7 Habits of Highly Effective People are habit principles you can use in most aspects of your life. I learned this from teacher and author, Stephen Covey who taught from his principle book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
I can’t think of anything more work adrenaline-filled than putting on a moving-part event production. That’s how I felt when I would plan and then orchestrate large events with over 100 guests, where the habits from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People were put to good use.
Setting up event success meant planning milestone meetings with chefs and managers (and plenty of meetings with myself) with a 5 P’s mantra: Proper planning prevents poor performance.
That’s not a personal mission statement, but it’s a success value statement. In my event planning, I learned many powerful lessons that can be applied to personal change and growth.
On event nights, the party starts at the ready time or at least the staff and I have to be ready.
That’s when we know whether the prep work laid out hours beforehand pays off with a successful event. And this actually starts weeks and sometimes months in advance by planning menus, setup, and details with planners and chefs.
Each event is like its own wedding event even though it may have fewer mini-events and agendas.
The first two habits (of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) always took center stage to anticipate changes:
1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
During the parties, when there were too many moving parts, being in the moment, keeping focused on the guests, gauging the temperature of the room, and checking in on the party host (be proactive) was part of event success (begin with the end in mind).
And in your daily life, you probably don’t plan events (or not in a live event space today anyway)…but most of us plan our daily event schedules.
So most of us are planners. On the calendar, you can (and may already) practice be(ing) proactive and begin with the end in mind habits.
One effective way is, if you only have an activity that requires a bi-weekly (or bi-anytime) habit… and to succeed with those tasks, you could fill the non-weeks or time with another activity so that your mind has to search for the “either/or” activity.
If you don’t create a weekly placeholder activity then you could unintentionally forget/skip the bi-weekly intended one. The mind needs a replacement to substitute.
If it’s an every other day activity, then you could fill that same activity time for another activity, that follows a daily habit (or the habit stacking concept most of us have come to love and know from the more recent Atomic Habits by James Clear).
And that’s why I personally got rid of calendars because of building habits.
It’s much easier for the habit to stick (and for consistency to happen) when you have an “automatic” method programming your mind.
That’s easier and in event planning, that’s the “you got this” feeling in event planning when you’re on top of everything and proactive. You’re not writing everything down in those critical seconds needed to make a decision.
Most professions have these “make or break” moments. For a surgeon in a hospital emergency room, if the doctor has to look up procedural answers then, that’s not a good sign.
And in event planning that I know, being reactive with situations is crushing and it can be a snowball effect where the plates come out late or cold. And there’s a complaint about the room temperature and drinks.. and in those humbling times, you can’t wait until the end of the event, that’s only a matter of time.
To get to the proactive level takes planning, proficiency, and experience that creates confidence. And that starts from building consistent habits.
Consistency is the end-all, be-all that builds progress, and confidence and works for every important habit that I can think of at least. You consistently follow a habit. And when a better habit idea comes along, you replace that habit.
But consistency isn’t without downfall. It can be at odds with creativity, so consider looking at them as the yin-and-yang, or the sugar and the salt in baking that give the balanced spice in life.
And using solid principles like that from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People can improve your effectiveness.
They can help you in life’s productivity and also deeper areas like finding your life’s purpose, a proactive choice that can easily get los in life’s busyness and commotion of what’s seemingly urgent but not important to you.
You’re headed in the right direction when you keep developing yourself and pivoting. You keep practicing new skills, putting one step in front of the other and looking at your compass.
The Universe is constantly guiding you and offering an invisible hand to help you and give you a hand up.
The healthy and growth mind set knows that a re-route is to help you move up in the climb of your life and get off the roller coaster ride.
If you begin thinking with the desired outcome end in mind, then your process in the middle is improved when you set your eyes on the end goal.
You can better Ready, Fire, and Aim.
And when you stay focused and open to feedback using habits #3 and #4 from seven Habits of Highly Effective People:
3. Put first things first
4. Think win-win
These days prioritizing what’s important is more blurred than in the past.
