The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Why seven? Why not six or eight or ten or fifteen? What is so sacred about seven?
Nothing is sacred about seven, it just so happens that the three private
victory habits (freedom to choose, choice, action) precede the three public

---

victory habits (respect, understanding, creation) and then there is one to
renew the rest and that equals seven.
When asked this question, I’ve always said if there were some other
desirable characteristic you would like make into a habit, you would simply
put that under Habit 2 as one of the values you are trying to live by. In other
words, if punctuality is a desir able trait you want to make a habit, that
would be one of the val ues of Habit 2. So no matter what else you came up
with you would put it under Habit 2, your value system. Habit one is the
idea that you can have a value system, that you can choose your own value
system. Habit 2 is what those choices or values are and Habit 3 is to live by
them. So they are very basic, generic, and interconnected.
It so happens that at the writing of this afterword for this new edition of
the Seven Habits, I have just completed a new book entitled 
The 8th Habit:
From Effectiveness to Greatness.
To some, calling it the 8th Habit may
appear to be a departure from my standard answer. But you see, as I say in
the opening chapter of this new book, the world has profoundly changed
since 
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
was published in 1989. The
chal lenges and complexity we face in our personal lives and relation ships,
in our families, in our professional lives, and in our organizations are of a
different order of magnitude. In fact, many mark 1989—the year we
witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall—as the beginning of the Information
Age, the birth of a new reality, a sea change of incredible significance...
truly a new era.
Being 
highly effective
as individuals and organizations is no longer
optional in today’s world—it’s the price of entry to the playing field. But
surviving, thriving, innovating, excelling and leading in this new reality will
require us to build on and reach beyond effectiveness. The call and need of
a new era is for 
fulfillment.
It’s for 
passionate optimization, for significant
contribution
and 
greatness.
These are on a different plane or 
dimension.
They are different in kind—just as 
significance
is different in 
kind
, not in
degree
, from success. Tapping into the higher reaches of human genius and
motivation—what we could call 
voice
—requires a new mindset, a new
skill-set, a new tool-set... a new habit.
The 8th Habit, then, is not about adding one more habit to the 7th—one
that somehow got forgotten. It’s about seeing and har nessing the power of 
a
third dimension
to the 7 Habits that meets 
the
central challenge of the new
Knowledge Worker Age.

---