During this same time frame I had just married my husband and bought a new house in a new city. Lots of things were changing, and while they were all great things, it was still major change and it wasn’t easy. My husband and I were still trying to understand how to merge our financial lives in a way that didn’t disrupt the relationship that we had worked so hard to build. We were trying to develop a way to balance the responsibilities of not one, not two, but three houses and new bills. We were trying to figure out how to make and build new friendships in a city where we knew no one. I don’t care who you are and how together you have it – that is just freaking overwhelming! And I struggled. I was terrified that these changes were going to change our relationship, in a way that I was not excited about.
In the way that only God works, an opportunity was delivered to me that changed my life. It seems so silly that a simple book study, a search for a new character education program, could change MY life when it was intended to help our students, but it did! I volunteered to be a part of this search committee and found myself reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey over my summer vacation. While this was a difficult book to read cover to cover (it’s pretty heavy!), the principles and the ideas really hit home. The following school year our committee traveled to a symposium to see these 7 habits in action in different elementary schools. We fell in love with the program and brought it to our school. To make a long story short, you can’t teach what you don’t know and all of the teachers at our school were put up at the beautiful Fontainebleau Resort and had a two day, intense training on the 7 habits. These two days changed my life.
I took each habit to heart, really reflecting on my life and the priorities I had set. I reflected on how I let myself react to situations and the paradigms that had shaped my view on what I was allowed to achieve. I realized that I had control over my life and had the power to change what needed to be changed to make me love every day of my existence. This was the beginning of my personal development journey. I was hooked!
Over the next two years, our school adopted The Leader in Me, a program for students based on the 7 habits and their principles. I was asked to be part of the Lighthouse Team, guiding other teachers on how to teach their students these principles and build leadership in our school and was afforded the opportunity to become a certified 7 Habits Facilitator, training new teachers who came to our school. What is awesome about the facilitator program is that we are not training teachers how to teach the students, we are training the teachers how to put these principles into practice in their own personal lives. You can’t teach what you don’t know.
I am so extremely excited to have taken the wealth of information I have gained from these past two years and formed a 10 day group to teach others about these principles. This group is going to focus on teaching you how to use each of these habits to make your life more effective and more aligned with your vision for success. It is my goal to inspire at least one person to take these goals and make a significant change in their life, allowing them to work towards a goal that they thought they never had the time for.
These habits taught me to be intentional, how to have tough conversations, to prioritize the actions of my day, and to live a fulfilled life. If you are interested in being a part of this free group starting Monday, February 2, please fill out the form below. I can’t wait for you to see how living in a highly effective way can change the course of your professional and personal lives.