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We often
make two mistakes with regard to New Year's resolutions:
First, we
don't have a clear knowledge of who we are. Hence, our habits become our
identity, and to resolve to change a habit is to threaten our security. We fail
to see that we are not our habits. We can make and break our habits. We need
not be a victim of conditions or conditioning. We can write your own script,
choose our course, and control our own destiny.
Second, we don't have
a clear picture of where we want to go; therefore, our resolves are easily
uprooted, and we then get discouraged and give up. Replacing a deeply imbedded
bad habit with a good one involves much more than being temporarily "psyched
up" over some simplistic success formula, such as "think positively" or "try
harder." It takes deep understanding of self and of the principles and
processes of growth and change. These include assessment, commitment, feedback,
follow-through.
We will soon break our resolutions if we don't
regularly report our progress to somebody and get objective feedback on our
performance. Accountability breeds response-ability. Commitment and involvement
produce change. In training executives, we use a step-by-step, natural,
progressive, sequential approach to change; in fact, we require executives to
set goals and make commitments up front; teach and apply the material each
month; and return and report their progress to each other.
If you want
to overcome the pull of the past those powerful restraining forces of habit,
custom and culture to bring about desired change, count the costs and rally the
necessary resources. In the space program, we see that tremendous thrust is
needed to clear the powerful pull of the earth's gravity. So it is with
breaking old habits.
Breaking deeply imbedded habits such as
procrastinating, criticizing, overeating or oversleeping involves more than a
little wishing and will power. Often our own resolve is not enough. We need
reinforcing relationships people and programs that hold us accountable and
responsible.
Remember: response-ability is the abilit to choose our
response to any circumstanc or condition. When we are response-able, our
commitment becomes more powerful than our moods or circumstances, and we keep
the promises and resolutions we make. For example, if we put mind over mattress
and arise early in the morning, we will earn our first victory of the day the
daily private victory and gain a certain sense of self-mastery. We can then
move on to more public victories. And as we deal well with each new challenge,
we unleash within ourselves a fresh capacity to soar to new heights.
Universal Resolutions
In each of our lives, there are
powerfu restraining forces at work to pull down any new resolution or
initiative. Among those forces are 1) appetites and passions, 2) pride and
pretension, and 3) aspiration and ambition.
We can overcome these
restraining forces by making and keeping the following three resolutions.
First, to overcome the restraining forces of appetites and passions, I
resolve to exercise self-discipline and self-denial. Whenever we over-indulge
physical appetites and passions, we impair our mental processes and judgments
as well as our social relationships. Our bodies are ecosystems, and if our
economic or physical side is off-balance, all other systems are affected.
That's why the habit of sharpening the saw regularly is so basic. The
principles of temperance, consistency and self-discipline become foundational
to a person's whole life. Trust comes from trustworthiness and that comes from
competence and character. Intemperance adversely affects our judgment and
wisdom.
I realize that some people are intemperate and still show
greatness, even genius. But over time, it catches up with them. Many among the
"rich and famous" have lost fortunes and faith, success and effectiveness,
because of intemperance. Either we control our appetites and passions, or they
control us.
Many corporations and cities have aging inventories and
infrastructures; likewise, many executives have aging bodies, making it harder
to get away with intemperance. With age, the metabolism changes. Maintaining
health requires more wisdom. The older we become, the more we are in the
crosscurrents between the need for more self-discipline and temperance, and the
desire to let down and relax and indulge. We feel we've paid our dues and are
therefore entitled to it. But if we get permissive and indulgent with ourselves
overeating, staying up late or not exercising the quality of our personal lives
and our professional work will be adversely affected.
If we become
slaves to our stomachs, our stomachs soon control our mind and will. Gluttony
is a perversion of appetite, and to knowingly take things into the body that
are harmful or addicting is foolishness. More people in America die of
over-eating than of hunger. "I saw few die of hunger of eating, a hundred
thousand," observed Ben Franklin. When I overeat or overindulge, I lose
sensitivity to the needs of others. I become angry with myself, and I tend to
take that anger out on others at the earliest provocation.
Many of us
succumb to the longing for extra sleep, rest and leisure. How many times do you
set the alarm or your mind to get up early, knowing all of the things you have
to do in the morning, anxious to get the day organized right, to have a calm
and orderly breakfast, to have an unhurried and peaceful preparation before
leaving for work? But when the alarm goes off, your good resolves dissolve.
