How to Apply Stephen Covey's Seven Habits: Get Control of Your Mind

Stephen Covey's most fundamental habits, to my mind, are as follows:

- TAKE A LONG, HARD LOOK AT WHAT YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE

- PUT THESE IN A HIERARCHY, MAKE THEM PRIORITIES IN ORDER OF THIS HIERARCHY, AND MAKE SURE ALL OTHER CONCERNS ARE SUBORDINATE TO THESE PRIORITIES

- ACT UPON THE FRAMEWORK SET OUT HERE ABOVE, IE., DO THINGS, EVERY DAY, TO WORK TOWARDS YOUR GOALS, IN ORDER OF THE PRIORITIES YOU HAVE DEEMED TO BE MOST IMPORTANT.

This procedure, however, is based on having sound psychology. In other words, you need to have control of your psychological and emotional levers in order to accomplish these three steps.

Therefore, for me, the first area in which you need to Be Proactive (Covey's first habit), is that of your mind, your emotions, your brain, and your nervous system.

We are all bumbling along inside a vehicle called the brain-and-nervous-system. Fortunately, this is a machine that can produce results for us. HOWEVER, we need to LEARN how to operate this great and complex machine.

In terms of American psychological tradition, the first wave of thought in regard to how the mind works was that promoted by B. F. Skinner and behaviourism. That is, Skinner and many others emphasized that we associate to things other things that occur repeatedly in proximity to that first thing, and also that our basic drives are towards pleasure and away from pain.

Needless to say, while this model worked well for the study of pigeons (a favourite subject in behavioural experiments), as soon as you get into more complex animals, things are not so simple. Indeed, anyone who has lived with a cat, for example, knows that complex animals are not simply motivated by pain and pleasure, but have all sorts of more complex "thoughts."

Enter the so-called "cognitive revolution." This new wave of theory emphasized that there are sentences, bits of sentences, ideas, beliefs, values and all sorts of other "meaningful symbol systems" going on in the brain of any animal with a complex forebrain. That is, yes, obviously, we all know that pain and pleasure motivate us, but this is not the whole story. For example, while young children may in general get some kind of basic pleasure from learning their mother tongue (or, at least, presumably feel no pain associated with doing this), there is a whole lot more to explain when answering the question as to how they actually accomplish this.

Now, then, and particularly perhaps in therapeutic circles, the dominant model of the mind is that of cognitive-behaviourism. This is a marriage of the observation that we associate things, that pleasure and pain motivate us, on the one hand, and that our experience becomes encoded in symbol systems as we go through life.

For example, a child who is scalded by a hot kettle will learn to avoid this experience in the future, but if someone conveys, using language, that the kettle is safe if you approach it in a specific manner, the child can learn this, via the symbol-system of language, which becomes encoded as a belief, and thus neutralizes his avoidance-behaviour of kettles.

In any case, cognitive-behavioural theory is a bedrock of modern psychology. There are, in addition to this, many more approaches to the mind, some of them more helpful than others (see, for example, http://stopbadtherapy.com ). Nevertheless, the point is, to begin a search for how the mind works (see also Stephen Pinker's book How the Mind Works), is to Begin with the End in Mind).

Begin with the End in Mind: Got to Say It Again

Stephen Covey has divided up the tasks of life into Seven Habits.

Covey's foundational habit, however is to "Begin with the End in Mind."

Covey states, not illogically, that before we begin anything, and this includes the rest of our lives(!), then we need to ponder, to examine, what it is we are aiming at. In other words, where are we pointed: we need to "begin with the end in mind."

Covey points out that this applies on two levels: for each of the domains of life, what ends to we want to achieve, but also, when examining all of our goals, how can we put these in a hierarchy; how can we put them on a scale.

For example, for me personally, having children is not high on the list. In fact, it comes under the "maybe" heading. Frankly this goes also for having a relationship (or at least a life-long relationship). Similarly, I am not looking for a better job, because I have employment I enjoy. Nor is home ownership particularly important to me.

On the other side of things, I belong to a family that is not particularly taxing, by which I mean, there are few if any complicated games going on between participants, few complex political ballet dances... Equally, no-one in my family is sick, or needs help in any dire sense, and all are thriving more-or-less.

The details of my life dictate, then, to a great degree, where my priorities lie. In my case, I have very few pressing "needs."

This, then, leaves me with a large amount of room for pursuing my desires. Now Covey also emphasizes the needs of conscience, by which I mean our obligation, morally, to help others, and to seek to alleviate suffering.

But here is a question I would ask:

- IS there a conflict between seeking to alleviate suffering in the world, and seeking to fulful desires.

For me, the answer is, on the contrary, to alleviate suffering IS ONE OF MY DESIRES.

So, to begin with the end in mind, to put my desires, and the goals that grow out of those desires, in a hierarchy, would involve goals to help suffering.

With this in mind, one of my "ends" is to promote awareness about Third World poverty. I have opened a Twitter account under the name NotforProfitOrg, and I invite you to follow me.

Beginning with the end in mind is essential. We don't get much time in this earth, so use what time you have properly.

