Gaining Competitive Advantage through Personal Habits

This assignment focuses on the practical application of Stephen Covey's 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' in a professional context. Students are tasked with choosing two habits from the book and explaining how they can be adopted to gain a competitive edge in their respective fields. Additionally, students are encouraged to suggest these habits for maintaining a balanced life and facilitating personal development.

Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main body........................................................................................................................................1
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Habits refers to the routine behaviour of individual that is repeated regularly and tends to
occur subconsciously. The reports aim to provide detail explanation about seven habits. The
project intends to provide insight for becoming active in routine life by implementing various
effective habits. It was great experience reading the book “The seven habits of highly effective
people”. It has provided the way author has given the details about their personal habits that are
being experienced by individual in their routine life. These books have highlighted the key
benefits of seven habits. I had read the completed book and it has provided me great practical
experience. It has provided me the way I can use my habits in effective manner in my personal
and professional life.
The report contains the detail about the seven habits. The study has focus on explaining
the effect of significant 7 habits on individual personal and professional life. The assignment
will highlight the valuable and right habits that can help individual in achieving their personal
and professional goals. Study focus on assisting individual in changing their habits that have
negative impact on their life.
Main body
The main Seven habits that are being highlighted are-
Habit 1-Proactive habit- I believe that proactive habit is effective habit as this will allow me to
take various responsibilities. This habit will allow me to recognize that “I am responsible”. This
will enable me to identify my abilities and analysing the extend of my capacity to bear the
burden of responsibilities (Covey, 2016.) I will be getting the way to eliminate blaming others,
that may have adverse effect on my relationship with family members and colleagues in office. I
will be getting opportunity to develop leadership skills that will have positive effect on my
professional career. Adopting this habit, I will be able to increase my focus on resolving various
personal and professional issues in effective and systematic manner. I considered that using
proactive habit, I will be able to reduce my stress level.
It will also assist me in eliminating various personal and professional conflicts. I have
realised that many of the times I react upon things quickly without analysing the situation and
this creates lots of problems in my life. Further I can adopt this method for responding to various
problems. This habit will assist me in becoming effective in daily life.
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By Adopting this habit, I will be able to get myself with the latest Business and cultural
trends that will assist me in improving my performance at my workplace.
Adoption of This habit will Enable me to make effective decision regarding my career
and job (Hickey,2017.) I had evaluated that I consume lot of time in planning my career and job.
Due to this I was not able to capture various opportunities. I think that Using this habit I can plan
my Future in a better way.
I used to spend lot of money in finding solutions for my problems but this habit has
allowed me to save both time and money.
I was not having analytical skills earlier, Proactive habit has encouraged me to develop
such skills. Due to this I was able to realize the need of change in my behaviour and skills.
I have realized that there are many things that I can change which will help me to live
better and comfortable life.
This habit has allowed making me clear the things that I want to achieve in my life. I had
established my aim to achieve success in life. I had set another objective that includes
accelerating my career growth.
I will be using these skills for conducting various task and projects in organisation. This
habit will help to complete my task in effective and systematic manner. This will further assist
me in achieving my career goals. I have analysed that the objectives that person set for them are
more influenced by society.
Habit 2- Begin with the End in mind-I had adopted this habit and it has encouraged me to
achieve various professional and personal goals. This habit include beginning with tasks and
ending with results in mind. I think that I can use this habit as blueprint for conducting various
activities and getting desired outcomes. I will be using this habit for planning my future
activities and goals. This habit will assist be in analysing what I want to be in the Future (Lee,
2017.) By developing the habit of Beginning with the end I can reflect my uniqueness both in
content and form.
I can use this habit in order to identify my position and value in organisation. After
analysing the position, I will be able to take effective measures to improve my position and value
at workplace. Using this habit, I can achieve framework of reference by which I will be able to
connect myself to various matters. I had identified that people may be struggling for long time in
order to achieve high level of income and for gaining competitive advantage in Professional life.
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But they have become blind and they were enabled to have their focus on key matters that are
very essential for achieving goals. Even though, I know that I may be very competent, in order to
have accomplishment of goals but I had decided that I will be having focus on key matters that
are associated with my objectives.
In order to be committed to my goals I seek advice of another person. I think that it is
very significant for individual to not be committed towards their goals but should have focus on
important matters as well .As lack of knowledge about key matters may have adverse effect on
individual’s professional and personal life (Li, Frohna and Bostwick, 2017)Using this habit, I
was able to recognised the skills, I was able to determine the need of various skills and
knowledge for completing project in successful manner. It has enabled me to produce effective
results from projects. Due to this I was
Being promoted to upper position in organisation. For instance, when I was going for
interview in one of the leading IT companies I made a plan in my mind and has gathered all the
knowledge that were required for getting selected in organisation. I had also prepared myself for
the results. I will be able to remove various barriers that are essential for effective development
of skills in terms of personal and professional values.
Habit 3- Put First Thing First-This habit includes categories the task according to their
significance. In simple words, it means keeping the important task in priority as compared to
other activities (Ali, 2016.) Using This Habit, I was able to develop my focus on most essential
task. I will be able to complete my task on time. It has also enabled me to prevent wastage of
time and resources. I can use this habit for scheduling my day. I consider this habit as effective
as it helped me to reduce the burden of task. By this habit i got proper direction that, I can use
this for eliminating unnecessary tasks and start focussing upon priority tasks. I consider that it is
very important for person to become flexible in order to deal with unexpected situations. I had
analysed that dividing task on the basis of priority will enable person to produce effective
outcome. This has great impact on person professional life (Whatcott, 2017)
This habit has provided me an opportunity to develop my understanding about priorities
and has enabled me to act on them. I can use this in my professional life in order to organize and
execute task in effective manner. By developing this habit, I have realised that doing that comes
along is not the appropriate way to do work. I Think that I can become independent by
developing this habit.
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I had analysed that it is important for me to identify the key activities as this may hay
have great impact on my professional and personal life. It can also help me in accelerating my
personal and professional growth. I can get opportunity and time for developing and enhancing
my personal and professional skills. Adopting this habit, I will be able to live balanced life
(Alvord and McGrath, 2017)
I will be able to manage my work on time. I can use time management matrix a tool for
completing my task on time. This habit will provide me the way to maintain my work quality
and reducing waste of resources and time.
I was having wasting of time in determining the significant task but time management
matrix has allowed me to identify and to perform key task on priority basis (Whatcott, 2017)
Using this matrix I was allowed to save lot of time and I was able to maintain my work Quality.
I had analysed that quality of work also plays significant role in person professional life. Quality
of work has great impact on the individual career growth.
Habit 4- Think Win- This habit includes, being nice with other persons. It also includes
developing effective relationship with other people. This habit is based on human interaction and
collaboration (Handel, 2016)
I considered winning as agreement or solution that produce mutual benefit and
satisfaction. I believe that winning is based on power and position rather than principle that are
adopted by individual for achieving both factors. Using this habit, I will be able to maintain
balance between courage and consideration. I had identified that being courageous is not
sufficient for accelerating career growth. I consider that Bering empathic is not but one is
required to be confident about the various paths adopted by them for achieving personal and
professional growth. In order to win it is very crucial for me to develop maturity and principle to
win (Allen, 2017.)
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5. Seek first to understand and then to understood-
I considered this as very significant and useful habit. I feel associated myself with this
habit. I believe that lack of effective communication is the main reason due to which
misunderstanding occurs. I had often seen that activity conducted by individual with positive
intention is taken in other way by other people in organisation had experienced such kind of
situation in my professional life (Covey, 2016) I think that I should be clear about my ideas. I
need to develop communication skills in me so that I could communicate my intention and
objective of conducting various tasks.
6.Synergize-By developing this habit I can be able to enhance my leadership qualities in me.
That will help in motivating my team members to work harder in order to achieve group goals. I
can encourage them to share their ideas and view for improving performance.
7.Sharpen The saw- I consider this as significant plan of action. In Book, the example of man
under a tree that was cutting tree with an axe has been given that is very suitable example for
explaining this habit. By reading this example I had realised that People are very reluctant to
access their mistakes (Varela, Thompson and Rosch, 2017.) It is very difficult for them to realise
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Illustration 1: Think Win habit
Source:( 7 habits of effective people, 2017)