It's a battle of mind versus mattress! Often the mattress wins. You find
yourself getting up late, then beginning a frantic rush to get dressed,
organized, fed and be off. In the rush, you grow impatient and insensitive to
others. Nerves get frayed, tempers short. And all because of sleeping in.
A chain of unhappy events and sorry consequences follows not keeping
the first resolution of the day to get up at a certain time. That day may begin
and end in defeat. The extra sleep is hardly ever worth it. In fact,
considering the above, such sleep is terribly tiring and exhausting.
What a difference if you organize an arrange your affairs the night before to
get to bed at a reasonable time. I find that the last hour before retiring is
the best time to plan and prepare for the next day. Then when the alarm goes
off, you get up and prepare properly for the day. Such an early-morning private
victory gives you a sense of conquering, overcoming mastering and this sense
propels you to conquer more public challenges during the day. Success begets
success. Starting a day with an early victory over self leads to more
victories. Second, to overcome the restraining forces of pride and pretension,
I resolve to work on character and competence.
Socrates said: The
greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
To be, in reality, what we want other to think we are. Much of the
world is image-conscious, and the social mirror is powerful in creating our
sense of who we are. The pressure to appear powerful, successful and
fashionable causes some people to become manipulative. When you are living in
harmony with your core values and principles, you can be straight-forward,
honest and up-front. And nothing is more disturbing to a person who is full of
trickery and duplicity than straight-forward honesty that's the one thing they
can't deal with.
I've been on an extended media tour with my book, The
7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and I've become aware of how everyone is
very anxious about the entertainment value of the program. Recently, I was in
San Francisco, and I thought I would make my interview more controversial by
getting into the political arena. But my comments threw the whole conversation
off on a tangent. All the call-ins commented on political points. I lost the
power to present my own theme and represent my own material.
Whenever
we indulge appetites and passions, we are rather easily seduced by pride and
pretension. We then start making appearances, playing roles and mastering
manipulative techniques. If our definition or concept of ourselves comes from
what others think of us from the social mirror we will gear our lives to their
wants and their expectations; and the more we live to meet the expectations of
others, the more weak, shallow and insecure we become. A junior executive, for
example, may desire to please his superiors, colleagues and subordinates, but
he discovers that these groups demand different things of him. He feels that if
he is true to one, he may offend the other. So he begins to play games and put
on appearances to get along or to get by, to please or appease. In the long
run, he discovers that by trying to become "all things to all people," he
eventually becomes nothing to everyone. He is found out for who and what he is.
He then loses self-respect and the respect of others.
Effective people
lead their lives and manage their relationships around principles; ineffective
people attempt to manage their time around priorities and their tasks around
goals. Think effectiveness with people; efficiency with things.
When
we examine anger, hatred, envy, jealousy, pride and prejudice or any other
negative emotion or passion we often discover that at their root lies the
desire to be accepted, approved and esteemed of others. We then seek a shortcut
to the top. But the bottom line is that there is no shortcut to lasting
success. The law of the harvest still applies, in spite of all the talk of "how
to beat the system."
Several years ago, a student visited me in my
office when I was a faculty member at the Marriott School of Management,
Brigham Young University. He asked me how he was doing in my class. After
developing some rapport, I confronted him directly: "You didn't really come in
to find out how you are doing in the class. You came in to find out how I think
you are doing. You know how you are doing in the class far better than I do,
don't you?"
He said that he did, and so I asked him, "How are you
doing?" He admitted that he was just trying to get by. He had a host of reasons
and excuses for not studying as he ought, for cramming and for taking
shortcuts. He came in to see if it was working.
If people play roles
and pretend long enough, giving in to their vanity and pride, they will
gradually deceive themselves. They will be buffeted by conditions, threatened
by circumstances and other people. They will then fight to maintain their false
front. But if they come to accept the truth about themselves, following the
laws and principles of the harvest, they will gradually develop a more accurate
concept of themselves.
The effort to be fashionable puts one on a
treadmill that seems to go faster and faster, almost like chasing a shadow.
Appearances alone will never satisfy; therefore, to build our security on
fashions, possessions or status symbols may prove to be our undoing. Edwin
Hubbell Chapin said: "Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires
one with the desire to seem rather than to be."
Certainly, we should
be interested in the opinions and perceptions of others so that we might be
more effective with them, but we should refuse to accept their opinion as a
fact and then act or react accordingly. Third, to overcome the restraining
forces of unbridled aspiration and ambition, I resolve to dedicate my talents
and resources to noble purposes and to provide service to others.
