Are the 7 Habits Worth it?

Have you ever heard of a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? It’s one of the most popular and well respected self help books out there. My name is Indy and in this recent project that we did in PLP called “Believe in good”, we focused on the seven habits, and how they could improve our lives.

What is “The Seven Habits”? The Seven Habits is a book written by Stephen R. Covey that describes 7 habits that you can work into your life to improve it. These 7 habits are sectioned into 3 parts.

The Private Victory

The private victory consists of the first 3 habits; Be proactive, Begin With the End in Mind, and Put first things first. These 3 habits are all about becoming independent, and having a plan. Being proactive is being the opposite of reactive, and thinking things through. Beginning with the end in mind is making sure you have a plan for things, specifically your life, in this section we did a personal mission statement table, where we came up with a statement for the direction we want to go in life.

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In putting first things first you prioritize what needs to be done first and what can wait, something I think really helps with this is the urgent/ important square

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We did an assessment choice board activity for this, which was just representing our understanding of this section, here’s mine:

 

 

 

 

The Public Victory

The public victory consists of habits 4,5,6 and is all about the art of influencing, and becoming interdependent. In habit 4, Think win-win, you need to think about certain situations as things that could be beneficial for everyone. In habit 5, Seek first to understand then to be understood, you need to put yourself in others shoes, and listen to people first before you can expect people to understand you. In habit 6, Synergize, you need to work with others and be on the same page.

We also did an assessment choice board activity for this section, and I made this:

Renewal

The last section of the habits is renewal, which consists of only habit 7. Habit 7 is arguably the most important habit, it’s called Sharpen the saw. Sharpening the saw is about renewing yourself, taking a step back, and working better because of it. 

We didn’t do a choice board activity for this section because we made a final product that was similar, and there wasn’t much point, but I’ll get back to that later.

Relevance? 

The relevance of all of this relates back to my original statement and the title of this blog post. Most self help books try to help you with your personality ethic, whereas this book helps you more with your character ethic.

This book and these habits also relate to the school competencies funny enough, and here is my explanation on how I can use the competencies and the habits: I can use technology to construct knowledge by working hard to understand how things work, then trying hard to use that understanding to take my knowledge on topics that interest me to the next level. I can use technology to create and communicate by using resources and communicating through words and other things! I can communicate via art, music, videos, photos, anything really, and I can create all of these things by using my resources to their full extent to create, collaborate, communicate and learn.

The Final Product

Like I mentioned earlier, we made final products for this project, that were a way of conveying our understanding of all of the habits, and their connections to the competencies mentioned above. 

The first thing I made was related to the personal and social competency, and also habits 1,3 and 7. I made a visual piece, which was a bunch of key buzzwords relating to these habits in the form of a butterfly, which represents some elements of the habits.

The second thing I made was an audio piece, relating to the communication competency, and habits 2 and 6. I made a mashup of a bunch of songs, combining lyrics to make a new story. The songs don’t even necessarily go together, but I think the message can still be heard.

The last thing that I made was a kinaesthetic piece, that related to the thinking competency and habits 4 and 5. I made a clay model representing some ideas in the habits, like walking in someone else’s shoes.

So, ultimately this project was definitely a very personal one, and it is the one that is most likely to improve my life in the future. I’m not sure how much I’ll use the habits now, but this book/lifestyle seems like something that will find it’s way back to me at some point.

Thanks for reading my blog post reflection on this project! Have a good day!