Review: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So many of my friends have recommended this book to me so I finally decided to buy and read it. The 7 habits introduced were divided into personal and interpersonal behaviors:

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1. Be Proactive: use your Circle of Influence to break through deterministic thoughts and habits
2. Begin with the End in Mind: it is effective to develop a personal mission statement that you regularly review and edit with criterions that model your life.
3. Put First Things First: take the time and energy on developing and learning about yourself
4. Think Win/Win: aim for mutual benefits in all human interactions
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood: take the time to work on empathetic communication, but really seek to understand the individual instead of to manipulate him/her.
6. Synergize: a repeat of 1-5 and how it can be used together to create new ideas
7. Sharpen the Saw: take care of you mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional self
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...and that's the gist of the entire book. Even though it honestly provided me with incredibly insightful personal and interpersonal skills that I plan to later apply to my life, the book was 200 pages longer than it actually needed to be. For example, chapter 6 could have been integrated through the other chapters and the introduction to the concepts were completely unnecessary. When the book hit a major interest point, I would take notes and annotate the passage. However, there were paragraphs where I aloof.

Overall, I liked how the author delivered the message to encourage a change in mentality for future generations of businesses and individuals alike. I would definitely recommend for everyone to read this at least once in their lifetime.

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