If
people are "looking out for number one" and "what's in it for me," they will
have no sense of stewardship no sense of being an agent for worthy principles,
purposes and causes. They become a law unto themselves, a principal.
They may talk the language of stewardship, but they will always figure out a
way to promote their own agenda. They're may be dedicated and hard working, but
they are not focused on stewardship the idea that you don't own anything, that
you give your life to higher principles, causes, purposes. Rather, they are
focused on power, wealth, fame, position, dominion and possessions.
The ethical person looks at every economic transaction as a test of his or her
moral stewardship. That's why humility is the mother of all other virtues
because it promotes stewardship. Then everything else that is good will work
through you. But if you get into pride into "my will, my agenda, my wants" then
you must rely totally upon your own strengths. You're not in touch with what
Jung calls "the collective unconscious" the power of the larger ethos which
unleashes energy through your work.
Aspiring people seek their own
glory and are deeply concerned with their own agenda. They may even regard
their own spouse or children as possessions and try to wrest from them the kind
of behavior that will win them more popularity and esteem in the eyes of
others. Such possessive love is destructive. Instead of being an agent or
steward, they interpret everything in life in terms of "what it will do for
me." Everybody then becomes either a competitor or conspirator. Their
relationships, even intimate ones, tend to be competitive rather than
cooperative. They use various methods of manipulation such as threat, fear,
bribery, pressure, deceit, and charm to achieve their ends.
Until
people have the spirit of service, they might say they loves a companion,
company or cause, but they often despise the demands these make on their lives.
Double-mindedness, having two conflicting motives or interests, inevitably sets
a man at war within himself and an internal civil war often breaks out into war
with others. The opposite of double-mindedness is self-unity or integrity. We
achieve integrity through the dedication of ourselves to selfless service of
others.
Implications for Personal Growth
Unless we control of our
appetites, we will not be in control of our passions and emotions. We will,
instead, becomes victims of our passions, seeking or aspiring our own wealth,
dominion, prestige and power.
I once tried to counsel a junior
executive to be more committed to higher principles. It appeared futile. Then I
began to realize that I was asking him to conquer the third temptation before
he had conquered the first. It was like expecting a child to walk before crawl.
So I changed the approach and encouraged him to first discipline his body. We
then got great results.
If we conquer some basic appetites first, we
will have the power to make good on higher level resolutions later. For
example, many people would experience a major transformation if they would
maintain normal weight through a healthy diet and exercise program. They would
not only look better, but they would also feel better, treat others better, and
increase their capacity to do the important but not necessarily urgent things
they long to do.
Until you can say "I am my master," you cannot say "I
am your servant." In other words, we might profess a service ethic, but under
pressure or stress we might be controlled by a particular passion or appetite.
We lose our temper. We become jealous, envious, lustful or slothful. Then we
feel guilty. We make promises and break them; make resolutions and break them.
We gradually lose faith in our own capacity to keep any promises. Despite our
ethic to be the "servant of the people," we become the servant or slave of
whatever masters us.
This reminds me of the plea of Richard Rich to
Thomas More in the movie, A Man For All Seasons. Richard Rich admired More's
honesty and integrity and wanted to be employed by him. He pleaded, "Employ
me." More answered, "No." Again Rich pleaded, "Employ me," and again the answer
was no. Then Rich made this pitiful yet endearing promise: "Sir Thomas, employ
me. I would be faithful to you."
Sir Thomas, knowing what mastered
Richard Rich, answered, "Richard, you can't even so much as answer for yourself
tonight," meaning "You might profess to be faithful now, but all it will take
is a different circumstance, the right bribe or pressure, and you will be so
controlled by your ambition and pride that you could not be faithful to me."
Sir Thomas More's prognosis came to pass that very night, for Richard Rich
betrayed him!
The key to growth is to learn to make promises and to
keep them. Self-denial is an essential element in overcoming all three
temptations. "One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to
duty is worth all the mere good thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers, in
which idle men indulge themselves," said John Henry Newman. "The worst
education which teaches self-denial is better than the best which teaches
everything else and not that," said Sterling.
Making and keeping these
three universal resolutions will accelerate our self-development and,
potentially, increase our influence with others.
© 1996, 1998
Covey Leadership Center and Franklin Covey. All rights reserved. |
