Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Self-awareness

 

Stephen Richards Covey was a popular motivational speaker and had an enormous impact on both the corporate world and the personal lives of millions. He is the author of the 1989 best seller. “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. Covey believes that a person can strive towards success by concentrating on the aspects of life that you can control rather than by reacting to the external forces.

The seven “habits” covered in the book may seem simple as to be obvious, but Covey weaves them into philosophy that highlights the importance of relying on your own character and beliefs as you pursue any goal. 

Human Endowments

A part of the book consists of human endowments which are divided into primary and secondary categories. Primary endowment include self-awareness, imagination, conscience, volition or will power. The secondary endowments include abundance mentality, courage and consideration, creativity, and self-renewal.

Covey's list of human endowment emphasize on the difference between principles and values. Principles are external natural laws that determine the consequences of individual behaviour caused by their internal values. Principles are attributes of acquired or learned human endowment while values include innate human capacities.

Self-awareness: Being Proactive

The first endowment, Self-awareness, means our ability to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, actions, scripts, history and claim responsibility for the same. Self-awareness is derived from asking hard questions and answering them with honesty. He believes that self-awareness is achieved by being proactive i.e, taking responsibility.

Responsibility consists of our ability to choose our response. Those who are self-aware take responsibility for their words and actions. Their behaviour is the result of their own conscious choice rather than being influenced by a certain feeling. Being self-aware and thinking pro-actively is one of the most important aspects of a person’s response to a situation.

What matters most is the response of a person to experiences. Those who are proactive focus on the things they can change and make better. They focus on setting small goals and working towards it which increases their integrity and further makes them more responsible for their behaviours and actions.

Being Reactive

On the other hand, reactive people are deeply affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines, it makes no difference to them.

They are value driven; and if their value is to produce high quality work, the weather does not matter to them. Proactive people are driven by values that are carefully thought about and selected than any external force. 

Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social, or psychological. But their response to the stimuli, conscious or unconscious, may be a value-based choice or response.

Many organizations and businesses are often proactive. They combine the creativity and resourcefulness of proactive individuals to make a proactive and positive culture within the organisation. 

This remains to be one of the secrets of many successful organisations. Most of the employees are given Covey’s book in order to understand what is expected of them in their job and so that they can make their effective contribution.

Circle of Concerns and Influence

An important part of proactivity is the Circle of Concerns and Circle of Influence. We each have a “Circle of Concerns” and “Circle of Influence”.
Circle of Influence is the actions you can control or influence. 

It also includes indirect actions which means by saying something, you can influence another person to take an action. Influencing someone is easier when a person possesses good communication skills. Proactive people abide by this.

Circle of Concern is what lies outside your control or influence like the physical health, national debt etc. It includes the past, political decisions, world events, that cannot be changed. What can be changed is the way we view them. It also consists of the actions of other people that we can influence but not control.

Covey believes that we should not be worries about those things that we cannot control since it is a waste of time. It is important to channel our energy towards what we can influence and change. 

Besides, self-awareness not only changes our attitude and behaviour but also how we see other people. Once a person is self-aware, it becomes a map of the basic nature of mankind. 

 

Written by Jerusha Patel