The 7 Habits- Overview

Key Points:

• Our character, basically, is a composition of our habits. A habit is an intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. 
• Knowledge- the what to do and why
• Skill- how to do
• Desire- want to do
• Effective habits internalize principles and patterns of behavior.

• The Maturity Continuum- Is going from dependence to independence to interdependence. When we begin life we are dependent children who rely upon our parents. Over the months and years, we move to independent into more self-reliant and inner-directed. Most individuals stop at being independent while others move on into interdependent, which is discovering that the higher reaches of our nature have to do with our relationships with others.
• Dependence is the paradigm of you
• Independence is the paradigm if I
• Interdependence is the paradigm of we
• Habits 1,2, and 3 all deal with self-mastery. They move from dependence to independence. They are Private Victories, the essence of character growth. Private victories precede public victories. You can't invert that process any more than you can harvest a crop before you plant it. It's inside out. 
• Habits 4,5 and 6 focus more on teamwork, cooperation, and communication. 
• Habits 7 is the habit of renewal, a renewal of the four basic dimensions of life.

Effectiveness defined:

• When it comes to effectiveness we will explain its use in an example called the P/PC Balance.
• Aesop's fable of the goose and the golden egg is a great example. The fable is of a poor farmer who discovers a pet goose with golden eggs. He sells the pure gold eggs then figures out each day the goose lays one egg that he can sell. With his increasing wealth comes greed and impatience. Unable to wait each day the farmer decides to kill the goose and get all the eggs at once. He then realizes that once he killed the goose no eggs were inside, and he had lost his fortune.
• There is a paradigm in this fable that the more you produce, the more you do, the more effective you are. Effectiveness lies in the balance.
• We call it the P/PC Balance because the P stands for production of desired results, the golden eggs, and PC stands for production capability, the ability or asset that produces the golden eggs.

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner