In Memory of 7 Habits by Jeni Sidwell

When I was about 14 years old my dad was reading a book call 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  He would reference it often, using words like ‘Emotional Bank Account’ and ‘First things first‘. Not understanding what these phrases meant, I paid them no attention. Now that I am in my 30’s and have taken the time to thoroughly understand what these words mean, I realize my father was trying to improve himself and those around him. I want to explain what a few of these habits discussed in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey mean to me.

Habit 1: BE PROACTIVE

Instead of worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two categories: Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence. Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about such as their children, where they work, how they use their time. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. These are things they have little or no control over such as how their sister is raising their niece. A proactive person uses proactive language--I can, I will… A reactive person uses reactive language--I can't, I have to, if only.

I thought that I was doing well with what I felt was my circle of influence until I read this section. I find myself saying words like ‘I have to’ quite often. Apparently I need to evaluate what is causing me to say these words.

Habit 2: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND

Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day or project with a clear vision of a desired outcome. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life. It's about connecting with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself. Steven states that the best way to begin with the end in mind is to develop a mission statement that focuses on what you want to be and do. I have heard this often with self development programs and have found it effective when I am implementing it in my life.

Habit 3: PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

Putting first things first means getting your priorities straightened. Illustrated in his book are 4 quadrants categorized as important/urgent, important/not urgent, not important/urgent, and not important/not urgent. He advises us to spend as much time as we can in the important/not urgent quadrant. Again this is a habit I could work on.

Habit 5: SEEK FIRST TO UNDERSTAND, THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD

To rephrase this would be: Try to understand how a person is feeling and put yourself in their shoes before expressing your own opinion. Sometimes you may never get to express your feelings because you change how you feel in the time it takes them to talk. I do recall my father truly doing his best to change from first being understood to first understanding. Human nature is to first be understood and we are often as children taught that our opinion is less valuable than our parents’. Before passing my father mastered this habit.

Steven R. Covey is a well of self-improvement knowledge all of us should be partaking of.

Common Threads in Classics by Sara Sweet

Don’t you love it when common threads emerge among the various topics you’ve been studying? It’s so inspiring to find the ways things fit together and reinforce one another. I’ve lately been studying these are other materials: Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the Thomas Jefferson Education philosophies (contained in books such as Amy Edward’s LOLIPOP book and the DeMilles’ Leadership Education and Phases of Learning), Parenting:A House United by Nicholeen Peck, Commitment by Vaughn Featherstone, my canons of scripture, and a Positive Parenting class offered by the local LDS Institute presented by Carleen Tanner (whose blog can be found at carleentanner.com).

While there have been many bridges revealed to me over the last few months that connect the various ideas presented in these resources, there is one bridge in particular that has stood out to me as the most traveled between these topics. It is the idea of agency. I believe agency may be the key to unlocking many of the goals I have for my children and for myself so that we are free to develop and improve ourselves.

How easy it is to just answer a question with a straightforward answer, especially when the question is asked by a child. If we are answering with the intent to exhibit our expertise, then an accurate, thorough answer may accomplish that goal. But if our intent in answer the question is to bestow real understanding in the person asking, such an answer may not be most effective. Often the answers we seek for ourselves are the most complete and memorable. Christ often inspired this type of learning in his earthly ministries through the use of parables.

The real question we might ask ourselves is: What are our underlying goals as a parent? As a home educator? What type of child do we want to raise? What strengths to we wish to provide the opportunity for our children to develop? What will give them the wisdom and capacity to conquer challenges when we are not by their side? I submit to you that your worthy goals can only be achieved if you pursue our Heavenly Father’s plan, and not through the pursuit of His (and our) adversary, Lucifer’s plan. The path of compulsion is the path of misery and dissent. The path of free exercise of agency is the path of empowerment and self-refinement. As parents our charge is to provide the opportunities and environment in which our children can become who they are destined to become by their own choosing. By this, we effectively join Our Father’s work to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men.

This necessity of protecting the right of our children to choose is a necessary component of Nicholeen Peck’s parenting skills. It is the key identified by Sister Tanner to inviting a child to come unto Christ, by encouraging them to interact with their Savior Himself rather than to perform required religious tasks for us. It is the secret to unlocking a love of learning that leads to true scholarship as taught by the DeMilles and Amy Edwards, as opposed to educational compulsion. It is the tool with which we place ourselves securely in Covey’s Circle of Influence, where we can become empowered to act and not to be acted upon.

Most of us must resist our desire to compel our children to act so that we may empower them to act for themselves. We must be creative in the way we structure our home to allow this preferred type of development in our precious, capable children. We are not the result of our circumstances. We are free to act, and to own both our mistakes and triumphs. With that freedom comes the responsibility to be better each day than the previous day, to set our own goals, measure, evaluate, and encourage ourselves along the path of our choosing. It is the way to wisdom, happiness, and success. Let us travel this bridge often and invite our loved ones to come along, that we can discover together our individual and collective joys.

A New Perspective

Steven R. Covey declares in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, “we see the world not as it is, but as we are – or, as we are conditioned to see it.” (pg 28) In order to live our lives most effectively, the author encourages us to have a complete paradigm shift that is principle based, not just a personality shift of behaviors and attitude.

Personality ethics are social comparisons and judgments. When we focus on improving personality ethics, we tend to try to change just our techniques and often attempt to manipulate others into what is the acceptable social model. If there isn’t deep integrity and fundamental character strength, the challenges of life will cause our true motives to surface and relationships will fail.

Many people fall in the trap of only focusing on personality ethics. Instead, we have to look deep inside ourselves and find what we fundamentally believe and think. True character ethics are timeless and universal to all humanity because they are principle based. Principles such as: fairness, integrity, honesty, human dignity, service, quality or excellence, potential and growth.

A little over a year ago, my husband and I felt so lost and unsure about parenting our oldest son, who was only four at the time. We had tried every parenting technique heard of, and felt we were “losing him.” After coming across an educational model, known as a “Thomas Jefferson Education,” that was principle based, Richard and I had such a significant paradigm shift we have profoundly changed our lives.

We stopped trying to squish our son (or any of our children) into the box of social norms. We began to focus first on ourselves by fundamentally changing our self-perception and how we viewed our children. We realized that we needed to begin with the end in mind – to know what our missions were, and then watch for and help each of our children with their individual missions.

We began to put first things first to create a more inspiring learning environment by reading classics and removing the television from our home. As parents, we realized that we needed to model the type of behavior and attitudes that we expected our children to have, by being more emotionally mature than they were, instead of borrowing strength from our position and authority.

Richard and I realized that “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them,” (Albert Einstein, pg 42). We found that principle based living and thinking was much more effective and satisfying, than just changing our parenting techniques. This road to valuing correct principles has been difficult, but well worth the effort. Keeping the end in mind, enables us to us have the courage to continue forward.