Tag Archives: renewal

Seven Habits – Day 17 – Habit 7 and Conclusion

17 Friday Jul 2020

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Habit 7 is the Habit of Renewal, hence the epithet ‘Sharpen the Saw’. It is a metaphor for ensuring you’re sharp enough to keep working, rather then getting and staying blunt through poor and excessive focus on the P of th P/PC Balance discussed in week 1. How do we sharpen ourselves then?

Most importantly, we need to do so in all four human dimensions.

Physical. You achieve and maintain a healthy weight so that you aren’t dulled by excess. You eat wisely. You exercise to help the body act optimally and for as long as needed (endurance, strength and flexibility). You get enough sleep and try not to poison the body – the only tool through which you channel everything about you.

Mental. You read in your field, and more broadly where possible, so as to improve your intellectual capacity to apply different ideas, and to be creative. You make sure that you aren’t made redundant during what Covey later called the ‘professional half-life’ of about two years, that period being the point at which, untrained, your competence halves.

Social-Emotional. You maintain and improve relationships, both with others and yourself. Your self-esteem is important, provided it doesn’t grow into a huge ego. This is arguably the easiest part of you to renew because you are doing it constantly as you live your life around other people.

Spiritual. You discover your personal values and reflect on how to live in their accord. You ensure you find meaning. Even if that isn’t in work, you seek out and discover that which fills your heart – passions, hobbies and above all, service to others.

Renewal is in Quadrant B/2 – it is important but never urgent, so you have to act upon it. You have to plan your weeks so that you get the renewal done – with the exception of the social dimension that happens all around and all the time, the rest of it is down to you to arrange.

Try to synergise. Train at work, using work’s resources (physical, mental, social). Exercise with friends and family (physical, social, spiritual). Go on a nature walk and reflect upon your mission (social-emotional, physical, spiritual). The possibilities are many, and all serve you and your ability to live a principled, productive lifestyle.

Renew – stay relevant, happy, productive and ‘on purpose’.

That’s the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People down from 340+ pages to about 14. I have really edited down a synergistic, whole-life approach to the life you design because you want what’s in it.

Now I really encourage you to go get a copy and read for yourself the wisdom that Stephen Covey himself edited down from 200 years of what he called ‘the wisdom literature’. You would see that it isn’t just a list of to-dos, as many books can be. There is an intellectually compelling completeness to what Covey wrote. You start with learning about a Paradigm and then realise that you’re reading a book where you end up noticing that how you see each Habit affects how/if you apply it. You realise that everything you do well is in your Circle of Influence if you want it to be there – or it stays outside that Circle and just bothers your conscience. And you realise that you have the capacity to act, because you are aware that you can. If you want.

Be careful, though. Through reading and applying this material you might just get what you want. I did.

Good luck.

You could have a D-Ream….

30 Monday Mar 2020

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Jim Rohn said that the seasons show us how to live. Whenever winter comes along, spring isn’t far behind. There’s no question we’re in winter at the moment.

The Seventh Habit is Sharpen the Saw. It reflects the eternal, universal, self-evident principle of Renewal. Which is what winter, in a sense, represents in as far as the earth remains fallow and renews in preparation for the rebirth of nature.

So let’s learn nature’s lesson and use this winter as an opportunity to renew ourselves in the four dimensions.

Physical – the government has permitted us to leave the house to exercise once a day, but there is no obligation to use a long walk to get sweaty. You can climb the stairs twenty times to get that result! You can do press-ups, sit-ups or other ‘free’ exercise within the walls of your abode and use the walk ‘opportunity’ for another reason – see below.

Mental – there were some students on the news this morning, asking what they should do during the lockdown. Here’s a thought – STUDY! You’ve paid huge sums of money for an education, enhance and supplement what you’ve learned by renewing your knowledge – revise, research, and apply your mind to enhancing that knowledge in a practical sense. Professionals do that all the time – is your degree aimed towards a profession?

