You’ve probably heard of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Those principles if established as habits help the reader become more effective. Let’s take a look at them.
- Habit 1: Be Proactive-take responsibility for every aspect of your life. Initiative and taking action will then follow
- Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind-set long-term goals, consider creating a personal mission statement and visualization as a tool to develop it
- Habit 3: Put First Things First-focus on long-term goals instead of things that are more urgent and less important and prioritize the work related to your long-term goals
- Habit 4: Think Win/Win-with an attitude like this, everybody wins. See mutually beneficially solutions to satisfy yourself and others
- Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood-completely listen to another person’s concerns and don’t give advice before you understand a person and their situation
- Habit 6: Synergize-work effectively in teams by collaborating, valuing differences and building on divergent strengths
- Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw-engage in carefully selected recreational activities that offer self renewal so that you can regain your “production capability”
You can see that if you made these seven principals habits, that they would help you in creating and maintain habits that support your productivity. To shift into habits that support you, you first have to understand that it takes 21 days to develop a new habit. That’s the amount of time that it takes to train the brain. I recommend that you give yourself 30 days for each new habit you want to develop. You might think that’s a long time, but it really isn’t. Trying to change more than a few habits at one time can be self destructive, so be patient and honor the process.
Start by writing down the new habits that you want to develop. Your head is a dangerous place for commitments to hang out. When you write them down they become real and you get clarity about what you want to create and what that means for you. It also helps to keep you committed.
Once you have that clarity, enroll a friend in supporting you. Share with them what habit you’re giving up and what you are creating. Keep them in the loop on how you’re doing and of any challenges that come up for you. Allow them to help you through the rough spots and get you back on track so that you can successfully develop the new habits. Make sure that your new habits are consistent and that you do them every day for 30 days.
Understand that you are going to go through a process with your new habits. The first 30 days will present some challenges and you might even feel as though you want to quit. After a few months it becomes easier to keep the commitment and things run smooth at that point. Once you’ve reached a year or so, it becomes harder to not be in the habit because that habit has become part of your routine and part of who you are.