When was 7 habits written

You're simply trying to get one thing off your plate, so you can breathe for half a second and get to the next emergency to get off your plate. If someone stopped you and asked you whether the way you're spending your time on these urgent tasks is helping you to get to your long-term goal whatever that is of, for example, starting your own company, getting into a new industry, or reaching your next big job promotion, you'd probably say: "No, but I just need to get this stuff done to clear up time on my schedule so that I can do those things.

Only, guess what? You're like a hamster on the wheel. You'll never clear up time on your schedule. You'll always be drinking from the firehose on these urgent tasks. In fact, things in business since the 7 Habits book was published in have only made us more focused on Urgent stuff. Think about it. Email, the Internet, Cell Phones, Twitter. Back in , people used to pack up at 5pm on Friday and be gone until Monday morning at 9am. Now, we're always connected and ready to respond to the latest issue.

You never have to worry about the tasks in Quadrant 1 the urgent and important tasks. You'll always have to take care of them. You have to - as much as you can - eliminate the Quadrant 4 tasks not urgent and not important. Just say no to Facebook. Shut them off.. They're a time suck. You also need to severely restrict the Quadrant 3 stuff urgent and not important. Most of us don't realize how much of this stuff we do every day and we think it's important when it's really not.

With better awareness and better planning, you can really cut this stuff down. The most important thing you can do in your career relating to this simple two-by-two matrix is to do some Quadrant 2 stuff not urgent but important every day. I guarantee that you will not see flowers from planting these seeds for several months if not a year. In the midst of his experiences, Frankl would project himself into different circumstances, such as lecturing to his students after his release from the death camps.

Through a series of such disciplines—mental, emotional, and moral, principally using memory and imagination—he exercised his small, embryonic freedom until it grew larger and larger, until he had more freedom than his Nazi captors. They had more liberty , more options to choose from in their environment; but he had more freedom , more internal power to exercise his options. He became an inspiration to those around him, even to some of the guards. He helped others find meaning in their suffering and dignity in their prison existence.

In the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, Frankl used the human endowment of self-awareness to discover a fundamental principle about the nature of man: Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. Within the freedom to choose are those endowments that make us uniquely human.

In addition to self-awareness , we have imagination —the ability to create in our minds beyond our present reality. We have conscience —a deep inner awareness of right and wrong, of the principles that govern our behavior, and a sense of the degree to which our thoughts and actions are in harmony with them.

And we have independent will —the ability to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences. Even the most intelligent animals have none of these endowments. But because of our unique human endowments, we can write new programs for ourselves totally apart from our instincts and training. But if we live like animals, out of our own instincts and conditioning and conditions, out of our collective memory, we too will be limited. The deterministic paradigm comes primarily from the study of animals—rats, monkeys, pigeons, dogs—and neurotic and psychotic people.

Our unique human endowments lift us above the animal world. The extent to which we exercise and develop these endowments empowers us to fulfill our uniquely human potential. Between stimulus and response is our greatest power—the freedom to choose. It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives.

Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling. Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us.

In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values—carefully thought about, selected, and internalized values. Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social, or psychological.

But their response to the stimuli, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response. It was a large audience, and as a number of people turned to look at her, she suddenly became aware of what she was doing, grew embarrassed, and sat back down. But she seemed to find it difficult to restrain herself and started talking to the people around her. She seemed so happy. I could hardly wait for a break to find out what had happened. When it finally came, I immediately went to her and asked if she would be willing to share her experience.

Nothing I do is good enough for him. He never expresses appreciation; he hardly even acknowledges me. He constantly harps at me and finds fault with everything I do. This man has made my life miserable and I often take my frustration out on my family. The other nurses feel the same way. We almost pray for his demise.

I felt as though I was being let out of San Quentin. I am let out of prison! No longer am I going to be controlled by the treatment of some person. Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow.

But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

Frankl is one of many who have been able to develop the personal freedom in difficult circumstances to lift and inspire others. The autobiographical accounts of Vietnam prisoners of war provide additional persuasive testimony of the transforming power of such personal freedom and the effect of the responsible use of that freedom on the prison culture and on the prisoners, both then and now.

