Good morning hive readers. I hope you are well, today I share with you the recipe of a book that is without a doubt one of my favourites.
At a certain point in my life, I was immersed in a kind of depression where I didn't feel like doing even simple household chores. I didn't have a plan or a goal and when I decided to do something it ended up going wrong. My days went by and I felt no progress. That's when I discovered Stephen R. Covey, with his book "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", which is a self-help book that undoubtedly changed my perspective on my way of living and thinking.
This book, written over 30 years ago, encourages readers to change their perspective on the world through a paradigm shift. In "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" Stephen Covey proposes a seven-step method for achieving effectiveness in all aspects of life.
The first idea that Covey conveys is that of the subjectivity of perceptions, paradigms. Often, these paradigms are limiting beliefs: ingrained thoughts, sometimes from childhood, that prevent us from moving forward.
The higher the level of awareness we have of our paradigms and how they have influenced our experience, the more we can take responsibility for them, examine them, listen to others and be open to their insights. In this way, we will achieve a bigger picture and a much more objective view.
The 2nd and 3rd stages of the book are called "Private Victory" and "Public Victory".
In these he calls private victory as the personal achievements that must be attained before we can interact efficiently with our environment. It consists of each person being able to lead themselves in order to overcome dependence and thus achieve independence. This victory is personal, and allows us to manage our time, as well as to manage our actions and thoughts.
As for the public victory, it refers to the fact that it will help to learn to work in cooperation with others. At one point he states that
"It depends on the way we live with others, what kind of person we will become ***".
This concept explains our ability to optimise our relationships, develop leadership and achieve effective teamwork, based on win-win relationships, where all parties benefit.
Let's analyse the 7 habits described by Stephen Covey throughout these stages:
1- Be proactive: To be proactive is to take responsibility for our own life and lead it. Without a doubt I consider this to be the most important since we are the main leaders of ourselves.
2- Start with an end in mind: Setting goals of what you want to be and what you want to achieve in your life is the first step to achieve it.
I believe that everyone should always have a goal to pursue, for which we get up every day.
3- Put first things first: Planning is essential to achieve the steps we set out to take in order to reach the objectives we have set ourselves. Without organisation, we will not achieve, or it would be very difficult, to achieve what we want.
4- Think win-win: Thinking win-win is the ideal stage to develop the abundance mentality. Because both parties will benefit.
5- Seek to understand before being understood: This part is really interesting and is about opening your mind and trying to understand the point of view of others. Do not assume that our ideas are always and only valid and that others are wrong.
6- Create synergies: People need to relate to each other, to create synergies. Meeting people from different environments, attending to diversity, widening our circles. Personally, this part helped me a lot as I didn't use to relate to people.
7- Sharpen the saw: Sharpening the saw means working on and taking care of each of these dimensions. The best investment we can make in our life is the investment in ourselves.
In conclusion I hope this review has helped and motivated you to read this great book. It is currently available in English and Spanish.