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You've Only Got x Years Left

Apologies in advance to anyone who may find the post I am about to write morbid, but I think the issue I am going to discuss is a very important one.

Based, in my case, on the fact that the average male, at least in the United States, lives to be 75, and given that (a) if there is a heaven, then I won't be on earth once I am there and (b) if reincarnation exists, I won't exist AS ME, once that has occurred, then the clock is ticking.

Need this be a dreadful thing? No, on the contrary, this is a call to squeeze the juice out of life to the greatest degree possible, because you ain't got much of it!

Equally, it is a call to take care of your body, as well as those of your children, because a life plagued with health problems is a very different experience from a life lived in a healthy, alert, body.

It is also a call to get yourself fit psychologically. By this I mean that most of us tend to assume that whatever personality traits we have, we are stuck with. We assume this. And that is important, because to assume something is true is to believe it without having studied it.

If we examine, however, what we know about life, we know that we are not who we were (usually), ten years ago. Certainly we are not who we were when we were teenagers. So, personality can be changed.

Stephen Covey's book emphasizes one important point in regard to this: EITHER YOU CHANGE ACCORDING TO YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES, OR YOU CHANGE YOURSELF WILFULLY, DELIBERATELY, TO BE THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE.

This is no small issue. As I say, you only get a finite amount of time on this earth, as the "you" that you are. And it really is not very long.

You must therefore decide what is important to you, and then pursue that. And often, to pursue such goals, you will need to change aspects of your personality.

The question, then, is that of how you change yourself to pursue those goals that you have decided are important. At the moment I am exploring "NLP". It sees promising. I encourage you to look it up on Google. Or, you could check out "Mark Shepard" "NLP". I am reading his material at the moment, and they strike me as having promise for changing those aspects of yourself that you want to change.

Covey's 7 Habits: "Every Minute of Every Day"

Our lives are divided up into minutes; they are divided up into hours. In the end, a life is nothing but a succession of minutes, or of hours.

Therefore, to ask what our life should be about, is to ask what each of the minutes we experience should be about.

Covey and the 7 Habits try to lay out a groundwork for answering this question.

Of course, naturally, our lives cannot realistically be about only one thing. There are various domains of life that all of us participate in.

For example, we are all inhabitants of a body, and that is structured around principles.

Principles like "Vegetables and fruits, and non-animal proteins are healthy" govern the rules of life for your body; this example is important, because it illustrates that we cannot necessarily always pick our values as if from a smorgasbord of choices as offered in a democracy: certain values have certain consequences -- in the end there are often "right values" and "wrong values."

A way of looking at Covey's approach is to examine his ideas from two frameworks:

- the question of what you will do with the "minutes" you have, or with the "hours" you have, and...

- what are the "right values" ?

Combining these two issues is where success lies:
1) recognize you have choice within each chunk of time, in each day, in each week, and
2) ascertain which values should govern those chunks of time.

Covey 7 Habits: Can Covey's 7 Habits be Separated from "Religiosity"

I would like to speculate on whether there is something "religious" about the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

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Covey's 7 Habits are not of course specifically religious. There are references to various religions here and there throughout his books, but there is no sense that this is a missionary project in the sense of trying to convert the reader to belief in God. God, in fact, is almost never mentioned.

Why would this be so, given Covey's obvious connection to the Mormon Church?

Covey, I think, is claiming to have uncovered "patterns for living" that exist, in a sense, regardless of religion. For example, it is simply part of human nature, a rule of human dynamics, that if you truly seek to understand another person's point of view, then they will become more open to your own; in addition, there is also a logical point concealed here: if you want to interact with someone, the more you know about them the more effective your interaction is going to be; it is just "obvious" common sense.

Similarly, focusing on preparation over impulsive action is simply one of those "common sense" facts of life, that people frequently forget.

I feel then that Covey and the 7 Habits, while certainly coming across in tone at times like something resembling a religious text, is largely secular, universally applicable, common sense, but common sense many or most of us tend to ignore, and often do so at our peril.

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Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits -- Is Comfort the Goal

It seems to me that often our society pushes the notion that comfort is the ultimate Good in life. This is a sentiment that many hold, whether they realize it or not, that is pushed by advertising and marketing strategies, but that goes largely unexamined.

Covey suggests however that comfort, or pleasure, or self in general, is not a worthy goal, but that instead that it is principles that should be the focus of our lives.

This is surely not to say that no pleasurable emotions, or feelings of comfort, should be allowed to guide our decisions; on the contrary, it could be argued that, when we arrive at a decision that seems "right", there is often a requirement that we feel "comfortable" or "at peace" with that decision.

The key point, however, is that comfort should not be the GOAL of life; it perhaps should be A goal, but there is so much misery in the world that kind-hearted people with good conscience can do a lot to alleviate, simply making our own personal comfort our objective is unworthy of who we are as human beings.

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Stephen Covey :

Independence vs. Interdependence

Independence is not the final goal in the thinking of Stephen Covey.

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Stephen Covey emphasizes that is it INTERDEPENDENCE to which we should strive.