Most of us live a double life to some degree with our digital lives and real lives, so putting first things first (habit #3) is not the easiest thing and can be complex.
Both lives are authentic. Your sweet spot is what makes you stand out and the skills that you’re good at that are relevant.
The biggest competitor you could run into for a win-win approach (habit #4) can be yourself and your moods (we used to blame much more on others). We’re now a more openly aware and collaborative society.
Being able to give is a gift. It’s a win-win.
There’s a cosmic exchange when you give your energy away in optimism, and then the world dances. When you give your time (service) or money (generous giving), that can also create buzz and impact for your endeavors.
When you can start looking at how you fit in the world, not selfishly, but what you can give in the abundant overflow you’re given in personality, gifts, and talents, then you can grow to your highest and best use purpose (habit #2).
In self-awareness, then you can create a continuing growth environment (kaizen is the Japanese word in business terms) for you and others around you (habits # 5-7):
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw
“You have two ears and one mouth,” I remember Author Stephen Covey saying in his workshops.
Listening is more importing than talking.
Habit #5 summed up: Hearing, selective listening, and active listening are 3 different processes. The first is naturally automatic, the second is tuning in/out when multi-tasking, and the third is focusing, taking notes, and coming up with unique ideas from what you heard in your frame of reference and experiences.
In my event planning days, if a client had an issue, it was best to listen to them, then give them available options based on what they communicated (habit #5) and let them decide which options to take (habit #6). Seasoned event planners know how to do that every time, and let those dialogues roll off their tongues (habit #7). And that way the client felt in charge and if things didn’t go as planned, then they owned part of the outcome. That’s the behind-the-scenes smoothness in event planning.
And that helps in most ways when you work with others. If you fill them in with communication nd what you’re up to, there’s a greater chance they can fill in and help in ways you wouldn’t even know how, now.
Habit #6: 1+1=3 or synergy is exponential growth that happens when you have collaboration. And when you keep adding/evolving collectively to what you’re doing, then you’re getting better. By default, you’ll avoid the things you didn’t like or “been there done that,” and keep seeking newer, better ways for yourself. That leads to growth and…
Habit #7: Evolved learners focus most of their time on the present moment and not on the past or future that hasn’t happened.
They know where they’re at and that the past brought them to where they are today. And without the past, they would not have learned (from their history) what they need to do to improve.
And when you get out of the negative emotions of that headspace or focus on the happy memories, you can feel good and alive.
When you can reflect, you can see why things happened and how they helped you even though it didn’t seem that way when you were learning the lesson.
Everything happens for a good reason (believe that!) and sometimes that takes a little longer to realize… and, at every turn you are gaining a little more confidence in who you are becoming.
And you gain a clearer vision for the future and better strategies that you can better evaluate from time to time.
In events, dessert were always a must. Baklava was on the Mediterranean-Lebanese restaurant menus. We didn’t make baklava in-house, but you can with this low-sugar recipe. 🥮
Easy Phyllo Dough For Baklava
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup water
- pinch of salt
- honey
- chopped nuts
- dates, orange, and cinnamon (optional)
Instructions
- Making phyllo is a lot like making homemade pasta, but much thinner.
- Make a mound and a hole in the middlle where you can add the olive oil and slowly add water. Knead for about 5 minutes and then form a dough disc. Let rest.
- Roll out as thin as possible and then you can slip into the pasta maker if you have one, adjusting until you get to the thinnest setting (e.g. 1). It will look opaque but the hope is that there will be no holes.
- Cut into strips that you will use as layers for the baklava.
- For the baklava, you can brush honey and top with chopped dates and nuts (walnuts or pistachios work well) on every other layer if you make 7 layers ending with the top layer with honey and nuts. Sprinkle each layer with cinnamon and orange zest if you like (good for Ayurvedic Vata balancing!).
A daily heart and soul-centering check-in can change your life! You could be an old soul or have an old soul like some of us who remember young life before the internet.