their mistake. But I believe that it is very important for individual to realize their mistake in
order to avoid various problems and consequences of such mistake.
Conclusion
By reading this book I was very much impressed by the author’s experience. I think that I
can use these habits for enhancing my personal and professional growth. I can conclude that all
seven habits are effective. I believe that the habit of prioritizing will be useful for me. It will
assist me not only in completing my task on time but with Quality. This will assist me in gaining
competitive advantage in professional environment. At last I can suggest individual to adopt this
habit in order to live balanced life. I recommend these habits as this will assist individual in their
development and planning process.
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REFERENCES
Handel, S.N., 2016. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Who Want to Do Ecological
Restoration. Ecological Restoration. 34(3). pp.171-172.
Ali, S.A., 2016. Top Habits of Highly Connected People: Ways to Engage At-Risk Youth
NOW.
Covey, D., 2016. Stephen R.“. Covey. Retrieved November, 4 p.2016.
Hickey, W., 2017. Human Resource Development: The Means Are There. In Energy and Human
Resource Development in Developing Countries (pp. 115-138). Palgrave Macmillan US.
Lee, M., 2017. Decoding the neoliberal subjectivity in self-helping adult learners. International
Journal of Lifelong Education. 36. pp.145-163.
Li, S.T.T., Frohna, J.G. and Bostwick, S.B., 2017. Using Your Personal Mission Statement to
INSPIRE and Achieve Success. Academic paediatrics. 17(2). pp.107-109.
Whatcott, I.B., 2017. 7 Habits of High Effective People Book Review. Marriott Student Review.
1(2).pp.16.
Alvord, M.K. and McGrath, A., 2017. Conquer Negative Thinking for Teens: A Workbook to
Break the Nine Thought Habits That Are Holding You Back. New Harbinger
Publications.
Covey, D., 2016. Stephen R.“. Covey. Retrieved November, 4.pp.2016.
Allen, W. ed., 2017. Habits of mind: Fostering access and excellence in higher education.
Routledge.
Varela, F.J., Thompson, E. and Rosch, E., 2017. The embodied mind: Cognitive science and
human experience. MIT press.
Online
7 Habits of effective people, 2017 [Online] Available through:
<https://www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/habit-4.html>. [Accessed on 13 October 2017].
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