We have all known individuals in very difficult circumstances, perhaps with a terminal illness or a severe physical handicap, who maintain magnificent emotional strength. How inspired we are by their integrity! Nothing has a greater, longer-lasting impression upon another person than the awareness that someone has transcended suffering, has transcended circumstance, and is embodying and expressing a value that inspires and ennobles and lifts life.

One of the most inspiring times Sandra and I have ever had took place over a four-year period with a dear friend of ours named Carol, who had a wasting cancer disease.

When Carol was in the very last stages of the disease, Sandra spent time at her bedside helping her write her personal history. Carol would take as little painkilling medication as possible, so that she had full access to her mental and emotional faculties. Then she would whisper into a tape recorder or to Sandra directly as she took notes. Carol was so proactive, so brave, and so concerned about others that she became an enormous source of inspiration to many people around her. I could see in her eyes a life of character, contribution, and service as well as love and concern and appreciation.

Many times over the years, I have asked groups of people how many have ever experienced being in the presence of a dying individual who had a magnificent attitude and communicated love and compassion and served in unmatchable ways to the very end. Usually, about one-fourth of the audience respond in the affirmative.

I then ask how many of them will never forget these individuals—how many were transformed, at least temporarily, by the inspiration of such courage, and were deeply moved and motivated to more noble acts of service and compassion. The same people respond again, almost inevitably. Viktor Frankl suggests that there are three central values in life—the experiential, or that which happens to us; the creative, or that which we bring into existence; and the attitudinal, or our response in difficult circumstances such as terminal illness.

My own experience with people confirms the point Frankl makes—that the highest of the three values is attitudinal, in the paradigm or reframing sense. In other words, what matters most is how we respond to what we experience in life. Difficult circumstances often create paradigm shifts, whole new frames of reference by which people see the world and themselves and others in it, and what life is asking of them.

Their larger perspective reflects the attitudinal values that lift and inspire us all. As well as enabling us to choose our response to particular circumstances, this empowers us to create circumstances. Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen. The response is usually agreement—most people can see how powerfully such an approach would affect their opportunities for employment or advancement.

But many of them fail to take the necessary steps, the initiative, to make it happen. No one wants to help me. But people who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done. Proactivity is part of human nature, and, although the proactive muscles may be dormant, they are there.

By respecting the proactive nature of other people, we provide them with at least one clear, undistorted reflection from the social mirror. Of course, the maturity level of the individual has to be taken into account. But we can, at least, affirm their basic nature and create an atmosphere where people can seize opportunities and solve problems in an increasingly self-reliant way. It takes initiative to develop the 7 Habits. As you study the other six habits, you will see that each depends on the development of your proactive muscles.

Each puts the responsibility on you to act. If you wait to be acted upon, you will be acted upon. And growth and opportunity consequences attend either road.

At one time I worked with a group of people in the home improvement industry, representatives from twenty different organizations who met quarterly to share their numbers and problems in an uninhibited way. This was during a time of heavy recession, and the negative impact on this particular industry was even heavier than on the economy in general.

These people were fairly discouraged as we began. The environmental pressures were powerful. There was widespread unemployment, and many of these people were laying off friends just to maintain the viability of their enterprises.

By the end of the day, everyone was even more discouraged. By the end of the second day, we were even more depressed.

Things were going to get worse before they got better, and everyone knew it. What are we going to do? How can we exercise initiative in this situation? In the afternoon we discussed increasing market share. We brainstormed both areas, then concentrated on several very practical, very doable things.

A new spirit of excitement, hope, and proactive awareness concluded the meetings. Part two: But what we are causing to happen is very good, for we are better managing and reducing our costs and increasing our market share. Part three: Therefore, business is better than ever. Now, what would a reactive mind say to that? Face facts. You can only carry this positive thinking and self-psych approach so far. Sooner or later you have to face reality. We did face reality. We faced the reality of the current circumstance and of future projections.

But we also faced the reality that we had the power to choose a positive response to those circumstances and projections. Businesses, community groups, organizations of every kind—including families—can be proactive. They can combine the creativity and resourcefulness of proactive individuals to create a proactive culture within the organization.

