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:

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 |  0 comments

  On Buying Textbooks: A lesson in Proactivity A new semester begins in two weeks, and so yesterday I went to the lovely building pictured here and engaged in a time-honored ritual: Deciding to buy my textbooks a couple of weeks early and read ahead, only to discover that fewer than half of the required tomes are available at the campus bookstore.

At least, that's how the story usually goes. I average about three trips to the bookstore per term: My early attempt, a second visit the Sunday before classes begin, and at least one visit after classes commence to get the inevitable straggler book. On Sunday, as I was reviewing my projects, goals, and appointments for the week, I saw the "Buy Textbooks" item and mentally started cursing the bookstore. I assumed, per the usual course of events, that not nearly all my books would be available. I imagined myself screaming at the clerks in the aisles, terrorizing the cashier, and raising all manner of hell. I fantasized about the scathing letter I would write to management and the University, the editorial I'd submit to the student paper that would whip the whole campus into a fury...

Then, as my rage and imagination were about to run amok several facts dawned on me:

1. For starters, I didn't even know for sure whether or not my books were in. Maybe I would be in luck this time--in which case all of my pre-shopping rage was wasted energy.
2. Secondly, even if the bookstore was doing their usual mediocre job, there would be plenty of time to deal with it afterwards (and, it should be noted, there are vastly more constructive ways of dealing with it).
3. Finally, however inconvenient it may be by my standards, the vast majority of students do not have any desire to buy their textbooks this far ahead of schedule. What I'm asking for is, in fact, actually fairly extraordinary service.

The last point is hardly consolation, of course; here I am, trying to be responsible and prepare for class, and the monopolistic textbook conglomerate is thwarting my efforts.

The irony is that I was torturing myself over the fact that the bookstore was preventing me from doing the responsible, proactive thing in the traditional sense of those terms; in response, however, I was failing to be responsible or proactive in the 7 Habits sense of the terms. I was not taking responsibility for my own response; I was not being proactive in the sense of acknowledging that the choice of actions was still my own.

I decided, then, that there were several measured ways I could respond if I was denied the opportunity to study ahead:

• Typically, at least one of my textbooks is available this early; if only one of two were, I would endeavor to read a text in its entirety before the first day of class. Though I would not be ahead in all of my classes as I'd prefer, I would have the satisfaction of knowing I could coast for the rest of the term in that one class.
• I could re-read one or two of my textbooks from last year. I enjoyed my Social Psychology text immensely, but haven't cracked it open in over eight months. I also have a Cognitive Psychology book that remained criminally underused during its course last spring.
• Finally, I could take the opportunity to act on the situation: Writing a reasoned letter to the management of the bookstore, sending an anonymous note to the professors involved about the importance of timely ordering, writing a thank-you note to any professors whose books were in for having the foresight to order in a timely fashion, etc.

Within a few moments of flexing my "proactive muscles," I felt vastly better. I knew that, for once, the experience of having to wait on textbooks would not cause me undue stress or anger, and that I was going to have a great couple of weeks preparing for a new term of study.

I think this exercise paid off, too; in fact, only half of my books were available, but I had a pleasant conversation with the bookstore employee who helped me, and left the store at peace and with a smile on my face. In semesters past, I would have left scowling with a raging storm inside; I'm sure my levels of joy and productivity during the rest of the day were much improved due to this little shift.

More ideas about Being Proactive can be found here:
          

Labels: be proactive, college, follett, habit 1, initiative, proactivity, responsibility, stephen covey, textooks, the 7 habits of highly effective people, university

  ¶ Posted by Mark @ 1:30 PM |  0 comments