Covey's idea is in fact a re-statement of one of those things that is so obvious we never think of it. For example, if you are an autonomous, single man, living in an apartment, working from your computer, you may have the illusion of independence. But, wait, did you build that apartment? Do you not have an interdependent relationship with your landlord? If you pay by cheque, do you not have a relationship with your bank? And the bank, does that bank not invest in all kinds of projects and endeavours right across the world?

What about the electricity that powers your computer? Who built the dam that powers the hydro-electricity for that power source? Who runs your city government that laid the infrastructure for the power lines, and who voted for those city officials?

There is no question: psychological independence is a worthy pursuit; but the facts remain: we are all highly interdependent, nevertheless.

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Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits -- Put First Things First

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Why did I decide to focus on Stephen Covey and his ideas?

Stephen Covey belonged to a group of authors that I used to spend a lot of time focusing on, a group that included Robert Ringer, Susan Jeffers, and other "self-help gurus."

Stephen Covey's work in particular drew me because, ultimately, I am aware that we all live along a time line. In other words, we don't get very long: if you are now forty and you live into your sixties, let us say, you only have 1,000 weeks left! Even if you're twenty and you live to be eighty, that's still only 3,000 weeks...

With this in mind, I wanted a resource that could help me focus on the question: Given I only have, perhaps 2,000 weeks, and maybe less, of my life to live, then how can I best spend my time? I mean, it is hardly an inconsequential question: unless you are a Buddhist or a Hindu, you probably believe this is your only life on earth, the one and only time you've got in this kind of reality, and you may well believe that this is the only form of existence you will have period! So, it matters deeply what you do with your time.

Covey combines "time management" with "seeking out an overall vision." In other words, it is one thing to have an effective time management tool, but this is useless if you do not know what targets you should be aiming at.

Covey's ideas, then, lend themselves to a combining of deep philosophical issues with practical everyday concerns.

Thus, for me, the two overarching habits of the seven habits of Stephen Covey are: Begin with the End in Mind (meaning, find out what it is you should be focusing on), and then to Put First Things First, meaning to stop sacrificing your most important goals to less important tasks...

In the end though, you must Begin with the End in Mind first! In other words, Put first things first, and the "first thing" in this sentence is figuring out what "ends" you should have in mind.

None of the other self-help books I was looking at, including the more academic work of Aaron Beck, for example, emphasized this. In other words, no-one else seemed to pay such rigid respect for the idea that we all live along a time-line, ie., we have to decide what we are doing in the bounds of "the space-time continuum", because there is quite literally no escape from this: for humans, time appears as linear, and this is the foundation for all action, all goal-setting.

Stephen Covey forces you to pay heed to the linear march of time, by asking you to decide what the First Things are that you should be doing.

Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits -- First Thing in the Morning

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If Stephen Covey's Seven Habits philosophy seems to you to make sense, then the challenge is to live with it for a period of time, to test out its worth. This is the essence of scientific method: follow your hunch that you think something might be worth pursuing by testing it out in the real world. Indeed, much of the "self-help" movement suggests such projects as a "thirty day challenge," even if this is not done so specifically by Covey.

Covey emphasizes planning, but he suggests planning based on the week rather than the day. This is because, for most people reading this, you are already in a society that divides things up into seven day cycles, so it only seems appropriate that a good starting point would be to fit it with what the rest of your community is doing.

Covey, however, does not neglect the obvious issue that life comes to us in "day-tight compartments," that is, like most(?) species, day and night and our bodies are somehow in sync. The key is not to live in "day-tight compartments" that are so tight that they become divorced from the bigger picture.

Covey, again here, turns to the concept of roles, under which can be grouped goals. He suggests therefore, at the beginning of each week, slotting in the goals you have as related to the roles you have determined yourself to have, across the week. Of course, in practice, these are usually going to be "sub-goals" or "mini-goals", but the emphasis, nevertheless, is working on objectives, and not simply on filling up your schedule.

Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits "self-help" -- Musings on Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits

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Stephen Covey would normally be placed by most commentators under the rubric of self-help. When I think of it, however, I think this does an injustice both to the Seven Habits and to Stephen Covey.

Covey actually advocates NOT focusing on the self. In short, the self is not a worthy focus of our own attention, unless it is in the service of something greater than that self.

This flies in the face of much that we find in psychotherapy. There seems to be an assumption in the orientation of many modes of therapy that it is somehow worthwile to focus on the development of self.

My view is that probably you need to attain a certain threshold of self-satisfaction, ie., of contentment. BUT THIS IS NOT THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF LIFE.

Covey emphasizes this point very well: for Covey, the goal of living is not independence (although the first three habits of the seven habits focuses on this), but effective INTERDEPENDENCE (dealt with in the second three habits of the seven habits).

In other words: YOU are not the goal of life; the goal of life is to SERVE SOMETHING GREATER THAN YOURSELF.

Stephen Covey Seven Habits: What Motivates Us According to Stephen Covey

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Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits movement, or theory, is worth taking seriously. By this I do not of course mean accepting slavishly: I mean taking a look at what he says, and deciding for yourself whether what you think jibes with the ideas of Covey.

