Salt Life

7 Habits

Some time ago I read a book you may well be familiar with, as it's a popular best-seller in the book stores...7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It has turned out to be a new favorite of mine and has had a tremendous impact on my life from the area of ministry, to my family relationships, as well as my friendships. Below I've listed the seven habits Stephen Covey discusses in his best seller:

1. Be Proactive (Personal Vision)
2. Begin with the End in Mind (Personal Leadership)
3. Put First Things First (Personal Management)
4. Think Win/Win (Interpersonal Leadership)
5. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood (Empathic Communication
6. Synergize (Creative Cooperation)
7. Sharpen the Saw (Balanced Self-Renewal)

Each habit is pertinent and compliments the others, but I have an individual favorite that helps me keep things in perspective in my day to day dealings with people.

Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood, is not instinctive in our human nature. We tend to handle people in the opposite manner, as least I know I have in the past. We're always wanting to be heard, understood or validated in some way, never interested in how the other person feels or where they may be coming from. Due to our sin nature, it's unnatural for us to put others ahead of ourselves. Thus it's an area in which we need to discipline ourselves.

On this subject, Mr. Covey says, "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...We're filled with our own rightness, our own autobiography. We want to be understood....thus we never really understand what's going on inside another human being." He shares the five levels of "listening". Ignoring, pretending, selective, attentive or empathic. When someone is speaking to us we are listening on one of these five levels and it's usually never to the point of level 5. "Empathic listening is listening with intent to understand...In empathic listening, you listen with your ears, but you also, and more importantly, listen with your eyes and with your heart. You listen for feeling, for meaning."

Is that as convicting to you as it is to me? How often do you listen in this manner? I challenge you to pick up this book and give it a read. These excerpts are just the tip of the iceberg and I promise, you will not be sorry for the investment, as these principles, if applied, have the power to change YOU, thus changing those around you, making your relationships sweeter and stronger.

Labels: books

posted by Kushmama @ 10:54 AM