What I remember from my Psychology 101 class which I agreed is that “Habits can be learned; therefore, it can be unlearn.” and I totally agreed to it again when I have read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey and would do so again and again.

This is one of the most effective self-help books out there I believe. If we are struggling with self-confidence, indeed, there is no quick fix formula that would help us improve this aspect of our life. To increase our self-esteem, improve our self-confidence, we got to be willing to start by developing good habits.

The book mentioned to work on improving; bettering and becoming our best selves is really helpful. If we are able to understand it, internalize it and most of all, apply it-make use of it in our day to day lives, we can have our improved best version of ourselves. That is what the author had mentioned in one of his presentation of these habits.

I, myself, have struggled for a long time. I did not notice it but my relationship with myself just started deteriorating. I did not even realize it was happening. One day, I just woke up empty and kind of lost. I did not realize it then, but my life was like on autopilot. The worst thing was I had become emotionally dependent on other people. What’s much worse than that was I had become too emotionally dependent on one person, I guess and when I realized, that person would be gone from my life, I guess that magnified the emptiness, etc. I could not even really figure out when all of it started. It was a really long journey. I have tried a lot of ways. Looked for ways on how to deal with it. It was totally not a good place to be at. I have heard and read a lot of ways on how to overcome it and I even reached to a point when all I could think of was wish for a reset button where I could just hit reset and I could start all over again instead of dealing with it from time to time.

Reset button was never there and would have been never there until I decided to be the person I want to become and counted day 1. I had to go through everything–get to know myself better; what ticks and what not; what angers what triggers me, what makes me feel joy, everything. I observed people, too. The people around me, my coworkers, my neighbors, the drivers of the different public transportation I take, the vendors, my parents, my siblings, everyone (though I just did not make a written note of my observation—but I notice patterns and behaviors of people; those of which were highly related and needed by me I have taken a mental note and recorded in my head). Then, I agreed to a speaker or a line of a book or a quotation I have read, (whichever it was, I could not remember exactly). I agreed that, “YES, my successful journey had to begin with good habits.” Since the common certain patterns I had observed from different people contributed to my realization about habits, along the way, I began asking “What are the habits of these successful people I look up to?” Common thing they have is they all read. This is when I came across this truly-supports-what-it claims-to-be-book. To make the story short, nothing happened overnight and if you are going through what I was going through right now, I am telling you that I totally agree with Dr. Stephen Covey. There is no quick fix.

Anyway, just sharing this important hard earned lesson (which has been affirmed and verbalized long time ago before I knew it existed) by the author I have been and will mention again in the next paragraph.

According to Dr. Stephen R. Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the first two things we can expect when we understand the 7 interrelated habits of highly effective people are:

“(1) Improved Self-confidence; self-esteem -that will come largely is sense of better self-control. You are not victimized You are not being controlled by circumstances. You are in control.

(2) Improved (quality of) relationships. Many people have relationships that are deteriorating. They’re broken or their breaking. It maybe with their loved ones at home, it may be in their businesses;

These two are interrelated with each other. The higher your self-confidence is, the more you will respect others or work well with them: the less their weaknesses will be empowered by your depending upon them–relating to those weaknesses. Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of other people. By doing so, you empower their weaknesses to control you; you magnify them; you strengthen them; you enlarge them. “

Thank you for taking the time to read. I am just sharing this as a reminder to everyone that building your emotional life on the weaknesses of other people is not helpful at all. Do not magnify people’s weaknesses.

That’s all. 🙂