Application Suggestions

1. Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of

this chapter. You may want to use the chart below to organize your thoughts.

2. Take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them. Are you satisfied with

that mirror image of your life.

3. Set up time to completely separate yourself from daily activities and to begin work on your

personal mission statement.

4. Go through the chart in Appendix A showing different centers and circle all those you can

identify with. Do they form a pattern for the behavior in your life? Are you comfortable with the

implications of your analysis.

5. Start a collection of notes, quotes, and ideas you may want to use as resource material in writing

your .personal mission statement.

6. Identify a project you will be facing in the near future and apply the principles of mental

creation. Write down the results you desire and what steps will lead to those results.

7. Share the principles of Habit 2 with your family or work group and suggest that together you

begin the process of developing a family or group mission statement.

Habit 3: Put First Things First TM -- Principles of Personal Managemen

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least

-- Goeth

* *

Will you take just a moment and write down a short answer to the following two questions? Your

answers will be important to you as you begin work on Habit 3.

Question 1: What one thing could you do (you aren't doing now) that if you did on a regular basis,

would make a tremendous positive difference in your personal life?

Question 2: What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

We'll come back to these answers later. But first, let's put Habit 3 in perspective

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart Habit 3 is the personal fruit, the practical fulfillment of Habits 1 and 2.

Habit 1 says, "You're the creator. You are in charge." It's based on the four unique human

endowments of imagination, conscience, independent will, and particularly, self-awareness. It

empowers you to say, "That's an unhealthy program I've been given from my childhood, from my social

mirror. I don't like that ineffective script. I can change."

Habit 2 is the first or mental creation. It's based on imagination -- the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see without eyes; and conscience -- the

ability to detect our own uniqueness and the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which we

can most happily fulfill it. It's the deep contact with our basic paradigms and values and the vision of what we can become.

Habit 3, then, is the second creation -- the physical creation. It's the fulfillment, the actualization, the natural emergence of Habits 1 and 2. It's the exercise of independent will toward becoming

principle-centered. It's the day-in, day-out, moment-by-moment doing it.

Habits 1 and 2 are absolutely essential and prerequisite to Habit 3. You can't become

principle-centered without first being aware of and developing your own proactive nature. You can't

become principle-centered without first being aware of your paradigms and understanding how to shift

them and align them with principles. You can't become principle-centered without a vision of and a

focus on the unique contribution that is yours to make.

But with that foundation, you can become principle-centered, day-in and day-out,

moment-by-moment, by living Habit 3 -- by practicing effective self-management.

Management, remember, is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a

high-powered, right-brain activity. It's more of an art; it's based on a philosophy. You have to ask the ultimate questions of life when you're dealing with personal leadership issues.

But once you have dealt with those issues, once you have resolved them, you then have to manage

yourself effectively to create a life congruent with your answers. The ability to manage well doesn't

make much difference if you're not even in the "right jungle." But if you are in the right jungle, it makes all the difference. In fact, the ability to manage well determines the quality and even the

existence of the second creation. Management is the breaking down, the analysis, the sequencing, the

specific application, the time-bound left-brain aspect of effective self-government. My own maxim of

personal effectiveness is this: Manage from the left; lead from the right.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 994