‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers’ is a self-help book. Being a teenager is both wonderful and challenging. This book teaches teenagers basic principles to build a solid foundation that will sustain them through life’s most difficult challenges in an entertaining style.
The author, Sean Covey provides a step by step guide to help teens improve self-image, build better relationships & friendships, achieve their goals, and much more. Covey starts his book by defining what a ‘habit’ is and how it affects our life. An English poet once said, “We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” Our habits, either good or bad will shape our characters, depending on what they are, our habits will either make us or break us. We become what we do repeatedly.
Luckily we are stronger than our habits. Therefore, we can change them. In creating good habits, we should have a good paradigm in our lives. The paradigm means perception. A paradigm is a way through which you see something, your point of view or belief. Positive paradigms will make us great but negative paradigms will cause hindrance in our lives. Just as negative paradigms put limitations on us, positive paradigms can bring out the best in us.
Before presenting the seven habits, the author discusses the Personal Bank Account (PBA). How you feel about yourself is like a bank account and he calls it PBA. Covey splits PBA into 2 parts: deposits and withdrawals. Deposits are like being kind, gentle, and honest with yourself, renewing yourself, and identifying your talents. Withdrawals are like breaking personal promises, being dishonest with yourself, and neglecting your talents. Small deposits over a long period of time are the way to a healthy and rich PBA. Then Covey goes on to outline seven habits to become a highly successful teen:
Being Proactive
There are two types of people in this world: the proactive and the reactive. Proactive are those who take responsibility for their lives and reactive people are those who blame their faults on others and complain about everything. A proactive person says, “I am the captain of my life. I am responsible for my own happiness and unhappiness.” Proactive people think before they act. To help become more proactive, the author cites four human tools: self-awareness, conscience, imagination, and will-power.
Begin With The End In Mind
Without having an end in mind, you won’t know which path to take. You won’t know whether your decisions are going in the right direction or not. For example, you read a recipe before you bake a cake, you create an outline before you write a paper, it’s a part of life. Covey says if you aren’t clear about where you want to end up in life, about your values and goals, you will wander, and waste time. He says every teen must create a mission statement which will act as a road map to direct and guide one’s decision-making process.
Put First Things First
This habit is all about prioritising. The author names four different time quadrants, each quadrant contains different kinds of activities and is named by a type of person, namely:
- The Procrastinator: In this quadrant, things are urgent and important. A procrastinator is a person who leaves everything important for the last minute, like cramming for a test or finishing the assignment on the last day.
- The Prioritizer: This quadrant determines things that are important but not urgent, like relaxation, building friendships, exercising and planning ahead. The prioritizer plans ahead, he does all things that need to be done and doesn’t wait for the last minute. This quadrant is also called the Quadrant of Excellence.
- The Yes-Man: This quadrant represents things that are urgent but not important. The Yes-Man is the type of person who tries to please everybody and responds to their desire. Comedian Bill Cosby once said it well: “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
- The Slacker: This quadrant is the category of waste. These activities are neither urgent nor important. Slackers are people who waste their time doing unimportant stuff, such as, watching too much TV or using too much mobile phone or sleeping too much.
Now analyse yourself, in which quadrant do you stand? What type of person are you? Since in reality, we all spend some time in each quadrant, the key is to shift as much time as possible into the 2nd quadrant.
The Relationship Bank Account (RBA) is about our relationship with others. You can make deposits and improve a relationship or seek withdrawals and weaken it. Deposits would be acts such as being kind, loyal, listening, and saying sorry. On the other hand, withdrawals are acts such as breaking a promise and being arrogant. Follow the golden rule, “Treat others as you would want them to treat you.”
Think Win-Win
Think win-win is an attitude towards life, a mental frame that says I can win, and so can you. It’s not me or you, it’s both of us. In order to foster win-win situations, it is imperative to strip away comparison and competition.Treat others success as you treat your own, and win-wins will result.
Seek First Things First
You have two ears and one mouth, learn to listen to what others say, before saying what you want. Most people don’t listen very well, one of the great frustrations in life is that many don’t feel understood. This habit ensures us to learn the most important communication skill, active listening.
Synergize
Synergy is achieved when two or more people work together to create something better than they could alone. It’s not “your way” or “my way” but a better way, the high-way. Synergy is like teamwork. A good band is a great example of synergy. It’s not just the drums, guitar, or vocalist, it’s all of them together that make up the music. Each band member brings their strengths to the table to create something better than each could, alone. Each member plays a different but important role.
Sharpen The Saw
This habit is all about keeping yourself sharp so that you can deal with life better. No matter how much effort you put in, cutting a tree with a blunt saw will take months, but if you spend your time to sharpen the saw before cutting the tree, it will be a matter of hours. Same goes for human – beings. You should regularly renew and strengthen the four key dimensions of your life – Body, Brain, Heart and Soul.
Care for your body: Exercise regularly, eat healthy food and sleep well.
Care for your Brain: In order to sharpen your mind, you should keep learning. There are many ways to learn, but reading is the most effective. As the saying goes, ‘reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.’ Other ways to sharpen your mind is playing chess or logical games, travelling, or learning new skills.
Care for your Heart: You can look after your heart by building good relationships with other people as well as yourself.
Care for your Soul: Your soul is a very private part of your life. Naturally, there are many different ways to feed it. Like, meditating, serving others, journaling, reading inspiring books, or praying.