Covey is very interested in what motivates us. Another way of saying this is: What is important to us?

Of course this is a wide question. Clearly we operate in so many domains, we are relatives, lovers, neighbours, workers, members of associations, members of a political society, consumers, and so on. Even if you live in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, I think we can still apply all of these labels to you: Man (and Woman!) has a set of universal experiences.

Covey handles this problem of the complexity of an individual life by suggesting we split the way we see ourselves up into "roles" (much like I have just done in the previous paragraph). ONLY THEN should we turn to focusing on goals.

Covey suggests we write down the roles we see ourselves as possessing. You might be the member of a mosque; you might be the member of the community of Madison, Wisconsin; you might be a father; a son; a neighbour; a steel construction worker, and so on. In short, write down the roles that you see as most important to you, that you fulfil.

Once you have done this, identify some key goals you would like to achieve in each of these areas.

This, then, is the process of clearing up what MOTIVATES US. That is, find out what roles we see as most important for us, then identify some key goals in each of these areas. By the end of the exercise, you should have a much clearer idea of the targets you would like to aim at, in other words, be much more sure of what it is that may be motivating you... This sort of exercise lies at the heart of the work of Stephen Covey.

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Stephen Covey, the Seven Habits, and Language

Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits has been somewhat pigeon-holed by the larger society as "gimmicky" and "cheesy." I would suggest that this is more because of the packaging and language of the books and not entirely because of the ideas that Stephen Covey presents in his Seven Habits.

Covey and the Seven Habits phenomenon is perceived by many as part of what is seen as the generally suspect genre of self-help, as well as that of "management guru literature." To some degree I imagine this is as much to do with the received wisdom coming out of the US publishing field, that such books must have certain formats and style. As a result, I think that probably a lot of people are turned off before they give a chance to Covey's project of an orientation to life based around Seven Habits.

"The Seven Habits" itself as a term comes off, I would say, as "self-help-ish" and this, I think, does a disservice to the ideas that Stephen Covey is promoting. Thus, I would recommend trying to swallow hard and ignore the "cheesiness" of some of the material in Stephen Covey's books, and try and approach the Seven Habits series with as objective and balanced a head as possible. Covey has definitely presented something worth thinking about, whether or not Covey's ideas should be formatted as "Seven Habits."

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Stephen Covey and the Seven (7) Habits: Is Pleasure the Goal?

Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits philosophy contains many gems of insight. One of those which comes out strongly in Covey's Seven Habits books is this: Pleasure is not the Goal of Life. What does this mean, according to my own reading of the work of Stephen Covey?

Stephen Covey sets up his philosophy as containing 7 components, each one distilled into a one-sentence "habit." One of those is "Beginning with the End in Mind". In order to do this, Covey says, we have to be able to determine what things constitute the "Ends" for us. Having done this, Covey recommends learning to put ethical and other tried-and-tested principles of life ahead of those ends.

Covey names a number of these ends in his 7 Habits book, and frames them as those areas of life experience upon which your life is centered, or which take precedence over other possible "centers." Examples listed by Covey include spouse-centeredness, work-centeredness, money-centeredness, possession-centeredness, friend-centeredness, enemy-centeredness (!), and church-centeredness. The area which I would like to talk about here, however, is that which is called "Pleasure-centeredness" by Covey.

Covey points out that there are those who decide things based on that which would bring them most pleasure (at least, as they see it). Implied within this is, I think, immediate pleasure. This is, however, a tricky issue because, surely, strictly speaking pleasure is the reason we do everything. Perhaps a closer look at this fact and how it relates to Covey's assertions might help shed light on Covey's Second Habit and, more generally, the philosophy of the 7 Habits of Stephen Covey.

Covey would say that pleasure, in and of itself, can bring no fulfillment. But, if the purpose of Covey's seven habits creed is self-fulfillment (even if Covey might say that, no, the purpose of life is "service," surely this is hard to separate from the sense of fulfillment that comes from service to others), isn't fulfillment identifiable as a type of pleasure? Even self-denial or self-sacrifice are motivated by "selfish" pleasure: still, you give yourself to a greater good because it brings you pleasure to do so.

Let us examine the idea, by contrast, that Stephen Covey's Seven Habits are designed to promote service to others as a way of life, and that this is something that is intrinsically worth embracing, irrespective of how it might make you feel. Now here I wonder if in fact Covey could then argue that, no, pleasure does not always have to be the end of any action. What if we could simply learn to see service to others, even though tempered by a Win-Win mentality that includes attention to our own wellbeing in the equation, as an emotionally neutral end which we take and accept purely on faith? Then, surely, it could be argued that pleasure is not, in fact, always the end of every act, and thus we need not accuse Covey's moral philosophy of being internally inconsistent.

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Stephen Covey, 7 Habits Thinking and "Mindfulness"

Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits philosophy focus on... well, on focusing. What do I mean by this?

Covey and his seven habits approach are all about taking over the reins of your own thoughts, the focus, or drift, of your mind, so as to break the habit of allowing yourself to ponder those things which, really, you have no control over anyway.