The organization does not have to be at the mercy of the environment; it can take the initiative to accomplish the shared values and purposes of the individuals involved. Our language, for example, is a very real indicator of the degree to which we see ourselves as proactive people. Who is there? What are they saying about you? About how you lived your life? About the relationships you had?

What do you want them to say? Think about how your priorities would change if you only had 30 more days to live. Start living by these priorities. Break down different roles in your life -- whether professional, personal, or community -- and list three to five goals you want to achieve for each. Define what scares you. Public speaking? Critical feedback after writing a book? Write down the worst-case scenario for your biggest fear, then visualize how you'll handle this situation.

Write down exactly how you'll handle it. In order to manage ourselves effectively, we must put first things first. We must have the discipline to prioritize our day-to-day actions based on what is most important, not what is most urgent.

In Habit 2, we discussed the importance of determining our values and understanding what it is we are setting out to achieve. Habit 3 is about actually going after these goals, and executing on our priorities on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis. In order to maintain the discipline and the focus to stay on track toward our goals, we need to have the willpower to do something when we don't want to do it. We need to act according to our values rather than our desires or impulses at any given moment.

All activities can be categorized based on two factors: Urgent and important. Take a look at this time management matrix:. We react to urgent matters. We spend our time doing things that are not important. That means that we neglect Quadrant II, which is the actually most crucial of them all. If we focus on Quadrant I and spend our time managing crises and problems, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it consumes us.

This leads to stress, burnout, and constantly putting out fires. If we focus on Quadrant III , we spend most of our time reacting to matters that seem urgent, when the reality is their perceived urgency is based on the priorities and expectations of others. This leads to short-term focus, feeling out of control, and shallow or broken relationships.

If we focus on Quadrant IV, we are basically leading an irresponsible life. This often leads to getting fired from jobs and being highly dependent on others. Quadrant II is at the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things like building relationships, long-term planning, exercising, preparation -- all things we know we need to do but somehow seldom get around to actually doing because they don't feel urgent.

In order to focus our time in Quadrant II, we have to learn how to say "no" to other activities, sometimes ones that seem urgent. We also need to be able to delegate effectively. Plus, when we focus on Quadrant II, it means we're thinking ahead, working on the roots, and preventing crises from happening in the first place!

We should always maintain a primary focus on relationships and results, and a secondary focus on time. Identify a Quadrant II activity you've been neglecting. Write it down and commit to implementing it. Create your own time management matrix to start prioritizing. Estimate how much time you spend in each quadrant. Then log your time over 3 days. How accurate was your estimate? How much time did you spend in Quadrant II the most important quadrant? In order to establish effective interdependent relationships , we must commit to creating Win-Win situations that are mutually beneficial and satisfying to each party.

Win-Win: Both people win. Agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying to both parties. Win-Lose: " If I win, you lose. Lose-Win: " I lose, you win. Lose-Lose: Both people lose. When two Win-Lose people get together -- that is, when two, determined, stubborn, ego-invested individuals interact -- the result will be Lose-Lose. Win: People with the Win mentality don't necessarily want someone else to lose -- that's irrelevant.

What matters is that they get what they want. Win-Win or No Deal: If you can't reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial, there is no deal. The best option is to create Win-Win situations. With Win-Lose, or Lose-Win, one person appears to get what he wants for the moment, but the results will negatively impact the relationship between those two people going forward.

The Win-Win or No Deal option is important to use as a backup. When we have No Deal as an option in our mind, it liberates us from needing to manipulate people and push our own agenda. We can be open and really try to understand the underlying issues. In solving for Win-Win, we must consider two factors: Consideration and courage.

Take a look at the following chart:. Another important factor in solving for Win-Win situations is maintaining an Abundance Mentality , or the belief that there's plenty out there for everyone. Most people operate with the Scarcity Mentality -- meaning they act as though everything is zero-sum in other words, if you get it, I don't.

But from my perspective, the most important habit is working to improve the one you're having the most difficult time living. Sean Covey, the son of Dr. Stephen R. Covey, is president of Franklin Covey Education and a best-selling author.

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