7️⃣ Habits of Highly Effective Teens

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In this project we learned a lot about how to be our most effective selves by reading the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” by Sean Covey and creating “choice board assessments” to show our understanding of each section in the book. Keep reading for all of my choice boards and accompanying explanations and information about the habits!

The 7 Habits are grouped together into “Setup, Private Victory, Public Victory and Renewal.” Here’s a graphic I really like that illustrates the groupings of the 7 habits:

Source

Watch the video or click the habits below to learn a little more about each Habit:

Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather.
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind is based on imagination–the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind is based on imagination–the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself.
Most of us learn to base our self-worth on comparisons and competition. We think about succeeding in terms of someone else failing–that is, if I win, you lose; or if you win, I lose. Life becomes a zero-sum game. There is only so much pie to go around, and if you get a big piece, there is less for me; it's not fair, and I'm going to make sure you don't get anymore. We all play the game, but how much fun is it really? Habit 4: Think Win-Win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good! A person or organization that approaches conflicts with a win-win attitude possesses three vital character traits: 1. Integrity: sticking with your true feelings, values, and commitments 2. Maturity: expressing your ideas and feelings with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of others 3. Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone.
Communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read and write, and years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training have you had that enables you to listen so you really, deeply understand another human being? Probably none, right? If you're like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you're listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. So why does this happen? Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. And consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating. Do any of the following sound familiar? Because you so often listen autobiographically, you tend to respond in one of four ways: Evaluating: You judge and then either agree or disagree. Probing: You ask questions from your own frame of reference. Advising: You give counsel, advice, and solutions to problems. Interpreting: You analyze others' motives and behaviors based on your own experiences. This is why Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood is so critical.
To put it simply, synergy means "two heads are better than one." Habit 6: Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn't just happen on its own. It's a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table. Together, they can produce far better results that they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is great.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have–you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Here are some examples of activities: Physical: Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting Social/Emotional: Making social and meaningful connections with others Mental: Learning, reading, writing, and teaching Spiritual: Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service.

 

The Setup

For this activity, I listed the 7 habits and gave myself a rating for each habit using a five star system. I also listed some of my paradigms that I’m aware of and I will try to be more conscious of them. This gave me an opportunity to reflect on how I connect to what I learned and apply it.

We then created a “Personal Mission Statement Table” with a long term goal and personal mission statement and a selection of people who would help to accomplish said goal. I used Keynote and Memojis for mine, and I’m very proud of it:

At my table are several people who would help me accomplish my end in mind goal and align with my personal mission statement. My family will always support me as I develop my skills towards my end in mind goal. They will also make sure I remember to be respectful and have fun along the way. Ross Reid (Nerdy About Nature), Greta Thunberg and David Suzuki would provide me with inspiration for raising awareness about the importance of nature. Ross Reid would also teach me how to make informative, engaging and short videos about nature. Robin Ashmore, family friend and CEO of All Purpose (read about my visit to his company here) a B Corp that makes documentaries for good causes, would help me learn to manage, plan and film my documentary and model being supportive of community well-being. Isabel D. would help with the acting and Indigenous aspect of my documentary, and be supportive and fun. Together all the people at the table would inspire me to excel in achieving my goal and sticking to my personal mission statement.

 

The Private Victory
Habits 1, 2 & 3

I created this Sketchnote for the private victory which illustrates the key aspects I took away from of the Private Victory using text and drawings. I used a colour palette and Procreate to create it. I think I still have work to do to master this section.

 

The Public Victory
Habits 4, 5 & 6

I recorded a short 4 minute podcast for this choice board assessment. In the podcast I speak about what I learned from this section as well as connecting it to my life and experiences. I hope to learn more about mirroring and remembering to listen to understand not to reply.

 

A quote I mention in the above podcast is “The Person you should compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday.” I don’t know who said it, but I think that it is an excellent quote to live by.

 

Renewal
Habit 7

I made this collage using free stock photos from Canva and a photo of my puppy to visually show the aspects of Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw. I used images that I feel connect to things I do and would like to try to renew myself. I think that this habit is one I really need to remember to focus on, as I tend to spend an unbalanced amount of time on school work vs. sharpening the saw with family time and exercise.

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Final Choice Boards

Once we finished the book and created all the choice boards, we created a final three choice boards which would connect each habit to a core competency: Communication, Thinking, Personal/Social. In preparation for this, we filled out a Numbers document “pitch form” with our plan of which habits where going to go in each section and how we were going to represent them. If you would like you may read my “pitch form” here. Here’s my final three choice boards:

For my kinaesthetic “Thinking” choice board I created the following sculptures:

Left: These sculptures are of a First Nations Drum, a tree, a film camera and a lifeguard tank top. The camera, drum and tree represent my long term “Begin with the end in mind (Habit 2)” goal of creating documentaries about nature and Indigenous history and culture. The Lifeguard shirt represents my short term (pretty close to being achieved) goal of working as a lifeguard for NVRC. This also connects to Habit 1 of “Be proactive” as I am taking responsibility to achieve a goal.

Right: Brain with a target on it. As Tony Robbins says you want to be in the centre ring of the target, where you are doing important not urgent activities. This idea is similar to that of the 7 Habits “be the prioritizer.” Like a target, your goal is to spend most of your time the centre ring, which connects to Habit 1 of “Be proactive.”

 

For my visual choice, I made a Sketchnote with a voiceover for “Communication”:

 

Last, but not least, for audio, I created a playlist for “Personal/Social”:

This playlist contains songs from Tony Robbins’s #UPW seminar and other songs I listen to to renew myself for Habit 7: Sharpen The Saw. These songs also represent Habit 6: Synergize, because the songs have all have different energy levels. Despite being different however, they all help put me in a “peak state”.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, I learned a lot from this project that I will continue to use moving forward to become a more effective person, focusing on Putting First Things First and Sharpen the Saw. Now to answer some driving questions:

How can I be my most effective self?

I feel that my creations for this project already answer this driving question, but to recap I can be my most effective self by remembering to utilize all of the 7 Habits to be in control and responsible for my time, my life and have positive relationships with family, friends, peers and teachers.

Empowered Learner:
How might I use technology to construct knowledge? 

I can use technology to learn through videos, graphics and text. I used the 7 Habits book, workbook and activities.

Creative Communicator:
How might I use technology to create and communicate? 

I can use technology to show, share, communicate and retain my learning through the use of sketchnotes, podcasts, models, playlists, graphics and more.

 

I enjoyed learning about the 7 Habits and I hope to continue to develop my abilities to be the most effective person I can be. I hope that in the future we can have a little bit more time to create our final three choice boards and blog post so the project ending isn’t as rushed and stressful. Overall though, this project was pretty cool.

Thanks for reading, until next time!✌️

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