Stephen Covey's books seem to rest on two ideas: (1) You can, with patience and effort, and with help from others and from educational materials (a very useful field here would be that of REBT), get control over your own mind and (2) Given this fact, you need to decide, or learn how to decide, (a) which things are of greatest importance to you and which things, while perhaps important, are not as important as your top priorities, and (b) which things in life you can do something about and which things you cannot, in order to focus only on those things that you care most about and only those things you can do something about in any case. Of course, having said this, it is easy to fool ourselves that we are less powerful than we really are, so we need also to really consider in what ways we hold ourselves back from doing things in areas where we could actually make a difference (consider, for example, THIS LINK), (Susan Jeffers is useful on this).

I have included here a link on "mindfulness" which, I think, overlaps the ideas of Stephen Covey:

MINDFULNESS LINK

KEYWORDS: Stephen Covey, Seven Habits, 7 Habits
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Stephen Covey, the Seven Habits, and Blogging

Stephen Covey and the 7 Habits philosophy emphasizes a number of "principles" of life, one of which is "There is usually no quick-fix... Quick-fix is a mirage." To put this another way, relationships, which are the mainstay of any human endeavour, take time to build.

Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits philosophy applies to search engine promotion(!) in just this way. (And so it should: Stephen Covey has tried to identify habits which apply in lots of different situations, which are "universal," or, at least, near universal). Look at this link: http://www.articlepr.com/SEO_Article_Submission.shtml and consider how Stephen Covey and his seven habits are borne out.

Keywords: Stephen Covey, Seven Habits, 7 Habits.

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Stephen Covey and the Seven (7) Habit: "What is a 'Paradigm'?"

Stephen Covey writes on the "power of a paradigm shift." For those with some training in philosophy, here is a link to Giorgio Agamben's explixation of what a "paradigm" is:
Paradigms Lecture Click on ME

Seven Habits Philosophy: Stephen Covey's idea of the "social mirror" and how it fits in to the 7 Habits.

Stephen Covey is interested, in part, in how we make decisions. One aspect of decision-making that comes up in his SEVEN HABITS books is his discussion of the concept the "social mirror." The social mirror is that experience of needing to appease or appeal to the approval of those around us. Covey lists several obvious types of people who might have an undue influence on your own "heat-of-the-moment" decisions, which includes friends, members of your family, your spouse, work-related colleagues (including bosses), and fellow church-members. Yet a large part of the project mapped out by The Seven Habits philosophy is to try and divest yourself of such social influences ("unhealthy" or, perhaps more accurately, unhelpful, "scripts" prescribing how to think and behave), and to focus (a) on principles derived from conscience and the self-evident of moral principles (like fairness, for example), and (b) deeply thought-about mission statements that you have taken the time to write out in regard to the various aspects of life. Learning not to respond to the social mirror is a foundational habit that is part of Habit One (in effect, "act rather than be acted upon,") Habit Three ("Act according to well-thought out principles, rather than according to spontaneity") and Habit Five ("Think Win-Win" ie, consider yourself as important in conflicts as much as the other person, ie., the social mirror) of the Covey 7 Habits.



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Covey and the Seven (7) Habits: Moral Philosophy and Stephen Covey

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Covey literature is, of course, different from much of the self-help field in that his Seven (7) Habits emphasize morality. Living with someone who is studying moral philosophy as I do, I am intrigued as to how Covey's ideas may fit in with the great works of the big-name philosophers.

I am not going to go into great detail here as to the theories of ethics of Kant, Iris Murdoch, Adorno or Foucault, nor am I equiped to do so. Nevertheless it does occur to me that one of the reasons that Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits philosophy turns so many people off is because morality has become associated with shame. What interests me, however, is that the philosophies of morality of (non-Christian) Western philosophy do not rest on shame, or even on the existence of God, for their justification. How does this dynamic work regarding the Seven Habits of Stephen Covey?

Covey, it seems to me, does not advocate shame as a driving force behind moral behavior. On the contrary, he recommends learning to become less attuned to the "social mirror," ie., the shame inspired by the opinions of others. Additionally, he does not seem to think that shame is a very useful tool in getting people to "buy in to" the philosophy, moral or otherwise, of a culture. Indeed, Covey seems to assure his readers that people will remain suspicious of a philosophy which they are coerced into following, when they themselves have not participated in its creation. In short, in fact, the notion that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity, as opposed to being shamed into behaving a certain way, is a pivotal tenet of the whole thrust of the Seven (7) Habits phenomonen which Stephen Covey has kicked off.

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Seven Habits of Stephen Covey and what Geopolitics can learn from the 7 Habits

British jailbreak from Iraq prison and freeing/rescuing of SAS commandos was in the news this week. If Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits philosophy really has "real-world" applicability, then the seven habits should shed light on the British SAS prison break in Iraq.

