Book 96 - A Year of Magical Learning (Top 5 - Five Part Reflection)

Reflection Title – Always Remember to Put First Things First in Your Life Every Day   

Book – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (4/5)

Book Description: In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity--principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.

Reflection:

Living the principle of always putting first things first in my life every single day has been the one singular catalyst to changing my entire life on this year of magical learning journey. This is easily the most important lesson I learned from the 7 Habits and is the number 1 piece of advice I would give to anyone that is taking this journey with me and wanted to put some of this into practice in their own life.

So what is the concept of putting “first things first” in your life? Dr. Covey breaks up activities into 4 quadrants divided by Urgency and Importance. The First Quadrant you will find Urgent and Important Tasks. These are things like getting to a work on time, a doctor’s appointment, answering an email from your boss, calling the furnace guy, getting the kids out the door for school, etc. Quad 1 activities are the things that we often don’t choose, but we must complete every day. We will never run out of these types of activities, and they will dominant your day if you let them. Quad 2 are the activities which are Not Urgent, but Important. These are the activities that you know you SHOULD do but there is no urgency driving the execution on a day to day basis. That is things like eating well, reading, reflecting, playing, exercising, exploring, taking a walk in nature, spending quality time with the family, etc. Quad 2 is the first things first quadrant. Quad 3 and Quad 4 are areas you want to avoid any activities for the most part all together. These are Urgent and Not Important tasks, and Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks. Think watching the news, scrolling on social media, etc.

I think we all know in our heart of hearts that doing more Quad 2 activities would sound great in theory, but how do we do it?

I wondered the same thing when I first read this book in February of 2020. At this point in my life, I would say 90% of my day was Quad 1 activities, 2% Quad 2, and 5% Quad 3, 3% Quad 4. It is safe to say that I wasn’t living a very balanced life at all. Just one month later in March, my daughter was born at 22 weeks and 6 days old. Then in late April of 2020, she tragically passed away due to complications from an emergency surgery. It was during my family’s time in the NICU and fighting for her life that I made the conscious decision around day 3 of our time in the NICU to force myself to try and put first things first in my life to make sure that I could show up and be there for my daughter when she needed me. I knew that we were in for a marathon and that I needed to stay balanced to make it through. I needed to stay in control of my emotions. I needed to stay physically healthy. I needed to stay focused and aligned for me to be the best father I could be in a traumatic situation.

My life was filled to the brim with Quad 1 activities during our time in the NICU. Every alarm, X-Ray, doctor’s visit, text from a friend, comforting my wife, etc that you could imagine. I had a buffet of Quad 1 activities to gorge on if I wanted to. I could have let those urgent and important tasks at this time of my life consume me and become a ball of anxiety…but I didn’t. Something inside of me told me I had to act differently. I didn’t have a choose really in retrospect. Every time I looked at my daughter and saw how strong she was, I knew that I had to do better myself. I forced myself to design my life to put those first things first every single day. It wasn’t easy, but it was the right thing to do for her and myself so I could show up being the best father I could for her.

After she passed away, carrying on with this way of life took on a whole new meaning. I had a decision to make that would change my life. I could let the fact that I just lost the most precious and beautiful thing in my world destroy me; or, I could do my best to honor the strength and courage she demonstrated during her life and try to live my life on purpose for her.  

I think you know what I chose!

From the day that we lost her until today (almost 2 years later), I’ve made it my singular goal to do my best to fill as much of my day with first things first activities and live a life for 2 that she never got to. I’m not going to waste this. I can’t…because that would mean I truly have lost my daughter forever. I won’t let her down.

Question: What would your life look like if you lived the first things first principle in as much as you can each day?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

YOML Bookstore - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey