This week I had
the opportunity to read a
summary of Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People by Stephen
Covey. He lists out the seven habits: 1, Be Proactive; 2, Begin with the end in
mind; 3, Put first things first; 4, Think win/win; 5, Seek first to understand
… then to be understood; 6, Synergize; and 7, Sharpen the saw.
My favorite of these seven habits
is the first one; Be Proactive. Any
other one of the steps starts with taking action and stepping forward to
accomplish something. Covey juxtaposes proactivity with reactivity. We as
humans have the ability to act preemptively and anticipate
In
George Leonard’s book Mastery which I
mentioned last week, chapter ten is titled “Why Resolutions Fail – And What to
Do About It”. This chapter talks about
equilibrium. Our bodies naturally adapt
to return our core to its proper temperature, and in the same way our minds are
always striving to maintain a psychological equilibrium. Leonard uses the example of someone who hasn’t
worked out for a long time. If they
decide to get in shape and suddenly go running, their body interprets that as a
threat and becomes busy and short of breath as part of the attempt to get them
to stop and return to equilibrium, or a state of not working out.
Combining these two points, I
understand that we can’t just maintain the status quo. Our minds and our bodies want to remain
stagnant. They want to do what they’ve
always done the way they’ve always done it.
Combining our ability to be proactive and understand ourselves with our
understanding of how our bodies stay at equilibrium, we can beat the cycle and
be proactive in creating new habits for ourselves, and that’s how to habit.
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