Stephen Covey, a renowned management teacher, shared to the world a framework for good living in the form of the book The 7 habits of highly effective people. More than 30 years after its publication in 1989, Covey's ideas and insights continue to change the lives of people today. The book remains an influential toolkit in navigating our psychology as adults in our present fast-paced society.
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| From Bohatala.com article: The 7 habits of highly effective people overview. |
The power of Covey's idea lies in how he developed the habits as interconnected steps towards growth and maturity. Covey provided a software, as Jim Collins described it in his foreword for the book's 30th anniversary edition, that makes personal development manageable and pragmatic.
For my blog post this week, I would like to revisit my favorite out of the 7 habits. The habit of self-renewal or, as Stephen Covey termed it, the habit of Sharpening the saw.
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By sharpening the saw, Covey means to say a that person must continually develop himself in major dimensions of his life. For it is our level of development as a person that determines what we can and cannot accomplish. It identifies our problem solving limits-it allows us to know the trees we can cut in the forest that is our daily lives.
This is also the reason why it is the last of the 7 habits. It is because it allows us to do the other habits with focus and ensures that we are stimulating our growth continuously. It is an overarching habit that strengthens the other 6 habits and completes the 7 habits as a personal development system.
The habit of sharpening the saw involves a person's development in four dimensions:
1. Spiritual
2. Mental
3. Physical
4. Social/Emotional
Let us discuss what each of them entails.
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The Spiritual Dimension
The spiritual dimension pertains to our connectedness not only to the beauty of reality but to the order that our souls yearns. Sharpening this part of our saws includes knowing our highest goals, our authentic values, and how we can use our strengths to bring about positive change to other people and to the world.
In this dimension is where we can find our sense of mission that we can build our life around. The big picture, so to speak, that allows us to put every actions and decisions into context. Honing ourselves spiritually gives our life the clarity that is crucial in accomplishing personal long-term goals.
Spiritual practices vary from each person but some universal practices that brings about spiritual soundness includes: meditation, praying, retreats, being out in nature, travelling, contemplation, reading, and art appreciation. All of these things helps in reminding us that there are things beyond ourselves that are worth working and living for. Keeping these things in our minds makes us energized and motivated-ready to take on hard tasks for the sake of bringing about the things that we consider the most important.
In this dimension, Stephen Covey urges us all to take the time to pause, reflect, re-center and re-energize ourselves with the personal reasons why we traverse our individual life journeys.
The Mental Dimension
The mental dimension is where we cultivate our education. It is the part of the saw that deals with our intellectual pursuits, our cultural awareness, our exposure to different fields of knowledge and how we use our minds.
Daily living, especially in our modern society, requires constant use of our reasoning faculty. The nature of our work environment has shifted from one relying heavily on manual labor into one dominated by the use of our minds. Gone are the days where the most skilled manual laborers lead the workforce. Instead, what we have at the helm are visionaries, creatives, and the so-called "information elites." The world now belongs to the ones who can harness the potential of our present information age.
Stephen Covey suggest that we develop our mental dimension by exposing ourselves to knowledge. We must not let our line of work set boundaries on what we can study. Reading widely greatly helps, as is taking in quality media. Developing our capacity to make distinctions between good and bad information allows us not only to save precious time, but also from getting conditioned into bad ideologies and ways of thinking. Covey suggest reading at least 1 book a month, then, once comfortable, a person can proceed to make it 1 book every two weeks or at best, reading 1 book a week.
Aside from reading, Covey also suggest writing as a powerful practice in developing our minds. For it practices our critical thinking skills and creativity. It makes our mind active rather than stagnated. It is a better substitute for the use of our time spent in mindlessly watching low quality media whether on the internet or in our televisions.
At large, the purpose of developing ourselves mentally is to have an accurate picture of reality that we can lean on to deal with the challenges of life. Challenges that will be insurmountable if we don't have a thorough understanding of how the world actually functions.
Education is a crucial solution to many of our global problems. We can become part of the solution ourselves by making sure that we become lifelong learners, whether with the help of institutions or through our own independent efforts.
The Physical Dimension
This dimension involves physical exercise. Our development in this domain starts with the acknowledgement that our physical bodies are vehicles that we ride on towards our goals. Like automotives, we must ensure that our bodies' physical components are working fluidly. We must give ourselves enough rest when needed, and activity to build up our muscles and strength.
Stephen Covey acknowledged that regular exercise may not come naturally as a habit for some people. In this, he suggests that thinking about the rewards exercise can bring helps in alleviating resistance. Imagining ourselves becoming more energetic, having a toned-body, and having an elevated self-esteem are powerful motivators to establish an exercise regimen.
There are 3 sub-dimensions to consider when it comes to exercise. They are endurance, flexibility, and strength.
Endurance pertains to our stamina. It is the measure of how much our hearts pump blood to our bodies for long periods of time. It is the one responsible for our energy reserves. Exercises such as jogging, swimming, and biking are all good practices to develop one's endurance.
Strength is our capacity to do demanding exercise such as lifting weights. Strength exercises are the ones responsible for building up our muscle mass and physiques. Besides using weights, simple calisthenics like push-ups and pull-ups prove to be great alternative exercises in building up our strength.
Flexibility is our bodies' capability to manage the strains of exercise. A simple warm up or stretching before and after physical activities are crucial in safeguarding ourselves from injury. Before we proceed to do exercise, especially strenuous ones, we must learn to "loosen up the joints." Not only to make sure that our bodies are working properly but also to gauge if we can take the toll of the exercise that we will do.
By considering these 3 areas, we can tailor an exercise program that will suit our lives. Exercise will come easy and it will become an essential part of our lives, enriching how we feel about ourselves and increasing our capacity to accomplish more tasks.
The Social/Emotional dimension
Stephen Covey considers the emotional and social aspects of our lives to be intertwined. Hence, for him they are synonymous. Not only are they synonymous but they feed off each other. When one develops himself socially, he also induce growth emotionally, and vice versa.
Being adept at interacting with people in positive, synergistic ways requires us to sharpen the part of our saw that pertains to how we bring to other people through our work. When we do service for other people, we are rewarded in both our social and emotional dimensions. We get the companionship from other people that brings about personal happiness and opportunities for greater synergy. Also, when we work well with other people, we inevitably feel good inside. We feel at peace. We don't feel a constant need to protect ourselves from other people because we have made them our ally.
We can develop our social/emotional dimensions by taking cooperative actions like volunteering for social work, helping out in community efforts, and being open to help other people when they need it. We can think of this dimension as the effort of helping others sharpen their saws. Uplift other people, and they will inevitably uplift you also. This is how synergy comes into being. With people working hand in hand for positive reasons, we will find many of the things we think "impossible" suddenly become achievable and within our reach.
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Conclusion
This post covered only one habit out of the original 7 but I hoped you have grasped the power and potential of the ideas that Stephen Covey wanted to share with us all. If you've become interested in knowing and understanding all of the 7 habits, I highly recommend getting a copy of Covey's book. I am assuring that once you finish the book, you will have with you powerful lessons that you will carry for the rest of your life.
For now though, start to sharpen your saw. And see for yourself how much life becomes easier, how much the trees that is our personal problems can easily be cut, when we develop ourselves spiritually, mentally, physically, socially and emotionally.
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