The 9th Habit
Blogging my exploration of the first 8 Habits.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Beginning at the End: Which Habit do you start with?
Where do you start with the Habits?
I always try to start at the end, to work on Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw, before going back to work on the earlier ones. (Granted, the book encourages us to "Begin With the End in Mind," but I'm not sure this is what it meant!) So it is with my recent re-commitment to explore the Habits--I made the ultimate Habit (or penultimate, considering there's an eighth) the foundation of my exploration.
Habit 7 is about renewal, about recreation and exercise to build our capacities. The idea is to maintain and even expand our physical, social/emotional, spiritual, and mental capacities. It exhorts us to exercise, eat right, sleep and hydrate properly, attend to our health; to cultivate strong, fulfilling relationships; to get in touch with our mission, values, purpose, and the principles of our religious or spiritual tradition; and to study, read, write, learn, and grow intellectually.
Stephen Covey's original arrangement of the material makes immanent sense, of course; starting with Habit 1: Be Proactive (the habit of choice, of personal responsibility) and then working through the levels of planning, action, and then interpersonal attitudes is practical, as each builds on the preceding one. Still, even Dr. Covey recognized that Habit 7 has a special place; that's why in his 7 Habits diagram, it encircles the other six (see diagram, left).
In a two-CD abridgement1 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit, he makes this point:
So, with the Covey blessing, I tend to ignore for the moment the sequential nature of the Habits, and go straight for the 7th.
I believe that Habit 7 is as foundational as Habit 1; the latter, granted, is the habit of acknowledging our choice and responsibility, and it might be argued that we must be proactive in order to make the hard choices and to keep up the discipline of exercise and learning that Habit 7 requires. On the other hand, Habit 7--when pursued consistently--also improves our energy, our understanding of others, our talents and sense of purpose. All of which, I would argue, strengthen our ability to be proactive in the first place.
Dr. Covey has also said and written on numerous occasions that faithful attention to Habit 7 automatically strengthens the other six; by that logic, it seem to me that we should all be starting on 7, because we'll be much stronger when we move on to the others.
Still, no matter how universal the principles behind the habits may be, one of those same principles is that differences exist and are valuable; so, I pose these questions:
I would be very curious to hear your answers to these questions. In the near future, I will write about what I've been doing lately to Sharpen the Saw in my own life.
1 - This particular edition, ISBN 1929494858, was sold through FranklinCovey's retail stores; it appears to no longer be available through Amazon or FranklinCovey's website. Several other abridged and unabridged editions of both the 7 Habits and the 8th Habit are still available; also, there is a standalone audio book that may contain the audio referred to above.
Where do you start with the Habits?I always try to start at the end, to work on Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw, before going back to work on the earlier ones. (Granted, the book encourages us to "Begin With the End in Mind," but I'm not sure this is what it meant!) So it is with my recent re-commitment to explore the Habits--I made the ultimate Habit (or penultimate, considering there's an eighth) the foundation of my exploration.
Habit 7 is about renewal, about recreation and exercise to build our capacities. The idea is to maintain and even expand our physical, social/emotional, spiritual, and mental capacities. It exhorts us to exercise, eat right, sleep and hydrate properly, attend to our health; to cultivate strong, fulfilling relationships; to get in touch with our mission, values, purpose, and the principles of our religious or spiritual tradition; and to study, read, write, learn, and grow intellectually.
Stephen Covey's original arrangement of the material makes immanent sense, of course; starting with Habit 1: Be Proactive (the habit of choice, of personal responsibility) and then working through the levels of planning, action, and then interpersonal attitudes is practical, as each builds on the preceding one. Still, even Dr. Covey recognized that Habit 7 has a special place; that's why in his 7 Habits diagram, it encircles the other six (see diagram, left).In a two-CD abridgement1 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit, he makes this point:
Sometimes, it helps to focus on a single habit. You don’t try to change everything at once. However, you will find that the habits are so interwoven, that any time you begin to work on one of them in a significant, deep way, it will affect all of the rest. But start with those things that are most important for you to work on right now.
So, with the Covey blessing, I tend to ignore for the moment the sequential nature of the Habits, and go straight for the 7th.
I believe that Habit 7 is as foundational as Habit 1; the latter, granted, is the habit of acknowledging our choice and responsibility, and it might be argued that we must be proactive in order to make the hard choices and to keep up the discipline of exercise and learning that Habit 7 requires. On the other hand, Habit 7--when pursued consistently--also improves our energy, our understanding of others, our talents and sense of purpose. All of which, I would argue, strengthen our ability to be proactive in the first place.
Dr. Covey has also said and written on numerous occasions that faithful attention to Habit 7 automatically strengthens the other six; by that logic, it seem to me that we should all be starting on 7, because we'll be much stronger when we move on to the others.
Still, no matter how universal the principles behind the habits may be, one of those same principles is that differences exist and are valuable; so, I pose these questions:
- Where do you tend to start when you renew your commitment to the Habits?
- If you've always been a "Start at the start" kind of person, but have never quite gotten the results you want from the 7 Habits, are you open to considering picking one of the others and beginning there?
- Do you agree with the structure and sequence that Dr. Covey offers, or do you feel the relationship among the Habits calls for a different approach?
I would be very curious to hear your answers to these questions. In the near future, I will write about what I've been doing lately to Sharpen the Saw in my own life.
1 - This particular edition, ISBN 1929494858, was sold through FranklinCovey's retail stores; it appears to no longer be available through Amazon or FranklinCovey's website. Several other abridged and unabridged editions of both the 7 Habits and the 8th Habit are still available; also, there is a standalone audio book that may contain the audio referred to above.
Labels: be proactive, capacities, emotional, growth, habit 1, habit 7, mental, physical, renewal, sequence, sharpen the saw, social, spiritual, stephen covey, the 7 habits of highly effective people
¶ Posted by Mark @ 7:44 AM
