A Book Which Changed My Life

Everything took place 15 years ago, when I discovered and read (many times since!) "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Kovey.

I wrote about that discovery in my Self Evolution lens. Now I want to explain you more what exactly made me see everything differently and how this book changed my life.

Reading Stepen Covey's book, I realized for the first time in my life that everything we live is determined entirely by us.

BE PROACTIVE AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LIFE. This was Covey's advice which made me think differently and made me understand that things in our lives doesn't happen TO us; they happen THROUGH us.

I understood that I CAN be the CREATOR of my life. The shift in paradigm made me pass from being a VICTIM to becoming a CREATOR.

Before changing perspective, I really was a VICTIM. Everything in my life had happened to me because of other people, of bad luck or of an unfavorable fate. Anytime I failed, someone or something from outside myself was guilty for that. I used to search for excuses and reasons why I failed outside myself. I never thought that my own thoughts and my own actions could be the trigger of the circumstances I encounter in my life.

START WITH THE END IN MIND made me wake up and understand that until that moment I let my life pass me by. I realized that I have the power to really build my own life, I understand that my life can be as I want it to be and no one else have any power over me.

Since I discovered this new paradigm, I have developed a new habit: anytime something goes wrong, I stop thinking about "who is guilty" and I analyse my own thoughts, behavior and actions.

Habit 1: Be Proactive -- Take responsibility for your life.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind -- Define your mission and goals in life.

Habit 3: Put First Things First -- Prioritize, and do the most important things first.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win -- Have an everyone-can-win attitude.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood -- Listen to people sincerely.

Habit 6: Synergize -- Work together to achieve more.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw -- Renew yourself regularly.

Reading Stephen Covey's book I not only realized that there is another way of looking to my own life, but I also understand something else: our lives are build on HABITS. Everything we do in our daily life is based on what we ARE USED TO DO.

We are used to eat some specific things in the morning, we are used to take a certain road when going to work, we are used to shop at the same stores the same things; when we arrive home we push immediately the TV set button and during weekends we use to spend our free time in quite the same way... Almost 90% of what we are doing is on auto pilot.

Our thoughts are also HABITS, thinking habits. We interpret automatically everything occurring to us through our beliefs.

Believing that my life is determined by outer factors, I used to see everything happening to me as the result of an external cause. If I couldn't find something on my desk, I immediately thought that one of my colleagues took it. When my boss was upset on me for not finishing a project in due time, my team was guilty for not listening to me. When my child didn't follow my advice, she was guilty for being stubborn, and so on...

Without even knowing, I was the victim of my own thinking habits. I never thought that I could see things differently. The way I looked to the circumstances in my life was for me the single possible truth.

This book made me think about my own paradigm. The idea of being responsible for everything arriving in my life opened for me a new perspective. I began to put myself questions about the way I think and the decisions I take in my daily life. I discovered a lot of beliefs I have about life and I started to question them. I got that all those beliefs represented only the way I saw life and not THE TRUTH about life, as I thought before.

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Any habit, from smoking to believing that you are not capable to do something, becomes in time stronger and stronger. It is not easy to get rid of a bad habit. Even if we are aware that a certain habit is not good for us, we find ourselves choosing to do it again and again.

Fighting a bad habit makes the habit more powerful and gets you more demotivated. The best way to get rid of any bad habit is to replace it with a good habit.

Anytime I faced a failure, I got used to ask myself: "what did I wrong?" And, starting to search for the answer, I forgot about looking for the person guilty for my "bad luck"...

This is the secret to change a bad habit: find something to do instead. Right in the moment your bad habit is preparing to take its place, do instantly your new action.

It works for me like wonder. My thinking pattern changed. Now I feel responsible for everything happens to me and I know that my life is in my hands.

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Acknowledging about the possibility of really being able to build our future is a big responsibility for us. It is exhilarating and frightening at the same time.

Thinking about what we want in life and about how our life we would like to be it is not easy.

Firstly, we will find ourselves limited by our own imagination. We will be tempted to think starting from where we are at present and we will put ourselves limits regarding what we really COULD accomplish in the future.

Secondly, we will have to give ourselves an answer to a question: what is the purpose of our lives?

Building the future is not an easy process. It might seem like an answer we have to give to the Goldenfish who met us to fulfill any wish. But it is much more than that.

It is a process of digging deep inside us and discovering things that we never thought about. It is a process of overcoming all our limits, of setting high goals, and of pursuing them.

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Today, in his blog post, Seth Godin said something that make me think more about the habits which define our lives: "Seek out habits that help you overcome fear or inertia. Destroy those that do the opposite."

Fear and inertia are our biggest enemies keeping us in our comfort zone. We are feeling safe when we are on a known territory. Even if we realize that we should do a lot of things for living a better life, we cannot do anything. Fear and inertia 'help' us to stand still by offering us a lot of reasons for not taking action. As a well known affirmation states, we cannot have other results as long as we do the same things every day. Our rational mind understands it, but any impulse to go out of our daily habitual schedule is automatically annihilated by fear of risk and wish to stay comfortable. Why to bother? It is 'safer' to stay where we are...

Besides our habits, our friends and relatives are usually 'helping' us to prevent any change in our lives. They reinforce the power of our habits with more reasons to not move further. Loving us, they want us to not take any risk, to stay inside the limits we have already settled.

There is no evolution without risk. The good news is that it is possible to live as we would like. The bad news is that building the life of our dreams requires a big effort from our part.

We need to start first by breaking down the barriers we put in our own minds.

First, we have to stretch our imagination and settle a big goal.

Second, we have to:
- analyse what we are doing daily,
- identify the habits which keep us in fear and inertia
- replace them with the habit of living uncomfortable
until we find a new comfort zone.

Then, we have to repeat the process.

This is the way to become successful.

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