Iraq and British military involvement seems, at first, to be disconnected from management guru literature such as the "habits" books of Stephen Covey. Yet, on closer inspection, Covey insists on a couple of relevant "principles" that any organistion, including the British military in Iraq, can benefit from. One of these is thinking about longterm consequences, another is building an atmosphere of trust. These are not hokey ideas, but practical and pragmatic "rules" of effective living. These are the kinds of rules that Covey focuses on in his Seven Habits series. But how specifically is this relevant to British military activity in Iraq?

Iraq, like anywhere else, is unlikely to welcome British or US military activity on its streets. So British military tactics must consistently try to build trust. This serves British military interests, as more trust means less British military casualties. Thus I propose that breaking down the prison walls of an Iraq state prison is, in the long-run, only going to cause more British deaths. This is because you must "always remember [all] the people involved," to quote Covey.

Covey and his ideas, in my opinion, have relevance for British military involvement in Iraq, and relate directly to the freeing from prison with tanks and force of British SAS military personnel. Without a foundation of trust, any enterprise is on shaky legs. The Covey phenomenon emphasises this, and could, perhaps, be incorporated
into British military strategy for Iraq.

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7 Habits of Stephen Covey and Morality

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The 7 Habits of Stephen Covey (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN 7 HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME) obviously stand out from most of the ideas spawned by the pop-psych/management literature of the past thirty-five years in that they recognize moral/ethical principles, the constituents of "character," not simply as important, but as pivotal to all lasting success. Yet there must nevertheless be a distinction made here between "values" and "principles." By this I mean that not all morals are "eternal principles" as such -- in fact many moral values definitely go against the spirit of Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits.

Covey's ideas can bear a little more scrutiny, then, than the cursory reading that a lot of reviewers seem to have given his books. Certainly some people react to the 7 habits philosophy by suggesting that Covey tries in his habits series to slip in some Mormonism, as it were. But, on closer inspection, I am not sure that this is entirely true...

Stephen Covey is on record, for example, as recommending as "essential reading" books like the Qur'an and Hindu scriptures: this is hardly your typical Mormon! Also, although Mormonism itself is certainly ambiguous (to put it mildly) on this point, there is hardly a sense that Covey would consider the accumulation of riches to be immoral! So there is definitely a sense that the covey 7 habits books are trying to pare down morality to universally-held moral principles, things like respect, restraint, forgiveness, fair-play, justice, keeping promises, kindness, openness and honesty. There is never any suggestion that other, more locally specific moral values should make the list, pro-life, for example, or even premarital chastity. In general, then, it is fair to say that Stephen Covey is presenting a way of life that most people could swallow.

Covey, in fact, comes close to being paradoxical on this point, in fact, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective PeopleSTEPHEN COVEY SEVEN 7 HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME. It seems clear that he recognizes that people will not buy into an imposed, top-down, set of principles, such as those imposed by many large institutions or organizations: on the contrary, people cannot be expected to buy into a culture if they do not feel any sense of participation in that culture. This, however, presents, at least theoretically, a problem when one tries to impose the Principles laid out in the Seven Habits as being sacrosanct: if people feel that these principles are being imposed on them by an author such as Covey, the response may well be negative. A solution, then, may be to stick to those principles in his book that everyone can agree upon. The problem lies in the fact that many reviewers, I suspect, balk at even the slightest whiff of "moralizing." This seems to me to be a faultline in Stephen Covey's approach -- perhaps his principle "seek to understand" the people with whom one is in communication with needs to be followed a bit more closely by Covey himself: otherwise, to the great detriment, I suggest, of the world (OK, so maybe i am going a bit over the top here!), The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People will end up left on the shelf, and with it its author Stephen Covey.

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7 Habits of Stephen Covey and Keeping your Cool

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STEPHEN COVEY AND THE 7 HABITS philosophy is, in several senses, about time. I do not mean simply, however, that Covey's ideas are about time management, which of course in large part they are, but that they are also about those crucial moments of time when you are oh so tempted to react out of impulse. An example of this (perhaps the biggest and best example of this, indeed), is when you really, really want to blast someone out.

Covey emphasises the notion of wisdom. Wisdom, in part, is about knowing when to rein in your own tongue. This, in a nutshell, is an issue of "anger management." I'd say that one owes it to oneself to learn the difficult set of skills required to stop, for an extended period of time, (seconds, even a whole minute), so that you can consider carefully your reaction to a stressful situation. This is no mean set of skills, and takes a lot of time, and probably a decent dose of reading and getting advice, to get a handle on that impulsivity that so many of us too often experience. The crux of the 7 habits of Stephen Covey (CLICK HERE for books by Stephen Covey like 7 Seven Habits) is not to damage your future by indulging in undiscipined actions in the now. This, perhaps, is the underpinning concept behind the 'Character ethic', in fact, and therefore an underlining theme of all of Covey's books (the Eighth Habit, the 7 habits.)