Social – bit of an issue with that one, I grant you. But Skyping seems to be the in-thing, or meeting using Zoom (not done that yet), so there is every chance to relate to other people from your cell, if you want to. Or you can re-engage with your spouse. If you have to.

Spiritual – this confinement is something experienced by many greats over time. Mandela, Sadat, Gandhi – all used isolation as an opportunity to reconnect to their purpose. For them, their confinement was not voluntary and was a little bit more, er, pressurised than ours. But they used it as an opportunity for self-discovery. You can use it as an opportunity for that, or to re-assess what it is you are for.

There is no need to watch as much TV as is available. If you missed The Battle of the Bulge yesterday it’ll be on again tomorrow – it’s THE most transmitted war film of 2019-2020. Everything on in the week is repeated at the weekend. I am conscious that knowing this indicates I watch too much TV. Ouch.

Take advantage of this lull in the 8-4. You need to fill your time productively but you can use your creative imagination and independent will to do something you’ve been avoiding for years, like train for a half-marathon. (Baby steps.)

If things can get worse, we can it least we can follow D-Ream’s advice – and make ourselves get better.

Don’t just be interested – be QUALIFIED.

19 Sunday Jun 2016

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“Renewal is the principle – and the process – that empowers us to move on in an upward spiral of growth and change, of continuous improvement.” Stephen R Covey

I am now involved in the provision of a new Third Resolution ‘service’, having qualified (a loose term) as an Institute of Advanced Motorists Local Observer. This means I get to tell other people, with a level of authority, what I think of their driving. That is something I missed from my days as a uniformed copper. Although unlike then, those people will have paid to be told and they won’t argue (much) about my being right.

Yesterday, I attended a training session and was slightly taken aback to learn that for every 100 people who start training as advanced drivers, as many as 60% plus elect NOT to take the test at the end of the programme. Just as we say ‘You’ll pass the test!’, they decide that they don’t want to be tested. They’re good enough, the ‘authority’ tells them so, and they demur.

This is not like school, where you take an exam at the end of a school year, ready or not. These are people who have been prepared for, and told they can pass.

And I am astounded. I have spent my entire life testing myself against higher standards. I have sought out education and gained qualifications. Occasionally I have failed, only to revisit that failure and again take on that challenge, only to succeed. That doesn’t mean I am ecstatic when I approach an exam or assessment. I am nervous about the result. But I welcome the challenge because if I come through, I have proved to myself I am better than I was before.

So when I read that ‘our children are being stressed out through tests’ I think to myself, “Why are we telling our children to fear assessment? What numpty decided that being properly prepared for the challenges that will face us can only be overcome when they face us, and that we should not test ourselves in anticipation of that test.

Fortunately – and here’s the paradox – not one of us would want to be diagnosed by an unqualified doctor, have our accounts done by someone who can’t prove they are qualified (or at least have a Maths GCSE), or use a Uber driver who hasn’t passed his driving test. We absolutely insist that those who provide our services are qualified – trained and assessed – to do so. And yet some twits have decided that asking a teenager to take an exam in a peaceful, quiet room is stressful.

Life is a test. It tests our ability to cope, it tests our ability to overcome, it tests our ability to live a life of meaning. It wants us to be better, to find something about which we can be passionate.

Getting trained and independently assessed in those areas about which we are passionate and which serve our sense of meaning is a discipline (First Resolution), provides competence and builds our character (Second Resolution), and inevitably encourages us to start providing excellence in service when we manifest our training through employment or hobbies (Third Resolution).

And if your training and assessment is connected to your vision/mission/purpose – what the hell is there to get stressed about?

This week I encourage all readers to identify a mission- or passion-related qualification and go and sign up for the course that will demonstrate to others that you aren’t just interested – you are qualified.

For more on The Three Resolutions, go HERE to Amazon to get the Kindle version of the book, or HERE for a Paperback edition.

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