What I Learned from My "Seven Habits.." Training

Gosh, that sounds so elementary! lol

Yesterday and today, instead of going to work, I was in a mandatory seminar on the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I was pleasantly surprised as to how much insight was provided in those couple of hours. Of course I've heard of the book, but never bothered to read it because I assumed it was about time management or something along those lines. And although I could probably use help in that area, that really wasn't something I was actively trying to improve. So, I ignored it.

Fortunately, it was not about that. Instead, it was more about developing attitudes that facilitate success. But really, the main things that affected me were related, but didn't actually fall under the 7 habits teaching.

1. Getting out of our comfort zone. Jan, our trainer, was talking about how we chose how our day will be because we chose our reactions to the things that happen to/around us. She went on to talk about people who hate their jobs but stay there because they "have to" when, in actuality, they do have other options that they just refuse to take. She said that a lot of times people stay in a comfort zone (which is really quite miserable, not comfortable) because they know what to expect. Whereas, if they step outside of that into the unknown, they could be rewarded, but fear keeps them paralyzed. When I heard this, I was like "Wooow, this is exactly what I've been dealing with!" I thought, "Maybe I should just continue to work towards my MBA, even though I don't want to do anything related to business, since I got my Bachelor's in Business and I've already started by this path." But really that is fear talking. Fear that I may never figure out what I truly want to do, or that I may try it and either not be successful or not be as happy as I thought I would be.

2. Change your paradigm. I love the quote that she used (this course was full of wonderful quotes, which I love): "We do not see the world as it is, but rather we see the world as we are." Basically we relate to the world by our own experiences, so no two people will ever see things exactly the same because we have not shared the exact same experiences. So it pays to open up and be willing to see things from a different perspective in order to be successful in this life, and especially in relationships.

3. The five love languages. This is a different book that was mentioned in her teaching about interdependence. She was talking about personal relationships and how we relate to our loved ones when she brought this up. The five love languages basically talk about how different people interpret things as "love" or "I love you." Where one person just needs to hear it, another needs gifts to prove it. Another person needs physical touch to confirm that. Another person wants to be shown love by spending time together, and a different person by little things like helping around the house or washing the car. It was so interesting because even though we haven't done the little assessment, I could pretty much tell the categories in which my boyfriend and I fell. It was like a lightbulb: So that's why he...! Very insightful stuff.

There was actually a lot more that stood out to me from this training. Overall, I am glad that I had to attend. It gave me a lot to think about and pointed out a lot I need to work on. Hopefully this will be the start of some lasting improvements; time will tell.