Three Resolutions
Stephen R. Covey
January 1991
Well-intentioned resolutions
will fall flat in the face of stiff restraining forces without character and
social reinforcements.
Every organization and
individual struggles to gain and maintain alignment with core values, ethics
and principles. Whatever our professed personal and organizational beliefs, we
all face restraining forces, opposition and challenges, and these sometimes
cause us to do things that are contrary to our stated missions, intentions and
resolutions. We may think that we can change deeply imbedded habits and
patterns simply by making new resolutions or goals only to find that old habits
die hard and that in spite of good intentions and social promises, familiar
patterns carry over from year to year.
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.
