Do you wish you were more effective in life? Maybe you’d like to achieve more at work? Or perhaps you’d like to be a more loving and devoted partner?

Whatever it is that you want to improve, you’ll only get there if you change yourself first. And the surest way to achieve lasting personal change is to develop better habits.

It’s true that we’re creatures of habit. Not only how we act, but who we are, is, to a large extent, defined by our habits. Routines define our characters and, like gravity, pull our behavior in a certain direction.

But what are the habits that can help you become effective? These blinks outline an incremental and integrated program that will improve your personal and professional effectiveness. It focuses on the following habits:

• Being proactive ( luôn chủ động)
• Beginning with an end in mind ( Bắt đầu từ một mục tiêu đã được xác định )
• Putting first things first ( Ưu tiên cho điều quan trọng nhất)
• Thinking win-win
• Seeking first to understand, then to be understood ( Lắng nghe và thấu hiểu)
• Synergizing ( Đồng tâm hiệp lực)
• Sharpening the saw ( Rèn giũa bản thân)

So dive in and join the millions who have already benefitted from this approach!

When Stephen Covey embarked on his quest to truly understand the nature of success, he began by immersing himself in some 200 years worth of literature on the topic, starting from 1776.

Based on this deep dive, he concluded that, generally speaking, there are two ways to strive for improvements to your life:

1. The first method is to work on the skills necessary for the behavior you desire. For instance, if you want to improve your relationships with others, you might study communication or body-language techniques.We can call this method the personality ethic. It’s been particularly popular since the 1920s, but, despite its sounding like a solid path for growth, it’s actually just a shortcut. The personality ethic lets you avoid working on the fundamental character traits that are holding you back, promising that some easily learnable technique will be the silver bullet for all your problems.Unfortunately, this promise is usually empty, and it almost never results in lasting personal growth.
2. The second method is far more effective: working on your character – that is, the fundamental habits and belief systems that form your view of the world. Only behavior stemming straight from your character will endure over time, because, sooner or later, your true character will shine through.This can be called the character ethic, and it emphasizes things like courage, integrity and the golden rule. It was the dominant approach to success prior to the 1920s, clearly visible in the writings of stalwart individuals such as Benjamin Franklin.

So if you really want to change, you need to work from the inside out. If, for example, you’d like to have a happy marriage, you need to first become a more positive person yourself, not just master a few easy techniques that’ll make others like you more.

So how can you work on your character? Find out in the next blink.

If you’ve ever tried to navigate the streets of a foreign city, you know that a map is useful.

But when you navigate the world around you, instead of a map with streets and addresses, you use your paradigms to guide you. A paradigm (thế giới quan) is the subjective way each of us perceives and understands the world.

After all, no one is really an objective observer. Everything we understand about the world is tinted by our own paradigms. For instance, a person with a negative paradigm will perceive getting lost in an unknown city as a frustrating waste of time, while someone with a more positive paradigm might see it as an unexpected adventure.

Since our paradigms are at the core of our characters, shifting our paradigms is the key to making lasting changes. Only in this way can we change our subjective realities – and, with them, our characters and behaviors. This is why you need to recognize and monitor your own paradigms; if you don’t, you won’t know which ones are holding you back.

The author experienced a profound paradigm shift once on the subway in New York. It was a Sunday morning, and the subway car was very peaceful; people were mostly reading or resting with their eyes closed.

Then a man entered the car with his children. Immediately the scene changed: the children began shouting and throwing things, disturbing everyone in the car. Meanwhile, the father just sat down and closed his eyes.

The author was so irritated by the disturbance and the man’s seeming indifference that he asked him to control his children. Softly, the man answered that he probably should, but that the children’s mother had died a mere hour earlier, and they were all in shock.

Of course, the author’s paradigm shifted instantaneously to one of profound compassion and a desire to help.

Though not all paradigm shifts are this fast, each one can be just as powerful.

So which paradigms should you strive for?

The most effective are the ones aligned with larger, universal principles, like fairness, honesty and integrity. Since the majority of people agree that these principles are good, we can see them as permanent, natural laws. Therefore, the more accurately your map of paradigms reflects this landscape of natural principles, the more realistic your view and the better your chances of success in attaining lasting change.

