Actually, it's not about asking the meaning of life, but life is questioning and demanding you to answer the meaning of existence.
This is a good book that summarizes and discusses seven habits or beliefs. It is not only valuable for highly effective people, but also a creed for self-improvement in life. It expresses a new level of thinking, based on principled thinking. This new level of thinking emphasizes being principle-centered and character-based, and requires the "inside-out" realization of personal and interpersonal effectiveness. The author defines "inside-out" as starting from oneself, even more thoroughly, starting from one's own inner self, including one's own mindset, moral conduct, and motives. I currently only have a shallow understanding of this mindset, and applying this thinking to practical life is what I will pursue.
The book discusses seven habits:
Habit 1 is Be Proactive. Most books on success nowadays emphasize the attitude of being proactive as a necessary condition for success, which seems to require hard work to practice.
Habit 2 is Begin with the End in Mind. Beginning with the end in mind means recognizing the direction before doing anything. This allows you to have a clear understanding of the current situation, so as not to go astray and waste effort in the process of pursuing goals. Because many people, after achieving success, feel empty and realize that they have sacrificed many more valuable things. This reminds me of King Solomon of Israel, who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in a skeptical and slightly negative tone in his later years. In the first chapter, verse 2, he wrote, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." At that time, the Kingdom of Israel was at its peak, but he called it vanity. He tried all pursuits and achieved great success, but when he wrote this book, he found that nothing could make him happy except God. So, worshiping God was the true success he desired in his heart, and everything else was vanity. For us, we also need to clarify our true goals and then move forward bravely, persisting and fulfilling our mission.
Habit 3 is Put First Things First, which means distinguishing what is most important and dealing with it wholeheartedly.
Habit 4 is Think Win-Win. It is based on the idea of win-win and mutual benefit.
Habit 5 is Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood.
Habit 6 is Synergize, which refers to creative cooperation to achieve 1+1>2.
Habit 7 is Sharpen the Saw, which refers to how to constantly renew oneself in four basic aspects of life: physical, mental, intellectual, and social or emotional. These seven habits are worth pursuing and practicing.
We are made up of countless past experiences. If we want to make a breakthrough, we need to correct our established trajectory. As Sartre wrote in his autobiography, "If a person cannot change the structure of his thoughts, he will never be able to change reality, nor can he make progress." Let us first change our thoughts, and then let our thoughts determine our actions, actions determine habits, and habits shape character. With excellent character, success is not far away.
The book begins with the statement, "When we look around, examine ourselves, and find that pursuing quick and effective results has created many problems that cannot be solved in a superficial way, we will understand that some fundamental problems cannot be solved in a shallow way. Therefore, we need a deeper new standard of thinking. That is, a set of correct behavioral guidelines that guide us to solve fundamental problems and pursue a fulfilling life. This new standard of thinking, the seven habits of highly effective people, emphasizes being principle-centered and character-based, and achieving personal and interpersonal effectiveness through inside-out cultivation."
Habit 1: Be Proactive - The Principle of Personal Vision#
Human beings have the ability of self-awareness, which is the fundamental difference from animals. Humans are products of the environment and constraints. Some people believe that human willpower cannot overcome social constraints, including three arguments: genetic determinism, psychological determinism, and environmental determinism. It is undeniable that these three views have their own basis for argumentation. However, these views are mainly based on the study of animals, while humans have subjective initiative.
In essence, humans are proactive in the environment rather than completely passively reacting to the environment. Humans can take proactive actions to create a favorable environment. Being proactive does not necessarily mean being aggressive. For a person who can think calmly and reason rigorously, it means conforming to the laws. In terms of personal guiding ideology, it means not avoiding the responsibility of creating one's own future. For a proactive person, he can pursue his goals through practical actions, rather than waiting for opportunities to come. However, being proactive does not mean being reckless. For things beyond one's ability, one should calmly analyze and deal with them, and for things within one's ability, one should go all out.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind - The Principle of Self-Leadership#
Everyone has self-expectations, which may be clear or vague. At different stages of life, there are different expectations. What is discussed here is the goal that life truly desires. In social life, people naturally set certain social recognition standards as the goals of self-expectation, such as positions, titles, income levels, social reputation, and so on. But are these really the most desired goals? It should be said that these are just symbols, not the essence. Perhaps the essence is as Fyodor Dostoevsky said, "Not to be ashamed of idleness, not to regret the wasted years." However, goals in life still need certain symbols, but don't take the symbols as the goals themselves.
For this reason, the author of this book talks about the theory of two creations, that is, all things must go through the first creation of the mind and the second creation of practice. Before doing anything, you need to conceive it in your mind and then practice it under this guidance. Therefore, it is extremely important to determine self-goals. Once the goals and directions of one's own efforts are determined, the next step is how to practice and implement them in daily work and life. Han Feizi once said, "It is difficult to know, but it is difficult to act." How to achieve self-management and not lose sight of the goal in practice is very important. This involves the issues of self-leadership and self-management. Self-leadership is about determining and maintaining goals. It can be seen that determining the goals of one's own efforts only partially solves the problem of self-leadership. What needs to be done next is to maintain this goal. At the same time, efforts should be made to self-manage and not lose oneself in the complex daily work and life.
