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Title: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Authors: Stephen R. Covey Category:supplementals Number of Highlights: 41 Date: 2026-01-25 Last Highlighted: **
Highlights
Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Skill is the how to do. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.
Tags:knowledge,motivation,skills
Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase.
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Tags:habits
Itâs not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.
Albert Einstein observed, âThe significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.â
Tags:problem_solving
âThe successful person has the habit of doing the things failures donât like to do,â he observed. âThey donât like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.â
Tags:problem_solving
Paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world. The power of a paradigm shift is the essential power of quantum change, whether that shift is an instantaneous or a slow and deliberate process.
Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we areâor, as we are conditioned to see it.
Tags:perception
Each of us has many, many maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values.
Tags:cognition
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
Tags:cognition,perception
âManagement is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.â
Tags:favorite,leadership,management
The PC principle is to always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.
Tags:work
Trust is the highest form of human motivation. It brings out the very best in people. But it takes time and patience, and it doesnât preclude the necessity to train and develop people so that their competency can rise to the level of that trust.
Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it. No involvement, no commitment.
Tags:commitment
The key is not to prioritize whatâs on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
Tags:habits
Look at the word responsibilityââresponse-abilityââthe ability to choose your response. 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.
Dad had a beautiful definition of leadership: he taught that leadership is communicating othersâ worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves.
Tags:communication,leadership
Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.
Tags:initiative,responsibility,work:life
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
Tags:priorities
Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration.
The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.
To relate effectively with a wife, a husband, children, friends, or working associates, we must learn to listen. And this requires emotional strength. Listening involves patience, openness, and the desire to understandâhighly developed qualities of character. Itâs so much easier to operate from a low emotional level and to give high-level advice.
Goethe taught, âTreat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.â
Tags:communication,relationships
One of the most important ways to manifest integrity is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present.
Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent, but are important. It deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long-range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparationâall those things we know we need to do, but somehow seldom get around to doing, because they arenât urgent.
Our response to any mistake affects the quality of the next moment. It is important to immediately admit and correct our mistakes so that they have no power over that next moment and we are empowered again.
For thirty days work only in your Circle of Influence. Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
In the last analysis, as Marilyn Ferguson observed, âNo one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by emotional appeal.â
Tags:negotiation
A good affirmation has five basic ingredients: itâs personal, itâs positive, itâs present tense, itâs visual, and itâs emotional. So I might write something like this: âIt is deeply satisfying (emotional) that I (personal) respond (present tense) with wisdom, love, firmness, and self-control (positive) when my children misbehave.â
Tags:communication,emotions
The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in conflicting or ambiguous expectations around roles and goals.
Tags:communication,expectation,relationships
âLord, give me the courage to change the things which can and ought to be changed, the serenity to accept the things which cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.â
The real beginning of influence comes as others sense you are being influenced by themâwhen they feel understood by youâthat you have listened deeply and sincerely, and that you are open.
âInside-outâ means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of selfâwith your paradigms, your character, and your motives.
It taught me that we must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as at the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.
Remember, to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Remember, frustration is a function of our expectations, and our expectations are often a reflection of the social mirror rather than our own values and priorities.
Show me someone who is humble enough to accept and take responsibility for his or her circumstances and courageous enough to take whatever initiative is necessary to creatively work his or her way through or around these challenges, and Iâll show you the supreme power of choice.
âIt is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.â
Itâs incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busyness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover itâs leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busyâvery busyâwithout being very effective.