7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

Teens and young adults are bombarded with garbage everyday-garbage values, garbage messages about their self-worth, garbage images, and garbage language. We hold high expectations for adolescents to perform like adults, yet they are rarely taught how to be an adult. We are failing our adolescents in this area.  

It takes time and training for us to become good mentors who can assist our youth as they grow into something new.

I have a book that can help:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, by Sean Covey, is chock-full of good advice for teens or for anyone. The teen version of the 7 habits is simple and entertaining. It is full of practical advice, relevant stories and funny cartoons.The principles in this book are classic and stand the test of time. 


Here is the "cliff-note" version for you, but it might be worth it to you to study the real deal.


Habit 1: Be Proactive 

Take responsibility for your life. Don’t blame your problems on others. Refuse to be a victim. If you want something, go get it.  Use language such as, “I’ll do it,” “I can do better than that,” “Let’s look at all our options,” “I choose to,” or “There’s gotta be a way.” As you do this, you will find the realm of things you have control over grows. You will become able to make meaningful changes in your life that previously you thought were out of your control. 

1. Try increasing your self-awareness right now by asking yourself, “What is my most unhealthy habit?” Make up your mind to do something about it.
2. At the next party, don’t just sit against the wall and wait for excitement to find you. Walk up and introduce yourself to someone new. 

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

Define your mission and goals in life. Know where you want to be in 5 years. Visualize your best possible self. It’s important to know your destination before you set out. At your last breath of life, what pique experiences or accomplishments would you like to remember?  Most of us don’t know where we are going. We don’t take time to visualize the details and commit to that vision. If you clarify your goals and your end destination, you may be surprised how having a clear direction changes your daily choices and helps you stay on course. Write it down in your journal or planner.

1. Think of a person who made a positive difference in your life. What qualities does that person have that you would like to develop?
2.  Imagine being surrounded 20 years from now by the most important people in your life. Who are they and what are you doing?
3.  Imagine your local paper doing a story about you 5 years from now.  When they interview a parent, a sibling, and a friend, what do you hope will be said about you?

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Prioritize and do the most important things first.  Prioritize. Get your most important tasks done first. “You can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything you want.” When you plan, make goals, and keep schedules, you are able to fit in more. When you plan, carve out time for important relationships, exercise, and relaxation. If you don’t, the most pressing things will take over and squeeze out what’s most important to you. Avoid procrastinating, attending to unimportant tasks, other people’s small problems, or interruptions, or slacking. 

1.  Set a goal to use a planner for one month and stick to it.
2. Think of something important to you that you’ve procrastinated for a long time. Block out time this week to get it done. 

Habit 4: Think Win-Win


Have an everyone-can-win attitude. Think Win-Win. Successful, cheerful people can find a win-win in any situation. There are 4 ways to think of a situation: win-lose, lose-win, lose-lose, or win-win.

1.  In a win-lose situation, you are looking to get ahead by putting someone else down. You see resources as limited, therefore the bigger slice of the pie someone else gets means the less you get. It’s competitive, prideful, and lonely. While this approach may seem like a good strategy initially, it doesn’t work in the long run. 
2. In a lose-win situation, you try to please everyone else but yourself. You let others walk all over you. It involves the same thinking as win-lose, but you choose to lose so others can win. This again, doesn’t work long term because there is only so much a person can take before they feel worthless and have had enough. 
3. In lose-lose you think, “If I’m going down, you’re going with me.” Sometimes romantic relationships that start out win-win begin to sour over time and bring out the worst in both partners, resulting in a lose-lose situation. 
4. In a win-win situation, both people get what they want. You care about others and want them to succeed, but you also care about your own success. Finding a win-win sometimes means making compromises, but when you get in the habit of finding win-wins, you’ll be amazed that there is one for every situation! Consider this:
   1. Pinpoint the area of your life where you most struggle with comparisons. Perhaps it’s clothes, physical features, friends, or talents.
   2. Are you in a Lose-Win relationship? If you are, then decide what must happen to make it a Win for you or choose to go for No Deal and get out of the relationship.    

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

Listen to people sincerely. The deepest need of the human heart is to be understood. If you learn to be a good listener you will have better relationships, get quite smart, and be more efficient with your problem solving. Avoid spacing out, pretend listening, selective listening, focusing solely on the words being spoken, or having a self-centered perspective when listening. Instead, listen to the body language, imagine what it is like to be in the other person’s shoes, and make mirroring/empathic statements such as “I can see you are feeling…” or “So, what you’re saying is…” Get better at listening by trying this:

1. Go somewhere populated and take a seat. Watch people communicating with each other. Observe what their body language is saying.
2. If you’re a talker, take a break and spend your day listening. Only talk when you have to. 

Habit 6: Synergize

Work together to achieve more.  To synergize is to celebrate differences, teamwork, open-mindedness, and finding new and better ways to work together. Avoid ignorance, cliques, and prejudice. When faced with a problem of my way vs. your way, try this:

1.  Define the problem or opportunity.
2. Their Way: First seek to understand their ideas.
3. My Way: After thoroughly understanding the other person, then seek to be understood by sharing your ways.
4.  Brainstorm to create some new options and ideas. 
5. High Way: Find the best solution.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Renew yourself regularly. Sharpen the saw. We all need a little me-time to unwind and rejuvenate. Check your balance on taking care of your body, brain, heart, and soul. Sometimes the most effective approach is to take a break. It can bring you back to your task with revived spirits and energy.

1. Try eating breakfast for a whole week.
2. Read the news everyday.
3. Go on a one-on-one outing with a family member. Catch a ball game, see a movie, go shopping, or get an ice cream.
4. Take time each day to meditate, reflect on your life, or pray. 

  And finally, keep hope alive. As Covey puts it, “If you ever find yourself falling short, don’t get discouraged. Remember the flight of an airplane. When an airplane takes off it has a flight plan. However, during the course of the flight, wind, rain, turbulence, air traffic, human error, and other factors keep knocking the plan off course. In fact, a plane is off course about 90 percent of the time. The key is that the pilots keep making small course corrections by reading their instruments and talking to the control tower. As a result, a plane reaches its destination… keep hope alive, you’ll eventually reach your destination."
 


Sincerely, 

​Stephanie Patterson, M.S., LMFT
Downtown Atascadero & San Luis Obispo