The 7 Habits

“By taking action when you’re lonely, by changing your responses to failure, by protecting your self-esteem, by battling negative thinking, you won’t just heal your psychological wounds, you will build emotional resilience, you will thrive.” This is an excerpt from Guy Winch’s Ted Talk at Linnaeus University “Why We All Need to Practice Emotional First Aid.” During his talk, Winch compares how much we prioritize and focus on our physical health while neglecting our emotional health, despite the two being connected. This concept relates to the seventh habit in Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” as well as “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” written by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. Winch uses the practical ideal of analysis

In society we take great pride in maintaining our physical health but we neglect our emotional and mental health. He questions why we value our physical health so much more than our psychological health. This compliments Covey’s seventh habit, Sharpen the Saw. It is considered to be a principle of balanced self-renewal and “surrounds the other habits on the Seven Habits paradigm because it is the habit that makes all the others possible” (Covey, 2004). This habit in particular is composed of four dimensions – physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional. The physical dimension is constructed of exercise, nutrition and stress management while the mental dimension relates to reading, visualizing, planning and writing. The spiritual dimension consists of value clarification and commitment, and study and meditation and the social/emotional dimension is made up of service, empathy, synergy, and intrinsic security (Covey,

He addresses the theories that low self-esteem can lead someone to be more vulnerable to stress and anxiety; that rejections and failures can be hurtful to one’s self-esteem; and that it can take longer to recover from these psychological injuries than physical injuries. Instead of taking your emotions out on something or someone when you receive rejection, one should focus on reviving their self-esteem (Bradberry & Greave, 2009). For someone to improve their self-esteem and avoid emotional pain, having a strong sense of self-awareness and self-management would be greatly