Stephen R Covey has extensively researched the self-development literature available for years and formulated a framework that comprises of just 7 Habits for Effective People. These habits ask you to be "principle-centric" and be transform yourself from "inside-out". When he says "Effective People", he means effective in all respect. So, if you adopt these habits then you will achieve happiness and success both at personal and professional level.
1. Be Proactive
"Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen."
The place to begin is not with others, but with yourself. You have the freedom to chose your actions and you have four unique endowments to guide your responsibilities to people, situations and your environment. These endowments are:
1. Self-awareness: Step outside of yourself and be aware of motives, thoughts, feelings, and you can decide what you need to change.
2. Imagination: You can envision what you can be and do.
3. Conscience: Listen to the inward voice that prompts you to do certain things. Develop it.
4. Independent Will: You can choose what you desire to do and you have the freedom and the power to do it.
2. Begin With the End in Mind
"(This habit)...is based on imagination -- the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see with our eyes..."
Decide what you desire for yourself and the culture you would like to deserve. The vision is more powerful than any problems you may have in the past or present. Write down your vision in a mission statement and clarify your values, and principles.
3. Put First Things First
"Create a clear, mutual understanding of what needs to be accomplished, focusing on what, not how; results not methods. Spend time. Be patient. Visualize the desired result."
Organize your priorities according to what matters you most. This should be aligned with what you envisioned in Habit 2. Select your goals. acquire skills and training to achieve them. Be communicative and disciplined to complete your tasks on time.
4. Think Win-Win
"Win-Win is a frame of mind that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-Win means that agreements or solutions (no matter how difficult these decisions are) are mutually beneficial and satisfying."
5. Seek First to Understand, Then be Understood
"'Seek First to Understand' involves a very deep shift in paradigm. We typically seek first to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. They're either speaking or preparing to speak. They're filtering everything through their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other people's lives."
First understand others from their frame of reference by listening with your ears, heart, and mind. When you truely understand then you can better understand your position or ideas. Listening and understanding is the catalyst that makes effectiveness possible.
6. Synergize
"Synergy works; it's a correct principle. It is the crowning achievement of all the previous habits. It is effectiveness in an interdependent reality - it is teamwork, team building, the development of unity and creativity with other human beings."
Be cooperative and communicative, understand and think win-win to solve most difficult problems or create opportunities that could not have been achieved individually.
7. Sharpen the Saw
"This is the habit of renewal...It circles and embodies all the other habits. It is the habit of continuous improvement...that lifts you to new levels of understanding and living each of the habits."This involves taking care of yours abd others physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs. If you neglect them then you will eventually pay the price.