Southern Choctaw Elementary
~A Leader In Me School~
Leadership on the Reservation
&
ABZ (Anti-Bully Zone)
Stephen Covey's
7 Habits to a Highly Effective Person
Southern Choctaw Elementary School is working hard to become a better school in developing great leaders, great teachers, and therefore a great community through this program. Take a look at what The Leader in Me is all about....
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Becoming a Better Me.
The 7 Habits Are: Be Proactive; Begin With the End In Mind; Put First Things First; Think Win Win; Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood; Synergize, Sharpen the Saw
Be Proactive
The Habit of Choice
Be Proactive- The habit of choice: It's about taking responsibility for your own life. Proactive people know they can not blame others for their problems. They know they choose their behave. The opposite are REACTIVE people. These reactive people allow situations in life to affect them and find someone else to blame for their bad behavior. For example, if the weather is good-they feel good. If it isn't they don't feel good and therefore they may perform poorly, have a negative attitude and blame it on the weather. Life just doesn't happen. It is carefully designed by you. The choices are all yours, you can choose happiness, you can choose sadness, you can choose success, you can choose failure, you can choose fear, Or you can choose courage! Remember that every moment and every situation in life presents a new choice for you to make. And it also may give you more opportunities to make things better or solve some problems.
[A proactive person uses language like; "I can, I prefer, I will.." A reactive person uses language like; "I can't, I have to, If only..." Think
about it! ]
Begin With the End in Mind
The Habit of Vision
Begin with the End in Mind- The habit of planning: Use your imagination!! There is a mental creation and a physical creation. The physical follows the mental picture much like a blueprint. If you don't have a clear vision of who you are and what you want in life you empower circumstances and people to shape your life. It's about understanding your uniqueness and then defining your personal, moral, and ethical goals in life that make you the most happy in life. Begin with the end in mind means you start each day, each task, and each project with a clear vision of what you planned, then continue with a proactive mind to reach that goal.
[Start with a mission statement that states what you want to be and do. It makes you the leader of your life]
First Things First
The Habit of Integrity
First Things First- The Habit of Integrity: You have to know that doing everything that comes along is not okay! It's alright to say no to some things in order to live a more balanced life. If habit 1 says you're in charge of your creation and habit 2 says dream the plan, then habit 3 is the second creation. Habit 3 is about high priorities, your purpose, and your worth. If you put things in your life first that you feel are most important to you, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the plans you made in the 2nd habit.
Think Win-Win
The Habit of Mutual Benefit
Think Win Win- The Habit of Mutual Benefit: Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. It's a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie. A person or organization that approaches conflicts with a win-win attitude possesses three vital character traits:
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Integrity: sticking with your true feelings, values, and commitments
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Maturity: expressing your ideas and feelings with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of others
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Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone
Many people think in terms of either/or: either you're nice or you're tough. Win-win requires that you be both. It is a balancing act between courage and consideration. To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathy, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you also have to be brave. To do that--to achieve that balance between courage and consideration--is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win. [To go for win-win, you not only have to be empathic, but you also have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you also have to be brave. To do that, to achieve that balance between courage and consideration is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to win-win.]
Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood
The Habit of Mutual Understanding
Seek First to Understand Then to be Understood- The habit of listening Communication is the most important skill in life. But what about listenting...If you're like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you're listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. So why does this happen? Because most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. You listen to yourself as you prepare in your mind what you are going to say, the questions you are going to ask, etc. You filter everything you hear through your life experiences, your frame of reference. You check what you hear against your autobiography and see how it measures up. And consequently, you decide prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating. Do any of the following sound familiar?
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Because you so often listen autobiographically, you tend to respond in one of four ways:
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Evaluating:You judge and then either agree or disagree.
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Probing:You ask questions from your own frame of reference.
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Advising:You give counsel, advice, and solutions to problems.
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Interpreting:You analyze others' motives and behaviors based on your own experiences.
You might be saying, "Hey, now wait a minute. I'm just trying to relate to the person by drawing on my own experiences. Is that so bad?" In some situations, autobiographical responses may be appropriate, such as when another person specifically asks for help from your point of view or when there is already a very high level of trust in the relationship.
Synergize
The Habit of Creative Cooperation
Sharpen the Saw
The Habit of Renewal
Synergize- Teamwork makes it better: Two heads are better than one when solving problems. This is the habit of cooperation! It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn't just happen on its own. It's a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table. Together, they can produce far better results that they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty--you name it.
When people begin to interact together genuinely, and they're open to each other's influence, they begin to gain new insight. The capability of inventing new approaches is increased exponentially because of differences.
Valuing differences is what really drives synergy. Do you truly value the mental, emotional, and psychological differences among people? Or do you wish everyone would just agree with you so you could all get along? Many people mistake uniformity for unity; sameness for oneness. One word--boring! Differences should be seen as strengths, not weaknesses. They add zest to life.
Sharpen the Saw- Balance is Best:
It means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have--you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Here are some examples of activities:
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Physical:Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
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Social/Emotional:Making social and meaningful connections with others
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Mental:Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
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Spiritual:Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service
As you renew yourself in each of the four areas, you create growth and change in your life. Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish. Not a pretty picture, is it?
Feeling good doesn't just happen. Living a life in balance means taking the necessary time to renew yourself. It's all up to you. You can renew yourself through relaxation. Or you can totally burn yourself out by overdoing everything. You can pamper yourself mentally and spiritually. Or you can go through life oblivious to your well-being. You can experience vibrant energy. Or you can procrastinate and miss out on the benefits of good health and exercise. You can revitalize yourself and face a new day in peace and harmony. Or you can wake up in the morning full of apathy because your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone. Just remember that every day provides a new opportunity for renewal--a new opportunity to recharge yourself instead of hitting the wall. All it takes is the desire, knowledge, and skill.
