around having a lot of money and resources. The Centres I have used in the examples are work, church, friends and money. There are other examples: pleasure, possessions, enemies, spouse and family.

They may consciously – including the enemy – provide a way of looking at ‘life’ which heavily influences your decision making. If alternatives arise, your preferred Centre dictates which action you take. For example, if asked to work overtime, a money-centred person would work, as would a work-centred person. But a family person might decline if there was a family event planned. Note: alternative Centres may provide the same decision, but the motive for that decision will be Centre-based.

Covey suggested we look at things through Principles and ask, “What is the right thing to do?” instead. You might make the same decision, but this time you will do so not because of your emotional tie to a ‘thing’, but as a result of a more objective assessment.

Understanding this concept is part of defining your personal mission statement, as is another psycho-biological idea, that of left-brain v right-brain thinking. Left brain is logic, Right brain is creative. Using the two in tandem means you can create a PMS that is both imaginative and realistic. A logical thinker might just do what is possible, but a right brain approach might change what is possible. The right decides what/why, the left decides how.

In truth, this part of the book is valuable as a theoretical explanation and foundation for those of us who like a bit of depth, but the power of Habit 2 thinking lies firmly in the experience of sitting down, imagining what you would like to do with your life (the legacy you would like to leave), and the values and behaviours that will help that happen. Discovering the what, how and why of your life.

Such an approach – use of a PMS and principles-over-centres thinking – results in a life that serves the individual, their loved ones and those other relationships we all have. It causes us to try harder to consider the needs of everyone involved instead of just ourselves.

While Habit One is about self-awareness, Habit Two is about creative imagination and conscience. These are three of the elements we use in the Stimulus-Response Gap when thinking about and deciding how to respond to an event.

Tomorrow we start on Habit Three, the Independent Will that we apply to that Gap.

Seven Habits – Day 10 – Habit Two. Begin with the End in Mind.

10 Friday Jul 2020

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We read over the past few days how we have the ability to choose our response to any event that happens to us. So how do we address the biggest event of all? Through Habit Two – Begin with the End in Mind.

On first sight of that term, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we do that any time we plan a project, be it going to the shops, applying for a job or planning a holiday, for example. My response would be that you’d be surprised how little effort many people put into even those projects. And rarely to the biggest project of all.

Have you ever gone shopping, then got home and realised you forgot to get something you planned, or more likely forgot to plan to buy something you needed. Beginning with the End in Mind is often something to which only lip-service is paid. But I digress.

Beginning with the End in Mind, remember, is a Habit of highly effective people. Not just a tenet, it’s a way of life. And this is where it can have the most impact – life. As one writer put it – we spend more time planning our holidays than we do planning our lives.

The most impactive and profound exercising of Habit Two occurs when what you have in mind as beginning – is the rest of your life.

All things are created twice – there is a mental creation, which gives rise to the physical creation. A building is planned in meticulous detail before ground is broken, so why not your whole life. Your physical, mental, social and spiritual lives can all be planned, selected – chosen. Beginning with the End in Mind is leadership – self-leadership. It is deciding how you will live the rest of your life. It is establishing a vision for the legacy you will leave, and then making it happen. It is using the four endowments discussed earlier – self-awareness, creative imagination, independent will and conscience – to decide how you will achieve what you want to achieve.

When you exercise Habit Two, you approach as many experiences as possible with a plan – what is the objective of what I am about to do? Conversations will have new purpose, relationships will be more rewarding, projects will have a higher success rate – if you know what the objective is before you even start. Including your life.

Viktor Frankl is famed for suggesting, from his experiences in concentration camps, that having a purpose beyond ones self is a sound basis for living a long and happy life. He called his theories ‘Logotherapy’ from logos – meaning. A man or woman with a purpose is a hard thing to oppose!

What we choose – or fail to choose – to do in the face of this knowledge predetermines our sense of personal self-esteem and our levels of success. If we know what we are for, and set about it, every success is a victory, every setback just means we change direction, just as an aircraft does on a flight. It gets buffeted by winds but always gets back on course, arriving at its intended destination despite all that buffeting.

Covey promoted the creation of a personal mission statement, a document created by an individual in which they stated in clear terms what they wanted to achieve (vision) and how they would behave in order to achieve that (values). I have found that having such a document can be extremely empowering – particularly when, having stated therein that I wish to be fit and healthy, I don’t want to exercise. I read it – I exercise. I reinforce my own desire towards a particular ‘end’ when I state, in advance, what the end actually is. Like writing this series of articles to convince others to read a book that can change their lives.

Tomorrow – what is at the centre of your life?

Weekly Planning

15 Saturday Mar 2014

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It’s the time of the week for Stephen Covey ‘disciples’ – a term he would vehemently hate – to set about planning their week (assuming that the weekend is their starting day, and not the beginning of the working week, as occasionally it may be).

Weekly planning allows not only planning of events and appointments, but also for their preparation, something many uninformed planners forget to consider in their daily, crisis-management paradigm. Traditional, daily planning means everything comes upon you at the last minute, with only hours or less to prepare. That’s the failure of the to-do list, which leads us into doing the easy while leaving the complicated until the last reasonable or justifiable minute. Weekly planning, core principle of Habit 3, allows for things to be organised properly.

I’ve been planning my weeks since 2006 when I attended my Seven Habits course with UK FranklinCovey consultant Steve Smith (excellent trainer, BTW). Since then I have generally planned on a Friday, when the past working week is over and I can plan the next one based on my evaluation of that week, what it has caused for the next period, and my Mission Statement.

Lately, in preparation for my soon-to-be-unemployed status I have started planning on a Saturday, instead. Why?

First of all, it’s peaceful at home and in my office (third bedroom, 6’ x 10’ – there are bigger cells where I work). Next, all my diaries, Mission work, hobbies and interests surround me. This means that I am in a zone that is both comfortable yet imposing – imposing because it reminds me of what I ought to be doing to justify my self-proclaimed status as a personal development and time-management blogger. At work my focus is planning work goals: at home is where LIFE should be planned.

The only issue I do have with weekly planning is that I plan some goals and tasks with the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that by the time I am expecting myself to perform them I’d have lost interest in doing so. Funnily enough, that mainly relates to exercise goals!
Is it like that for you? And if so, I’d love to know what you do about it.
For me, I need to remind myself of the first part of my Three Resolutions Mission Statement, which reads:

“I commit to the First Resolution”

I resolve to exercise self-discipline and self-denial in order to overcome the restraining forces of appetites and passions.
I will proactively live in a fashion that is healthy, active, congruent, and demonstrative of the unified truth that is Principle Centred Leadership. I will do so in the physical, mental, social and spiritual capacities. Most of all I will do the things I do not want to do that do serve me, and I will not do the things I want to do that do not serve me.

I’d love some support………….