The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

too much undisciplined leisure time in which a person continually takes the course of least resistance gradually wastes a life

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
ARISTOTLE

Someone once said, “That which we desire most earnestly we believe most easily

It’s better to be trusted than to be liked.

Principles are natural laws that are external to us and that ultimately control the consequences of our actions. Values are internal and subjective and represent that which we feel strongest about in guiding our behavior.

Teilhard de Chardin, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

That which we persist in doing becomes easier—not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.”

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.

EZRA TAFT BENSON, FORMER SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE

APPLICATION SUGGESTIONS:

Make a list of activities that would help you keep in good physical shape, that would fit your life-style and that you could enjoy over time.
Select one of the activities and list it as a goal in your personal role area for the coming week. At the end of the week evaluate your performance. If you didn’t make your goal, was it because you subordinated it to a genuinely higher value? Or did you fail to act with integrity to your values?
Make a similar list of renewing activities in your spiritual and mental dimensions. In your social-emotional area, list relationships you would like to improve or specific circumstances in which Public Victory would bring greater effectiveness. Select one item in each area to list as a goal for the week. Implement and evaluate.
Commit to write down specific “sharpen the saw” activities in all four dimensions every week, to do them, and to evaluate your performance and results.

In the words of Madame de Staël, “The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it: but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.”