The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

It is probably one of the most known in business circles self-help book about personal transformation by introducing right habits into your daily life. The book was first published in 1989 and become world known bestseller. It was sold in over 25 million hard copies and the audio version became the first non-fiction audio-book in U.S. publishing history to sell more than one million copies. In August 2011 Time magazine listed “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” as one of “The 25 Most Influential Business Management Books”.

“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.”
― Stephen R. Covey

It is not a “5 min fix” book, you rather need to really study it slowly. Covey takes you through the journey of your personal awakening and building a good strategy for successful life. He reckons that by applying his 7 basic habits, you can change your life for better. But before you can adopt these habits, you’ll need to accomplish a “paradigm shift”-a change in perception and interpretation of how you and the world works. Covey takes you through this change, which supposed to affects your perceiving of productivity, time management, positive thinking, developing your proactive action, and much much more.

It is quite technical book at times, has a lot of graphs, tables and charts. Although it can have a little bit of 80′ feel I would still recommend it as it deals with very important issues and provides good advice.

Few Quotes:

“I believe that a life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth. I do not agree with the popular success literature that says that self-esteem is primarily a matter of mind set, of attitude—that you can psych yourself into peace of mind. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.”

“Begin with the end in mind” is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.”

“Effective people are not problem-minded; they’re opportunity-minded.”

“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good.””

“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”

“To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our perceptions.”

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

AUTHOR: Stephen R. Covey

PUBLISHED: 2013

COVER: paperback

PAGES: 432

BOOK PRICE: $10.93

KINDLE: $7.32

AUDIBLE: free with Audible 30-Day Free Trial

WHERE TO BUY: click here to buy

TAGS: success, personal transformation, personal development, habits, business