The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Both of us read this book separately in the early 90s and started applying these habits, which have stayed with us ever since. These habits have given us a solid foundation for anything we have wanted to do in our lives.

You learn how to create your own vision for your life, clarify the most important values to act on, and use basic communication skills to create trust and synergy with the people around you. You also learn the importance of nurturing and managing yourself to be healthy, enjoy your life, and be able to be there for others.

These… show more.

An oldie but goodie!

I love Covey’s book because it has helped me teach personal effectiveness to so many clients over the years. I find his approach to be very adaptable to different styles and preferences, and that helps my clients to manage their time and boundaries more easily, which is a critical skill to help avoid burnout.

A great book is like a great song: you have to read it over and over again to grasp all its nuances and value.

This book is one of those great books. The author presents us with an original way of looking at life and adopting seven habits to become highly effective in all circumstances. I first read this book over twenty years ago, and I've reread it just as many times since. Each time I read it, I realize how easy it is to forget to put these good habits into action.

After so many readings, all I have… show more.

“Mr Covey has a knack of dressing up spiritual principles in pinstripes,” observed one commentator. This 1990 bestseller reinvigorated the personal development market almost singlehandedly.

It covers several major topics, not limited to but including: being the master of your own destiny, setting goals and priorities, managing your time and separating out the ‘important’ from the ‘urgent’, showing empathy towards others, and thinking ‘win-win’ in relationships.

Nowadays, there are many ‘self-help’ books on topics such as developing habits and time management, but they mainly rehash Covey with far less authority.

I first read this inspiring and thoughtful book many years ago. When I finished the book, I immediately purchased a copy of the book for everyone I worked with and asked that we talk about how to integrate the seven habits into our work. 

Covey provides a way of thinking about yourself, your work, and your personal life that can enable you to be more successful in your career and maybe more importantly live a fuller happier life. The 7 Habits contains the wisdom of the ages, every aspiring leader should read the book carefully and apply each of the… show more.

Perhaps millions of people have recommended this book before me.

When your thoughts are chaotic, your actions will be too. Being a proponent of holistic growth, I have recommended books on personal, professional, mental, and financial growth. 

From merely achieving success to staying successful takes quite some work. Once you lay a solid foundation, life will become easier for you.

Following these principles helped me get out of college tuition debt and personal debt quickly and get my entire life in order. I have set and achieved my goals consistently for the last 14 years. I worry less. I am… show more.

Covey was a highly successful businessman, scholar, and educator. As a father of nine and grandfather of fifty-five children, his commitment to family was also inspiring.

This book has had a tremendous impact on my personal and professional life, and I believe it can do the same for anyone who reads it. Covey's writing is clear, insightful, and practical, and he provides numerous examples and exercises that make the concepts easy to understand and apply.

The seven habits he outlines are simple yet profound, and have helped me to become a more effective communicator, leader, and problem-solver.

This book is all about personal productivity.

Covey’s teachings about living a quadrant II life changed the way I approach my professional life. It’s helped me fight fewer fires—because they don’t arise—and be far more productive and effective as I focus on things that are important to me, but not necessarily urgent.

The book has reinforced my belief that being mission driven is the key to happiness and a very productive professional life. 

If you are going to read a personal development book, why not pick the original and best? Stephen Covey was serious, and not a fly-by-night phoney. His seven habits are a genuinely useful guide to life. His suggestion that we should consider what will be said about us at our funeral has inspired others to take their lives more seriously. Some of the habits – begin with the end in mind, seek first to understand, then to be understood – are wise and timeless. Time spent reading this book is time well spent.

Stephen Covey’s principled approach to personal growth is not a quick-fix solution. But, says Covey, if you work hard at acquiring these principles, if you learn them well, think about them deeply, and teach them to others, they will eventually become internalised. That will lead to fundamental change because they will affect who you are – your character – for the better.

The 7 habits provide a useful, sequential framework for understanding much about the process of personal development. Many highly successful people seem to have naturally developed them. But often there are aspects of these habits that we have… show more.