Attaining this kind of principle-based paradigm is exactly what the seven habits are all about.

What distinguishes humans from animals? One crucial difference is that animals are slaves to external stimuli (sự kích thích), and can only react to these stimuli in the preprogrammed way that is in their nature.

We humans, in contrast, can reflect (ngẫm nghĩ) on  a stimulus before responding to it, and we can even reprogram ourselves to respond in a specific, desirable way.

This means that instead of just reacting to the world around us, we have the ability to proactively influence it.

But even though we all have this capacity for proactivity, many people still choose to be reactive and allow external circumstances to dictate their behavior and emotions. For example, they may be in a crummy mood if it’s rainy outside or if other people have treated them poorly. You can also hear it in the way such people speak; phrases like “It wasn’t my fault” or “It’s out of my hands” are extremely common.

(Nhưng mặc dù tất cả chúng ta đều có khả năng chủ động này, nhiều người vẫn chọn cách bị tác động và cho phép hoàn cảnh bên ngoài điều khiển hành vi và cảm xúc của họ. Ví dụ, họ có thể đang trong tâm trạng khó chịu nếu trời mưa ngoài trời hoặc nếu người khác đối xử với họ không tốt. Bạn cũng có thể nghe thấy nó trong cách những người như vậy nói; những cụm từ như “Đó không phải là lỗi của tôi” hoặc “Nó ngoài tầm với của tôi” là cực kỳ phổ biến.)

People who are proactive, on the other hand, make their own weather. They assume responsibility for their own lives and make conscious choices about their behavior. They say things like “I’ve decided to…” or “Let’s try to find a solution to this problem.”

Another way to understand the difference between the two attitudes is to imagine two concentric circles. The outer circle is your Circle of Concern, representing all the things you’re concerned about, ranging from the electricity bill to the threat of nuclear war. Inside this circle is the smaller Circle of Influence, which represents all the things you can actually do something about.

(Một cách khác để hiểu sự khác biệt giữa hai thái độ là tưởng tượng hai vòng tròn đồng tâm. Vòng tròn bên ngoài là Vòng tròn mối bận tâm của bạn, đại diện cho tất cả những điều bạn có thể bận tâm, từ hóa đơn tiền điện đến mối đe dọa chiến tranh hạt nhân. Bên trong vòng tròn này là Vòng tròn ảnh hưởng nhỏ hơn, đại diện cho tất cả những điều bạn thực sự có thể làm gì đó.)

Proactive people focus on their Circles of Influence, choosing to work on the things within their control. And this results in the expansion of their Circles of Influence.

Meanwhile, reactive people focus on their Circles of Concern, fretting over things they can’t alter. This results in their Circle of Influence shrinking.

Proactivity can be a profoundly powerful habit. It even works in the most extreme circumstances. Consider Viktor Frankl, who, during World War II, was imprisoned in multiple German concentration camps. In the midst of this misery, he decided that, although his guards controlled everything about his environment, he was still free to choose how he responded to his circumstances. Though suffering terribly, he could imagine himself in future, happier days, teaching his students what he had learned in the camp. His freedom existed in the small gap between the outside stimuli he faced and his response to it. No one could take away this last freedom, and he nurtured it until, like a tiny spark that blazes into a roaring fire, it inspired those around him, including some of the guards.

Similarly, you too have the power to decide what happens in the gap between a stimulus and your response. Thus, you can change your behavior and your emotions. To put this into practice, commit to a 30-day proactivity challenge: Whether at home or at work, whenever you catch yourself blaming someone or something external for a problem you face, remind yourself that the root cause is your reaction to the problem. Focus on finding solutions instead of accusing others. Exercise the tiny freedom you have before you respond, and you’ll find your capacity for proactivity flourishing.

