Hello Everyone,

I hope you all are doing well. Today we will talk about the 7^th habit from the book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen R. Covey. And this habit is ‘Sharpen the saw.’

Now, what does it mean to sharpen the saw? Let me explain it to you with the help of an example from the book.

Suppose you saw a man in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree,

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Can’t you see? I am sawing down the tree.” Comes the impatient reply.

“You look exhausted, how long have you been at it?”

“Over five hours.”

“Well, why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen the saw? I am sure it will help.”

“I don’t have time to sharpen the saw, I am too busy sawing.”

This is what habit 7 is about, it is taking time out to sharpen the saw, to take care of yourself, to recharge yourself.

Importance of sharpening the saw

Self-Renewal is a process that empowers us to move towards growth, change, and continuous improvement.

Consider the above example only, this person was tired and becoming inefficient, but instead of taking care of himself he chose to keep on working. His excuse being, he does not have much time. Isn’t it a common excuse we all make when it comes to self-care? I think yes, it is. We forget that the single most powerful investment we can make in life is an investment in ourselves.

Habit 7 is related to all the previous habits. When we take out time for self-renewal we become more proactive, the more proactive (Habit 1) we are, and the more we can exercise personal leadership (Habit 2) and become a good and efficient manager of our lives (Habit 3). The more you improve in any of the habits that lead to independence (Habit 1, 2 and 3), the more effective you will be in interdependent situations (Habit 4, Habit 5 and Habit 6).

So overall we can say that Habit 7 is the process of getting better at all these habits. Now that we know the importance of sharpening the saw, let’s talk about how we can do it.

Four Dimensions of Self- Renewal

There are four dimensions of self-renewal, and these dimensions are-

1. Physical- Exercise, nutrition, stress management.
2. Mental- Reading, visualizing, planning, writing.
3. Spiritual- Value clarification and commitment, study and meditation.
4. Social/Emotional- Service, empathy, synergy, intrinsic security.

Now let’s talk about each dimension one by one.

The Physical Dimension

The physical dimension involves taking care of your physical body. This includes regular exercise and consuming the right kind of food, relaxing your body and taking physical rest.

We all make an excuse that we don’t have time (again!!), but think about it, if you don’t do it regularly your health will deteriorate and then it will become urgent to take time for exercise. So why don’t you do it now? Before your body gets into a critical situation. And we are not talking about something expensive, a simple exercise routine which you can do at home is a good one. Taking out 30 minutes for exercise in a day is not too much to ask for yourself.

Now, what is a good exercise routine? It is the one that builds your body in three areas: endurance, flexibility, and strength. Endurance comes from aerobic exercises. Exercises like jogging, skipping rope, running, and dancing are good cardio exercises.

Flexibility comes from stretching, and strength comes from muscle resistance exercises. Exercises like pushups, squats, pull-ups etc. All these are exercises which you can do at home, without any equipment. So taking care of yourself is not expensive at all.

The Spiritual Dimension

The spiritual dimension is your commitment to your value system. What is it that you want to do in life? Not just for yourself but others too. What is it that makes you feel peaceful and not overwhelmed? The goals you set for yourself in Habit 2, are you moving towards them? All these questions are dealt with when you take time for your spiritual dimension.

When you do activities like meditation, spending time in nature, watching sunsets you take out time to reflect on your actions and if these actions are in tune with your goals. Remember that when our actions are not in tune with our goals then they create anxiety and stress in our mind. We feel stagnated. So it is necessary to take out time and reflect on your actions.

Everyone does this in their own way, some like doing meditation, some like spending time in nature, and some like cleaning the house. You have to look for the thing which works best for you.

The Mental Dimension

Most of our mental development takes place in schools, and as soon as we leave school and the discipline of learning, many of us let our minds go lazy. We don’t increase the horizon of knowledge, we don’t take out time to educate ourselves. What we do is watch TV and movies. I am not saying that it is entirely bad, but we have to take care of our minds. And we can only do that when we do mental exercises like reading books, watching informational shows and documentaries, journaling, organizing and planning, solving puzzles.

All these activities help us in exercising our minds and in taking care of our mental dimension.

The Social/Emotional Dimension

While the physical, spiritual and mental dimensions are closely related to Habits 1, 2 and 3 which deals with principles of personal vision, leadership, and management. The social/emotional dimension is related to Habit 4, 5 and 6 which deals with interpersonal relationships, empathic communication, and creative cooperation.

We don’t have to take time out to perform this dimension, we can do it in our day to day life. For example, you are having trouble with your partner, then you will go and tell them that this is bothering you, you will use Habit 5 that is seek first to understand and then to be understood, then you will think of some win/win solutions (Habit 4) and together with the help of your partner using creative cooperation (Habit 6) you will come up with a solution. This is what social/emotional dimension is about.

This dimension deals with working on your relationships. Social and emotional dimensions are related because your emotional well-being is very much related to your social life. So working on your relationships is part of taking care of yourself.

And with this, we have come to the end of this post and this series of 7 Habits of highly effective people. If you want to learn more about these habits I highly recommend you to read this book. I hope my posts have helped you in some way. I will see you in the next post, till then, keep celebrating life.

Bye,

With Love,

Komal

Tangled Tourista

Tangled Tourista is an online diary, which is about travel, food and books. Here you will read about book reviews and suggestions, tested travelling tips and about new cafes and restaurants around and their reviews.