CURE Counseling & Assessment Training Centre provides practical teaching and training of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families. Family counseling, seminars, groups and retreats are part of our psycho-educational approach to helping families learn and implement new principles that help bring more meaning to relationships in the family. Below is an overview of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families.
Habit 1: Be Proactive
Family life is like the flight of an airplane. Before the plane takes off, the pilots have a flight plan. But during the course of the flight, wind, rain, turbulence, air traffic and human error act upon that plane. The key is in having a destination, a flight plan and a compass.
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
A family mission statement is a combined, unified expression from all family members of what your family is all about – what it is you really want to do and be – and the principles you choose to govern your family.
Habit 3: Put First things First
Okay, now, I know what you’re going to hear from people is, “We don’t have the time.” But if you don’t have the time for one night or at least one hour during the week where everybody can come together as a family, then the family is not the priority. – Oprah Winfrey
Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Two men held an arm-wrestling contest. Every time one of the men pressed the other’s arm down, the audience had to give the winner a dime. Match after match, one wrestler allowed the other to beat him. Finally, he suggested to his opponent that they both win. His opponent agreed, and they took turns winning until they both had a pile of dimes.
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Antoine de Saint Exupery -The Little Prince Have your heart and your eyes ever seen things differently? Communication often breaks down because people interpret the same event differently. Take a room where the temperature is 75 degrees. One person complains it’s too hot and opens the window. Another says it’s too cold and closes it. Both are right – each from his or her own point of view.
Habit 6: Synergize
A great way to understand synergy is through the metaphor of the body. The body is more than just hands and arms and legs and feet and brain and stomach and heart all thrown together. It’s a miraculous synergistic whole that can do many wonderful things because of the way the individual parts work together.
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Imagine you are trying to cut down a tree. You pull the saw back and forth all day, but you’re only halfway through. Next to you is another person who has also been sawing a tree. He started at the same time and his tree is the same size, yet he is almost done. He even rested every half hour! His secret: Every time he stopped to rest, he sharpened his saw.