Seven Habits of Highly Effective People [Book Review]

It annoys me that the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is on my favorite book list.

The title itself is manipulative. We as a society are known to respond when given a numbered list.

It’s typical of self-help books to provide you with one directive and then provide 30 supporting pages of evidence, as if you’re a dummy and cannot understand the directive.

For example, habit #2: Begin With The End in Mind. That’s it. You’re done. You get it. Do you need to now read 30 more pages about this? Or is it just a waste of time? Should this book just be one page which lists The Seven Habits?

Who knows? Maybe sometimes we need those extra 30 pages as re-enforcement.

But each of these habits has great value. If you measure your actions and behaviors against these habits, you will have a much clearer direction of who you want to be and what you want to achieve.

My advice in general is to be mindful of fraudulent self-help gurus but I think that you’ll find this book very useful.

I would like to present an alternate recommendation for those that choose to consider self-improvement ad-nasueam.

This will allow you to embrace an endless cycle of self-help, always reading about self-improvement instead of self-improving: Read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which espouses goal-setting. Then read, Goal Free Living, which contradicts this advice. After which, you may way to pick up a copy of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…And It’s All Small Stuff: Simple Things To Keep The Little Things From Taking Over Your Life.

Then, go see a therapist while reading Why I Don’t Need a Therapist (I’m shocked-this book does not exist. Maybe I’ll write it! :))

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