(Tương tự như vậy, bạn cũng có quyền quyết định những gì xảy ra trong khoảng cách giữa một kích thích và phản ứng của bạn. Do đó, bạn có thể thay đổi hành vi và cảm xúc của bạn. Để thực hiện điều này, hãy cam kết thực hiện thử thách chủ động trong 30 ngày: Dù ở nhà hay tại nơi làm việc, bất cứ khi nào bạn bắt mình đổ lỗi cho ai đó hoặc điều gì đó bên ngoài cho vấn đề bạn gặp phải, hãy tự nhắc nhở rằng nguyên nhân gốc rễ là phản ứng của bạn đối với vấn đề. Tập trung vào việc tìm giải pháp thay vì buộc tội người khác. Thực hiện quyền tự do nhỏ bé mà bạn có trước khi trả lời, và bạn sẽ tìm thấy khả năng chủ động của mình.)

Whenever you perform an action, you’re actually performing it twice: first in your mind, when you imagine it, and then physically, when you do it.

For example, if you build a house, you’ll first visualize what kind of house you want, making plans for the layout and the rooms and the garden, all before a single brick is laid. If you didn’t take the time to do this, the construction itself would likely prove very chaotic and expensive: without a plan to follow, there’d no doubt be costly missteps, like forgetting to leave room for stairs leading from the ground floor to the second.

That’s why it’s crucial to have the desired end firmly in your mind before you start any task. The more exact and realistic the mental picture of the action is, the better its execution will be – and, hence, the better the results.

This kind of visual anticipation works in all possible situations. Most competitive sprinters, for example, are well practiced in visualizing how they will bolt from the starting block, complete a perfect race and finish in first place.

So whether at work or at home, take the time required for visualization. As the saying goes, “Better to ask twice than to lose your way once.” It’s much more productive to spend time anticipating an action and visualizing the desired outcome than just plowing hastily on, possibly in the wrong direction.

To get started, you could think about one of your upcoming projects and write down exactly what results you desire and what steps you will take to attain those results.

But beginning with the end in mind isn’t just important for individual projects. As you’ll learn in the next blink, you should also have a clear view of your larger life goals.

Here’s a small mental exercise. Imagine that it’s three years in the future, and, sadly enough, you’ve passed away. Take a moment to visualize your own funeral. Imagine your loved ones – your partner, your best friend, maybe your dearest colleague – giving eulogies. Now ask yourself what you’d like them to say. What sort of person do you want to be remembered as? For what do you want to be remembered?

Unfortunately, many people spend their time working toward goals that don’t really matter to them, because they never stopped to define them properly. In short, they fail to understand the difference between being efficient and being effective.

Being efficient means getting the maximum amount done in the shortest amount of time. But this is pointless if you don’t know what you’re striving for and why you’re doing it. It’s a bit like climbing a ladder that’s set against the wrong wall: you’re making progress, but in the wrong direction.

(Being efficient có nghĩa là đạt được số tiền tối đa được thực hiện trong khoảng thời gian ngắn nhất. Nhưng điều này là vô nghĩa nếu bạn không biết bạn đang phấn đấu vì điều gì và tại sao bạn lại làm điều đó. Nó có một chút giống như trèo lên một cái thang mà Lừa đặt vào tường sai: bạn đang tiến bộ, nhưng đi sai hướng.)

Being effective, on the other hand, means having your ladder on the right wall – that is, knowing what your destination in life is. Effective people don’t just thoughtlessly pursue things like money and fame; they focus on what’s important to them. Everything else is a waste.

So how can you clarify your destination in life?

One useful method is to ask yourself those aforementioned funeral questions, and then use your answers as a basis for writing a personal mission statement. This is a document where you define your own creed, meaning what kind of person you want to be, what you hope to achieve in your life, as well as the basic values and principles underlying these goals.

The mission statement is your personal constitution, an established standard by which everything else can be measured and valued. Having such a compass gives you a sense of direction and security, and it enables you to at least try to align all your actions with it.

Some thoughts that could be included in a person’s mission statement might be “I value my work and family equally and will seek to balance my time spent on them. I value a just and fair society and will strive to make my voice heard in political decisions. I will be proactive in pursuing my life goals and will not simply be swept along by circumstances.” And so on.

As this is a foundational document in your life, you can’t just bang it out in one night. It will require deep introspection and several rewrites before you get it right, and even then it should be reviewed occasionally.