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7 Habits of Stephen Covey and "Personal Mission Statement"

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Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits philosophy (CLICK HERE for books by Stephen Covey like 7 Seven Habits) emphasises one idea that may indeed strike many as hokey or cheesy, yet, like many "socially unpopular" ideas, may well have some merit. It is Covey's idea of the Personal Mission Statement. This, as one might imagine, is a list of principles (the Seven Habits books (CLICK HERE for books by Stephen Covey like 7 Seven Habits) are very big, of course, on "detecting" principles by which to live), that seem/feel right to you as an individual, that can act as a compass or as guiding lights in those times when (a) you are planning things, or (b) you are in the thick of things and would otherwise be unable to think clearly. Ultimately it might be said that this suggestion is the foundational one that Covey makes, is the Habit that precedes all of the other 7 habits.

Covey and his seven habits approach, and in particular "habit two" which is Begin with the End in Mind, stress the building, slowly, over time, of a written list of principles which should be carried around in your "organisational tool" (agenda, blackberry, planner, in any case one should really have something!). It can be a fairly straightforward list, and in any case should embrace principles which are themselves "held as self-evident": eg, People are more important than things, things which matter the most should not be sacrificed for things which, while possibly also important, do not matter as much, remember that there are people involved, your time investments tend to reflect your priorities, relationships which are not taken care of deteriorate, money is important but is ultimately a means by which one attains what is really important, your life has a finite length and so time should be treated with respect... these are some principles which I would say should embody any Personal Mission Statement coming out of Stephen Covey's 7 habits.

Covey does not mention this, but it occurs to me that there are two kinds of principles: the logical and the "spiritual." The first are true because logic shows them to be so, eg., logically, if I decide what is most important to me, I have a greater chance (logically) of being fulfilled if I spend virtually all my time focusing on how to accomplish these things, or, having decided what is important to me, it would be "foolish" (would be a deficient logical approach) to then forget about the process of arriving at goals, and never to reflect on them again, assuming that I was definitely right when I made those decisions. Spiritual principles are not derived from logic, however, they just "are": living things are the most important entities that exist, and especially those which can feel pain; it is simply wrong to cheat. Note that there can be overlap between the logical (or pragmatic) and the spiritual: it is pragmatically stupid to destroy the air that I myself breathe in addition to it being spiritually wrong to pollute the one and only (and sacred?) earth that we have; it is morally wrong to drop bombs on people but also it is illogical if I am pragmatically concerned to preserve the lives of my own people, as shoving others usually provokes a violent reaction. I leave you to ponder these thoughts, and maybe to begin to construct one's own set of principles according to Covey's Seven Habits.

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Stephen Covey: Seven 7 Habits as a Good Grounding for Life

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Stephen Covey and The Seven (7) Habits theory (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME) is a good grounding for many aspects of life. What appeals to me the most about it is that it stands up to logic. It makes sense that treating others with respect and building relationships is going to have a payoff; it is logical that focusing on those things that you have decided matter most to you is a better way of organising your mental and actual life than to-do lists or simply drifting. If a system does not stand up to logic, then how can one truly embrace it?

Stephen Covey stresses, in his Seven habits books (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME), that you should plan things out, and have an agenda or a worktool that accounts for all those things that you have deemed to be priorities... in all walks of life, not just work-life. I would recommend reading Stephen Covey's books (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME) and deciding for yourself whether it is worth "embracing" Stephen Covey and his seven (7) habits.

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Stephen Covey: Separating the Man from his Ideas

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Stephen Covey is, of course, a man, an individual, who is, in some sense, "separate" from his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME). This leads me to muse about one of those postmodern questions about the Death of the Author and the notion that there is nothing outside a given text. In other words, when I read or think about The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME), to what degree am I thinking about Stephen Covey?

Let's say I had an aversion to anyone who came across in any way as a Guru. Would this affect my perception of what that author wrote? Can I separate out my feelings about that author from his text?

I'm inclined to say that the author, or one's own idea of what he is like, inevitably gets mixed into one's perceptions of what they write. This is a crucial issue when it comes to pop-psych literature, because some of it, and I would include the Seven Habits in this, is extremely instructive and highly useful. A very important question, then, is how to "get past" one's perceptions of popular writers so as to get at a balanced critique of what they are writing. If anyone out there has some suggestions on how to do this, please post here!
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Stephen Covey and the First Things First Approach

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Stephen Covey (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME) has written a lot on Putting First Things First. This, however, implies a regimen of mental and emotional skills necessary for deciding what those first things are. In other words, the Third Habit of the Seven Habits is, naturally, preceded by the Second Habit of the Seven Habits: Begin with the End in Mind.

This Second Covey Habit of the Seven, Begin with the End in Mind, preuspposes work done to put the Ends, those things that you consider the most important to focus on, into your own mind. You can't begin with the end in mind without the Ends getting in there somehow. This implies the ability to think clearly, to construct in one's mind concepts and ideas, to learn to teach oneself.

Stephen Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME), stresses the idea of parsing your experience of life into roles. That is, surely a barrier to getting clear on things, and a barrier to acting with a minimum of inner conflict, is to get clear what goals within what domains in which you are an actor you have. We can and I think should assume that we think "serially," that is, we cannot get focused if we are jumbled up, each thing we have to think about has to be thought about "one at a time," "in series." So schematizing in some sense, on paper, in some kind of organizer, seems a useful way to sort out in one's own head what it is that we need or want to achieve.

