7 Habits: Be Proactive

I attended training on 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, recently and rediscovering the material again, even after reading it once.

I go through key highlights from the training and share an exercise that brought being proactive to life.

You will rediscover key concepts from 7 Habits and a great exercise to be proactive.

This article will take you about five minutes to read (and less than five minutes for the proactive exercise.)

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Introduction

7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey is a book that is highly recommended to me. I have read it once and started reading it again when I realized I was not… effective.

Even though I have read the book before - I can never remember or practice the habits.

I am suspecting these reasons for that:

1. There are only seven - less than 10!
2. Each habits are simple to understand conceptually
3. each habits are hard to understand intrisically
4. habits take time to work into
5. habits take continuous effort

I found on my second reading of the book, I gained so much over the first reading. These above reasons provide a hint why. Understanding the concepts at a deeper level is what I need.

I believe to get the most out of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Taking the time to read, process, and integrate these habits would lead to effectiveness.

When training became available, I jumped on the opportunity as training would put me with like minded people that know the material. I would take the book material to another level of understanding.

Defining Effectiveness

Even though the word “effective” is in the title of the book, I never sought its definition. This word is easy to pass up really understanding this word and guess at its definition. I guessed the word is close to efficient. Is that the case?

Looking up the definition from the Oxford dictionary:

Effecitve: successful in producing a desired or intended result

While accurate, does not resonate with me.

From the class, definition of effectiveness that finally sinks in:

Getting what you want done over and over again.

This definition is one I can integrate better in my life than the dictionary definition.

Role of Paradigm

Another topic I find interesting is the rise of the word “paradigm”.

I first encountered word early in my career when my wife took a 7 Habits of Highly Effective People course in her career and talked about paradigms.

I never felt or understood why she talked about this word so much.

Like effective, I never looked up the word either. 🤦

From the Oxford dictionary, the definition of paradigm:

a typical example or pattern of something; a model

Again, accurate, how does this relate to effectiveness? How can I incorporate this into my life?

In class, they gave definition of “paradigm” as:

how you see and understand the world - a mental map

Bringing together with effectiveness, why is understanding paradigm important?

• what you see (paradigm)
  • you do (practice)
    • get (results)

and repeat

While effectiveness focuses on achieving results, paradigm is “upstream” of that: setting the course for results.

Being Proactive?

With key definitions of paradigm and effectiveness set, there is foundation to talk about… Habits!

Habit one of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is:

Be Proactive

I’ve understood this to be:

Get Stuff Done

In a way, this is accurate and inline with the definition of effectiveness. This is great for to do items given externally.

Yet, this is not really the essence of this habit. To be proactive means not only getting stuff done of items given to you, it also means you need to get you own items done.

Your to do and must do items to fulfill your own goals to be truly effective.

When todo items come externally, from your boss, your partner, etc. it is easy to get it done.

How about when there are items you need to get on your own, aligned with own goals?

How do you stay effective when the list keeps getting longer? When things you dread appear on your list? Coming extrinsically or internally?

This is where a shift in paradigm to be effective is important.

Being proactive is more than “getting stuff done no matter what” - it’s having the right internal motivation to stay effective, even when there are more things to do than hours in the day.

When one has a strong intrinsic motivation, it’s greater than any extrinsic motivation.

This is what being proactive is: maintaining intrinsic motivation to being effective, even when everything outside is against you.

As a concept, this is “easy” to understand. How about getting it? Understanding how to maintain proactive attitude? Especially with my list of things to do??

Exercise

Having the proactivity exercise from the training brought this concept to life and experienced it.

Equipment

The exercise is simple, personal, require your favorite writing tools, and will take less than five minutes to do.

• Short timer
• Items to write down two lists

Definitely follow along - I experienced a deeper understanding of being proactive from just doing this exercise.

Step One

1. Set the timer to 90 seconds
2. Off the top of your head, write down you must and to dos
3. At the end of 90 seconds, take a look at the list, ask: “how do I feel about these things?”

Step Two

1. Set the timer to 90 seconds
2. Take the list from step 1 and rewrite or add “I choose to”, “I will”, “I want to” in front of each must do or to do.
3. At the end of 90 seconds, take a look at the new list, ask: “how do I feel about this list compared to the first list? Which do I prefer?”

Thoughts

For me, after looking at the second list, I just want to throw out the first list. I am not motivated to complete it at all. The list is a chore list.

The second list, just reading it inspires me to act. To get up earlier so I have more time to get items done from the list.

I found it amazing that even though it’s the same list, adding 2-3 words to each item changes my perspective of them.

From the exercise - I experienced a paradigm shift in how to be proactive.

Being proactive means more than getting things done, it’s intrinsically getting things done. Having the right attitude about each item will drive them to accomplish them better and faster.

Conclusion

From training, I learn that doing exercises can bring an understanding to the concepts of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People deeper than from reading alone.

From this simple list making exercise for the habit of being proactive, I had a paradigm shift, now I see my to dos differently, hence, approach completing them with a better attitude, and achieve effective results.

I definitely have to revisit this material again by reading and hitting any training I can!