The danger for most people is to work on to many urgent (sometimes also unimportant) tasks, which make it impossible to find time to work on the important ones. The trick is to prevent important tasks to become urgent, by finishing it on time. Successful people operate in quadrant two: important non-urgent tasks. Covey describes a quadrant with two axes: Importance and Urgency. The thirds habit in striving for independence is prioritizing, making sure important tasks (not necessarily urgent tasks) are done first. For each of your roles, you should define your own personal mission, which is based on your circle of influence. Everybody has more than one role in life, for instance a father, a son, a college and a friend. What kind of person do you want to be? If you do not know jet, Covey proposes you imagine your own funeral and think about what you would want your friends and family to say about you. Reactive people who act in their circle of commitment think in terms of having, for instance ´I which I had more time…´ or ´If only I had a diploma…´ The circle of influence is based on Being, which is focuses on how one can be in the future: ´maybe I can be more patient in the future´. The interesting thing about focusing on the circle of influence is that it usually makes it bigger, which means that using your influence usually grows your influence.Īnother difference between reactive and proactive people is described by the verbs ´to have´ and ´to be´. Proactive people are focused on the smaller circle of influence, in which they can actually influence the situation. A reactive person will focus on his circle of commitment and focus on aspects which he cannot influence himself. The difference between acting reactive and acting proactive can be explained by the circle of commitment with in there a smaller circle of influence. The way someone reacts to a stimulus in the present influences the person you will be in the near future, or put it the other way around: ´Who I am today is what I chose for yesterday´. Our behavior is based on the choices we make, not from our circumstances. In this part of the model, the first three habits of highly effective people are described: being Proactive (1), defining goals (2) and Prioritizing (3).īeing Proactive means one can make his own choices. Part one of the model is described as STRIVING FOR INDEPENDENCE. Everyone has a choice on how he spends his time, on the actions he does and can be hold accountable for personal success. The principles are based in the I-paradigm, where the power of the individual and the influence the individual has on its environment are acknowledged. The seven habits are derived from literature written in the last 200 years and divided in three parts striving to independence (1), choosing for mutual dependence (2) and ´sharpening the saw´(3).

The seven Habits of highly effective people is Stephen Coveys most famous book, in which he describes 7 habits a person needs to be highly effective.

The 7 habits