I wonder if, in addition to this, it is not a good idea to sort out into categories types of feelings that we have, and to sort them under three headings: Need to Pay attention to, Don't need to pay attention to, and Neutral. For example, I frequently have a feeling of fear surrounding money worries - I think it would be better for me to categorize this under the "Don't need to pay attention to" heading, ie, switch it from the "Pay attention to" box, because it influences my sorting out of which First Things to Put First. Re-assigning it where it belongs, in the Don't Need to Pay Attention to pile, allows me to think clearly about priorities based on other values simply than my "Fear About Money" value. (This, in fact, is in line with the idea of Covey that we tend to Put Things in order according to our values, so it is good to re-assess those values. See The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME)).

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Stephen Covey: Been a While

It's been a while since I posted here. I have been on holiday.

This has given me a chance to reflect on my position regarding Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME). Am I fixating more on the fluff around his concepts and not enough on what his concepts actually are? Is it even possible to take on the "pure" message of something without taking on the packaging around a message?

Stephen Covey's books suffer, I think, from this problem (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME). It is easy to be dismissive of what he says just because of the "pop psych" feel to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This is too bad... The Seven Habits is useful stuff and, in many ways, entirely down-to-earth and not at all "New Age." Yet sometimes this is obscured by (a) it's presentation by its publishers, and (b) its presentation by a cynical pop culture which turns its nose up at anything it thnks might be "happy-clappy."

The Seven Habits, then, must actually be read, regardless of the reader's disdain for the pop psych or management "guru" genres, before the reader can assess what he or she actually thinks of the ideas in the books by Covey.

To use a terrible cliche, it is best not to judge a book by its cover, and to remember that an author is often hijacked by his publicists and publishers into having his book packaged with cheese.

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Stephen Covey and The Seven (7) Habits of Highly Effective People: "Things that matter most must never be put at the mercy of things that matter least

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Man! Sometimes it is hard to have discipline! I think that a good solution is to practice, in writing or on a word-processor, filling out in detail why it is that you need to do what you need to do. This would be similar to Covey's idea of writing a mission statement, though it need not be quite so formal...(STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME)


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Stephen Covey and The Seven (7) Habits of Highly Effective People: "Things that matter most must never be put at the mercy of things that matter least

Stephen Covey quotes the following: "Things that matter most must never be put at the mercy of things that matter least." So far so good. Nothing to argue with here!

Covey, in his Seven Habits book (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME), goes on to say something much more profound: (in effect) "Things which matter THE most should not be sacrificed or neglected for things which matter less, or only somewhat."

Covey's suggestion here gives pause for thought. It might seem like a good idea to get involved in something positive, wholesome, engaging, productive, and contributory to society, but is it causing you to neglect more important things? I will leave anyone reading this post to mull this over. It is a profound point...

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Just testing something...

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Organizing and Wrestling with Time

This is the crux isn't it? For me, actually, I think the issue is wrestling less with time, and more with my own indecision of what is the best course of action at any given moment. I cannot stress enough the value of writing down or typing out these issues (something I picked up from cognitive behavioral therapy).

Covey, of course, is famous for his organisational systems, and is often made fun of for it (see the Simpsons!). In fact, Covey's idea is less about "super-scheduling" (which, accurately I think, simply stultifies you!), and more about laying out a framework, putting it down on paper or in a habdheld device or organiser, not so as you can be dictated to by such a contraption, but so that you can get clear in your mind, without your thoughts running around like a rabbit-warren, in your head, where it is you're at. This is therapy indeed... I wonder, in fact, if more GP's didn't recommend this as a prescription for anxiety and depression, if there wouldn't be so much consumption of SSRI's and other antidepressants... (Who knows? Certainly I feel less anxious and inhibited generally throughout my day when I plan things out on paper or on computer in such a way as to highlight my future goals, how it is I'm getting to them, and why it is, ultimately, that I am going through the pain of such-and-such a tedious task at the moment...)

Covey's company suggests a number of organisational systems... this link might help you if you think it might be useful to try out...
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Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Discipline

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Covey emphasises self-discipline. But we must be careful here. Self-discipline does not mean self-harshness, self-hating, self-loathing, or self-persecution. It is possible to practice "response prevention," that is, to resist the compulsion to be rude, to learn to hold your tongue, and your actions for increasing lengths of time, to give yourself mental space to allow alternate points-of-view to float into your mind, without being nasty or self-condemnatory to yourself. In fact, it is essential to learn the difference between restriction of self for the higher purposes that will benefit you in the long-run (an act of self-restriction aimed at giving you more pleasure over the long term), and simple self-shaming, which is something that a lot of people are good at! So self-discipline is not self-shaming. It is simply the practice of holding back for a few moments while you allow yourself to consider more options. (STEPHEN COVEY SEVEN (7) HABITS BOOKS: Click ON ME)

First Things First: People Matter More Than Things

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If you are one of those people who, like me, gets caught up in indecision and left paralyzed, consider Stephen Covey's principle "People are more important than things."

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