Habit 3: Put First Things First - The Principle of Self-Management#
Putting first things first is an obvious truth, but what are the first things? I remember a novel once described a company boss like this: "He always jumps from one crisis to another." Does that mean crises are the first things? Apparently not. This involves management, how to manage, and how to grasp the key points is the key to improving effectiveness. Concentrating on the key points requires letting go of the rest. As a leader, it is about delegation; as a general employee, it is about distinguishing between important and urgent matters. However, I think it is unlikely that anyone will fully understand everything in a short period of time, so there is a process of reconfirming the key points. Zhang Ruimin, the CEO of Haier, once said in a TV program that the most important thing he values is recurring problems, because once a problem reoccurs, it indicates the existence of some structural problems. I think this fully proves the importance of key point management in daily affairs.
Habit 4: Think Win-Win - The Principle of Interpersonal Leadership#
In daily life, everyone needs self-affirmation and self-satisfaction. People often value their own feelings more and neglect others. This has a negative impact on collaboration in work. The author summarizes six modes of interpersonal relationships: win-win, win-lose, lose-win, lose-lose, win alone, and good ending. Among them, win alone means gaining benefits for oneself without harming others' interests; good ending means that if a mutually acceptable solution cannot be found, both parties should part ways amicably.
In normal circumstances, problems come from the system, not the people. People's choices are largely the result of the environment and the system. The construction of this system is not well explained in the book.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood - The Principle of Empathic Communication#
First seek to understand the other party, and then let the other party have a correct understanding of oneself. "Seek first to understand, then to be understood" is an idiom derived from Sun Tzu's Art of War, which seems to have some explosive meaning, but I think it is actually about effective communication. The first and foremost condition for understanding others is genuine listening, understanding the concerns of others, and understanding these concerns from the speaker's perspective. However, it must be recognized that this understanding is not agreement, or even sympathy. In this process, one must not lose one's own position, but rather deeply understand the other party and give the other party the opportunity to speak. In the process of listening to the other party, the listener often makes four types of reactions: 1. Value judgment: there are only two attitudes towards the opinions, accepting or not accepting. 2. Digging to the root: using one's own values to investigate the other person's privacy. 3. Being a teacher: providing advice based on one's own experience. 4. Assuming: measuring other people's behavior and motives based on one's own behavior and motives. These four reactions are not conducive to effective communication. True effective communication should include three stages: repeating statements to make the other party listen attentively; adding explanations to express purposes and motives in one's own language; and infiltrating personal will, which includes explanations and emotions. In the process of expressing oneself, one should follow three stages: character, emotion, and reason. Purely direct and rational preaching may not be persuasive.
Habit 6: Synergize - The Principle of Creative Cooperation#
The essence lies in respecting differences and complementing each other's strengths.
There are three levels in the process of communication: self-defense, mutual respect, and synergy. People instinctively defend their own views, and in this process, they often consciously or unconsciously refuse to accept others' opinions and suggestions, which is very common. People with better communication skills will respect each other but still have some resistance to accepting others' opinions or suggestions. What the author advocates is synergy, which means opening up and accepting all kinds of strange ideas while also contributing one's own insights. It should be recognized that if someone disagrees with me, he must have his reasons, and he may even experience some mysteries that I have not experienced, which is worth understanding. Chinese ancient sages also said, "The sage chooses from the chaff." I am not a sage, and the other person is not a shepherd or woodcutter. His opinions must be worth understanding.
The world is colorful because of differences, so we should respect differences. The most important thing in cooperation with others is to value the different psychology, emotions, and intelligence of different individuals, as well as the different worlds seen by individuals.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw - The Principle of Balanced Self-Renewal#
Humans are lazy, and anything requires persistence and continuous self-renewal, honing oneself, and accumulating and enhancing oneself from four aspects: physical, mental, intellectual, and social or emotional.
Confucian thinkers believe that talent surpasses virtue, it is for ordinary people, and virtue surpasses talent, it is for gentlemen. Here, virtue refers to conscience, and we should act under the guidance of conscience. Conscience is the ability of human beings to distinguish right from wrong. A person without conscience but with power will inevitably be a social disaster.
In general, the seven habits in this book are a whole. They complement each other, not only talking about individuals giving their all to establish goals, practicing personal cultivation, and transitioning from dependence to independence to achieve "personal success," but also talking about building win-win situations, empathetic communication, collective wisdom, and promoting team communication and cooperation. Continuous renewal covers the previous six habits and urges us to improve ourselves from body and mind. The habits of putting first things first and being proactive, as well as continuous renewal, have had the greatest impact on me.