Stephen Covey, husband, father, grandfather and author of the number-one best-seller, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, shares secrets to building a strong, close family. Let's learn from his wisdom.

Habit 1: Be proactive.

It is so easy to be reactive! You get caught lip in the moment. You say things you don't mean. You do things you later regret. And you think, "If only I had stopped to think about it, I never would have reacted that way!"

Family life would be a whole lot better if people act according to their values instead of reacting to the emotion or circumstance of the moment. It's possible to develop a habit of learning to pause and give wiser responses. Proactively is the ability to act rather than react.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind.

With Habit 2, you create a clear, compelling vision of what your family is-and where you want to go together. The most profound, significant and far-reaching application of Habit 2 is the family mission statement. This is a combined, unified expression from all family members of what it is your family really wants to do and be-and the principles you choose to govern your family life.

Explore what your family is all about. Call a family meeting to introduce the idea and start the process. Be explicit with the idea that you want the mission statement to serve as a unifying and motivating influence for everyone in the family. 

Write your family mission statement. The process of writing crystallizes your thoughts and distills learning and insights into words.

Stay on track. A mission statement is meant to be the constitution of your family life, the foundational document that will unify and hold your family together for decades-even generations-to come.

Habit 3: Put first things first.

There's no way we can be successful in our families if we don't prioritize them in our lives. And this is what Habit 3 is about.

There is probably no single structure that will help us to prioritize more than a weekly family night. The second absolutely foundational family structure is the one-on-one bonding time. These one-on-ones are where most of the real work of the family is done. This is where the most significant sharing, the most profound teaching, the deepest bonding takes place.

Habit 4: Think "Win-win".

As we move toward our destination as a family, we're sometimes thrown off track by external forces. But the force that does the greatest damage is the climate created within the family by negative emotions-competition, criticism, blaming, anger.

The key to handling these challenges is to cultivate a family culture of mutual respect, understanding and creative cooperation. This is the essence of Habits 4, 5 and 6.

Thinking win-win means we have this spirit of win-win in all family interactions. We always want what's best for everyone involved.

Habit 5: Seek first to understand...then to be understood.

There's simply no way to have rich, rewarding family relationships without real understanding. Most mistakes with our family members are not the result of bad intent. It's just that we don't understand. We don't see clearly into each other's hearts.

Really listening to get inside another person's mind and heart is called "empathic" listening. It enables us to see as someone else sees-and it also helps family members feel safe in sharing, gets to the real issues and helps people connect with their own unique gifts.

Habit 6: Synergize.

Synergy is the magic that happens when one plus one equals three-or more. It comes out of the spirit of mutual respect and understanding we've created and produces a brand-new way to solve a problem.

The key to synergy is to celebrate the difference. It's not enough to simply tolerate differences in the family. To have the kind of creative magic we're talking about, we must be able to say sincerely, "The fact that we see things differently is a strength-not a weakness-in our relationship."

Synergy also helps us create a culture in which we can successfully deal with any challenge we might face. The culture created by Habits 4, 5 and 6 is like an immune system. It protects our family so that when mistakes are made, or when we get blindsided by some physical, financial or social challenge, we don't get knocked out. We can deal with whatever life throws at us and use it to make the family stronger.

Habit 7: Sharpen the saw. If done properly, consistently and in a balanced way, Habit 7 will cultivate all of the other six habits and keep them strong and vibrant. How? Simply by using them in renewing activities-especially, family traditions. That's what we mean by "sharpening the saw."

Traditions give family members a sense of belonging, of being understood, of being supported, of being committed to something that's greater than self. And the family renews the emotional energy of a tradition every time they revisit it.

Think of all the opportunities for fulfilling traditions:

Family dinners, family vacations, extended and intergenerational family activities, worshipping together., serving together and working together.

As our family works together on Habit 7 and all the other habits, let's remember: Like a new pair of glasses or a new, more accurate map-the 7 Habits framework can help us see and communicate more clearly, and will help us arrive where we, as a family, want to go.

Tim Pedrosa

 
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Tim