Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

sense that it is something to read once and put on a shelf.
You may choose to read it completely through once for a sense of the whole.
But the material is designed to be a companion in the continual process of
change and growth. It is organized incrementally and with suggestions for
application at the end of each habit so that you can study and focus on any
particular habit as you are ready.
As you progress to deeper levels of understanding and implementation, you
can go back time and again to the principles contained in each habit and work to
expand your knowledge, skill, and desire.
Second, I would suggest that you shift your paradigm of your own
involvement in this material from the role of learner to that of teacher. Take an
Inside-Out approach, and read with the purpose in mind of sharing or discussing
what you learn with someone else within 48 hours after you learn it.
If you had known, for example, that you would be teaching the material on
the P/PC Balance principle to someone else within 48 hours, would it have made
a difference in your reading experience? Try it now as you read the final section
in this chapter. Read as though you are going to teach it to your spouse, your
child, a business associate, or a friend today or tomorrow, while it is still fresh,
and notice the difference in your mental and emotional process.
I guarantee that if you approach the material in each of the following
chapters in this way, you will not only better remember what you read, but your
perspective will be expanded, your understanding deepened, and your
motivation to apply the material increased.
In addition, as you openly, honestly share what you're learning with others,
you may be surprised to find that negative labels or perceptions others may have
of you tend to disappear. Those you teach will see you as a changing, growing
person, and will be more inclined to be helpful and supportive as you work,
perhaps together, to integrate the Seven Habits into your lives.
What You Can Expect
In the last analysis, as Marilyn Ferguson observed, "No one can persuade
another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened
from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by argument or by
emotional appeal.
If you decide to open your “gate of change” to really understand and live the
principles embodied in the Seven Habits, I feel comfortable in assuring you
several positive things will happen.
First, your growth with be evolutionary, but the net effect will be
revolutionary. Would you not agree that the P/PC Balance principle alone, if
fully lived, would transform most individuals and organizations?