一、内容简介
本书是作者Stephen R.Covey 写的一本关于让个人、家庭、团体等等生活更美好的一本书。他将本书分为三大部分，第一部分为我们介绍了一些有关Private Victory的3个原则，Principle of Personal Vision, Principle of Personal Leadership, and Principle of Personal Management. 第二部分介绍了基于Public Victory的3个原则，Principle of Interpersonal Leadership, Principles of Empathetic Communication, and Principles of Creative Cooperation.第三部分为我们介绍了Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal包含的4个方面Renewal——Physical, Spiritual, Mental, Social/Emotional——来总领，平衡和促进前面说的6个习惯。
在第一部分的Private Victory部分，作者先给我们抛出我们人类的独有self-awareness，It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen. 正是由于有了这个天赋，我们人类has dominion over all things in the world and can make significant advances from generation to generation. 当我们成为一个proactive人的时候，我们应该关注Circle of Influence，而不是关注Circle of Concern中的那些我们不能改变也无能为力的事情。
但是如果没有第一个习惯的基础，就像作者说的那样：In our personal lives, if we do not develop our own self-awareness and become responsible for first creations, we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default. We reactively live the scripts handed to us by family, associates, other people's agendas, the pressures of circumstance——scripts from our earlier years, from our training, our conditioning.
所以说：The unique human capacities of self-awareness, imagination, and conscience enable us to examine first creations and make it possible for us to take charge of our own first creation, to write our own scripts.
有了第一个习惯的支持，我们就开始了第二个习惯——create our own scripts.需要我们创造两个东西：leadership and management. leadership是方向层面，management是方法层面。就像作者说的那样：Leadership deals with the top line: What are the things I want to accomplish? Management is a bottom-line focus: How can I best accomplish certain things?
leadership如此的重要，但是作者最后说：And leadership is even more lacking in our personal lives. We're into managing with efficiency, setting and achieving goals before we have even clarified our values.所以，我们可以写一个personal mission statement 或者叫personal constitution. 写出这个是基于our Circle of Influence的，而我们的影响圈核心的核心各不相同，但它们都是我们的security, guidance, wisdom, and power的源泉。作者也举了几个典型的centers例子：Spose Centeredness, Family Centeredness, Money Centeredness, Work Centeredness, Possession Centeredness, Pleasure Centeredness, Friend/Enemy Centeredness, Church Centeredness, Self-Centeredness.这么多类型，作者分析它们都是易变的，也不足为我们提供生活上的四个方面， 作者得出只有A Principle Center，我们才能更好，更健康的生活。
在第二部分的Public Victory部分中，
二、我的感触
1.做一个Proactive Person.
Our basic nature is to act, and not be acted upon. As well as enabling us to choose our response to particular circumstances, this empowers us to create circumstances.
我们人类之所以区别于动物，就是因为我们有拥有强大的天赋，self-awareness, imagination, conscience, independent will.
我们有这么多的天赋，可是，我们大多数人都没有利用这些天赋，所以我们都和动物生活的没什么两样。大多数人都生活在被有意识设计的规则下无意识的生活 。我一用脑，就发现我的生活有多么的糟糕。
I know of no more encouragaging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
我们要用我们的这些天赋，然后提升我们的生活。承担起自己的责任，活给自己看看。当我们没有了我们的责任，我们就把自己的权利交给了别人，然后变成了一个没有主见的人。如果没有主见，我们在生活中，在工作中永远处于一个可有可无的地位，甚至当别人生气的时候，很有可能自己就被他们潜意识地当成了出气筒。
怎样才能承担起自己的责任呢？
首先，改变我们的态度。是我们选择这样了，而不是环境让我们成为这样。很多人对决定论深信不疑，例如Genetic determinism，Psychic determinism, Environmental determinism.但是，这些决定论是我们无法改变的，这些是所有动物都被决定的，我们人类可以用我们的天赋去改变那些我们能决定的东西。thinking the initative, act or be acted upon, listening to our language.
然后，给自己画圈。我们现在的时间和精力都关注在哪些事情上？通过给自己画圈——关注圈（circle of concer)，然后着重关注圈里的我们能改变的事情——影响圈（circle of influence)。如果我们把精力用在影响圈的外部，那么除了耗费精力，我们什么都做不了，例如经常关注战争局势，核战争，国家统一，国家有几艘航空母舰等等这些我们改变不了的事情，除了消耗我们的精力，而且还缩减了我们的影响圈。
最后，把我们影响圈里的问题划分为三类，Direct control problem, No direct control problem and No control problem。
接着依次采取解决的办法。下面是各自解决的办法。
Direct control problems are solved by working on our habits. They are obviously within our Circle of Influence.These are the "Private Victories" of Habits 1, 2, and 3.
Indirect control problems are solved by changing our methods of influence. These are the "Public Victories" of Habits 4, 5, and 6. I have personally identified over 30 separate methods of human influence -- as separate as empathy is from confrontation, as separate as example is from persuasion.
No control problems involve taking the responsibility to change the line on the bottom on our face -- to smile, to genuinely and peacefully accept these problems and learn to live with them, even though we don't like them. In this way, we do not empower these problems to control us.
