New Year's Resolution: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Every year I make resolutions. Too often though, I have gotten caught up in the day to day grind of everyday life and these resolutions became merely wishes. Last year I wanted to make my life calmer and I’m happy to say that I accomplished this. I’m lucky this occurred at all because my plan was a little sketchy. I did however believe that regardless of what I had going on in my life I could experience calm. This turned out to be imperative in succeeding. – (Moving to a tropical island also helped!)

I’m reading the wildly popular book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and in it Stephen Covey makes observations about human nature and individuals. Most of it is I've heard over the years in one place or another but I find myself still nodding and saying “Mmmm…Hmmm” as if I've never heard them before. The first principle that he talks about is the need to be proactive instead of reactive. He states that being "proactive" means taking responsibility. When you're reactive, you blame other people and circumstances for obstacles or problems. He reminds us that we have the power of free will to choose our response. We can literally choose to create the life we so desire.

I like this empowering philosophy and I need to keep reminding myself of this. In light of this, my New Year’s resolution is to put into practice the principles that Stephen Covey speaks about in his book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. For fun I’ll be checking into his new blog: StephenCovey.com/blog and seeing how applying these principles affect my life. For me, this is a way to actively create the life I want. Resolutions shouldn’t be merely wishes but opportunities. It’s like they say, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.” This year I'm going to be proactive.

Happy New Year!

Sheila Cason, MD