“The single most powerful investment we can ever make in life – investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute.”

Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Sharpen the Saw

At the start of Habit 7, author Stephen Covey tells a short story about coming upon someone sawing down a tree. The man has clearly been at it awhile and is exhausted. The man is asked if he wants to stop for a short time to sharpen the saw. His reply, “I don’t have time to sharpen the saw. I’m too busy sawing!”

In a similar way, we get too busy living our life to take a break and “sharpen” our life. At the core of Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw, is renewing our physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional dimensions of our nature. The author, Stephen Covey, explains the dimensions this way:

  • Physical: exercise, nutrition, stress management
  • Spiritual: value clarification and commitment, study, and meditation
  • Mental: reading, visualizing, planning, writing
  • Social/Emotional: service, empathy, synergy, intrinsic security

Physical

These days I think everyone is aware of the importance of eating right and staying in shape. Perhaps less emphasized is the need for adequate rest. Yep, those Zzzz are important. Staying in shape, nourishing our body with good fuel, and getting enough sleep rely on Habit 1, being proactive. We don’t see the benefit of one hour at the gym, or eating one good-for-you meal. But over time, these habits pay dividends, and it takes a proactive approach to stick with the regimen.

Spiritual

Covey explains that renewing the spiritual dimension is highly related to Habit 2, Begin with the End in Mind. While reading scripture was a part of renewal for Covey, he points out that immersion in great music, literature, or nature can provide spiritual renewal. Everyone goes about this renewal a little differently. Because our spiritual dimension is our center, constant renewal is required in order to stay committed to our values and provide leadership for our life.

Mental

In renewing the mental dimension of our life, we choose what we want to take in. That is, we choose what we read, visualize, write or plan. Here’s where we choose: do we binge on a series on Netflix, or do we pick up a book that has the potential to inspire and change us for the better? Do we take time to visualize a big and bright future, or do we choose to sit back and let life happen to us? As much as healthy food is good for our physical nature, healthy subject matter is good for our mental nature. Renewing our mind is related to Habit 3, Put First Things First.

Social/Emotional

Renewing the social/emotional dimension is a practice of Habits 4, 5, and 6 (Think Win/Win, Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood, and Synergize).

Service, empathy, and synergy are talked about earlier in The 7 Habits. A new term used in Habit 7 is intrinsic security. Covey says intrinsic security “comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values.” He goes on to say that knowing there are usually Win/Win solutions, and serving people by helping them in a meaningful way also contribute to intrinsic security.

One example Covey gives for renewing the social/emotional dimension is in “scripting others”. I think I might call it something else because that phrase strikes me a little awkwardly, so bear with me. Essentially, scripting others is believing in them when they don’t believe in themselves. If you’ve ever had someone tell you that you were good at something you didn’t think you were, or had the potential to be more than you currently were, you’ve been “scripted”. I take this to mean that it’s vital we communicate the value and potential we see in others.

Daily Private and Public Victory

The 7 Habits are broken into three parts: private victory, public victory, and renewal. Habits 1, 2, and 3 focus on the private victory. Habits 4, 5, and 6 focus on public victory, and Habit 7, the one we’re talking about here, is all about renewal.

Covey states that the Daily Private Victory is a minimum of an hour a day dedicated to the renewal of the physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions. He states that this “is the key to the development of the Seven Habits…It is the Quadrant II focus time necessary to integrate these habits into your life, to become principle-centered.”

The Daily Private Victory is “the foundation for the Daily Public Victory. It’s the source of intrinsic security you need to sharpen the saw in the social/emotional dimension.”

In Organizations

Covey extends the renewal of the four dimensions to organizations. He categorizes them this way:

  • Physical: economic
  • Spiritual: finding purpose or meaning in the work
  • Mental/Psychological: recognition and talent development
  • Social/Emotional: how people are treated

In his work, Covey found that when organizations focused on only one dimension, the results weren’t great. You can imagine (or perhaps have experienced) the resulting behaviors when the only driver is making money: fiefdom building, interdepartmental rivalries, and defensive/protective communication, to name a few. When organizations focus solely on the social/emotional dimension, for example, Covey noted that those organizations had no measures of effectiveness because they didn’t have any economic criteria. Eventually those organizations failed.

Covey notes that many organizations attend to most of the dimensions, but not all. If, for example, an organization “may have good service criteria, good economic criteria, and good human relations criteria, but they are not really committed to identifying, developing, utilizing and recognizing the talent of people…the resulting culture will reflect different forms of collective resistance, adversarialism, excessive turnover, and other deep, chronic, cultural problems.”

The Good News

“As you improve in one dimension, you increase your ability in other dimensions as well.”

Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits

tl;dr

Habit 7 of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, is about renewing the four dimensions of our nature: physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional. In order to renew these dimensions we need to practice the first 6 habits of Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, Put First Things First, Think Win/Win, Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood, and Synergize.

Covey uses an analogy of stopping to sharpen a saw to saw more effectively in presenting Habit 7. Renewal is about sharpening our saw, and about self-growth. Because we have to take time to do it, these things are Quadrant II activities. But in taking the time to renew the four dimensions, we become more effective.

engineer your life

  • Read Habit 7 in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
  • Take a quick inventory of where you stand in the renewal of your physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional dimensions. Pick one to improve your habits around.
  • If you want practice for the mental dimension of writing, submit a guest post for consideration. If you have a 7 Habits/Quadrant II story to tell, we’d like to hear it. (Seriously!)