A person must be in charge of himself. A person can choose which way to live her life. By being self-aware, and using this trait a person can become proactive and take the full responsibility of her choices. Proactivity, is the first habit Stephen R. Covey covers in his book called ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. He states that a person’s ability to examine their own character, and to make decisions and control their situations and own effectiveness is what distinguishes us from all other animals. And in order for a person to be effective, they must be proactive and take charge. Being proactive is to be able to be in control, a fairly simple example of this is replacing one’s own language with a proactive approach; “That situation makes me so mad.” to “I can control my own feelings”.

The second habit is to begin the end in mind, which means to always think of the end goal that you are trying to reach in any situation. When a person has a clear destination in mind that they are working towards to, they will feel more encouraged to tackle the failures on the way and they will pursue the goal at almost any cost.

The third habit is related to the second one; it is to put first things first. Which by Covey means that to reach the goal set in the second habit, a person must be disciplined and actually execute the tasks that are needed to be done to reach the end goal. By completing tasks on a priority of what is the most important and not by what is the most urgent, a person will build discipline, which is needed to actually be successful in any parts of life.

Fourth habit is to think win-win situations, and pursue them. Win-win means that both people win, and that agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial for both parties involved. The fifth habit is to understand first, then be understood. A person must truly understand others and their perspectives through listening, to get to the bigger picture. Sixth habit being synergize, it complements the earlier ones; by understanding and having value in differences of other person’s perspective, we have the opportunity to create synergy, which then allows us to see possibilities through creativity.

The final habit of highly effective people is to sharpen the saw. Which essentially means to take care of yourself and to seek on opportunities that will help you become a better and more understanding human being.

I found this book very interesting, and actually got many ‘advices’ that I can truly take in to practice in my own life, business wise and un-business wise. By understanding how many successful people function, one can better themselves to become more like one on their own. And isn’t one aspect of life to be able to learn through conversation and mutual failures or success stories, than to just read books and pray for the ‘right’ opportunity. In my own experience people who have succeeded by failing hundreds of times, have the best mindset one can find. It’s not always about making it right the first time, it’s about being able to redirect yourself after failures to be able to succeed one day.