hat are your habits? Many of us have a few good habits, and most of us have many bad ones. We're only human after all: procrastination, impatience, criticalness-sound familiar? How much do these affect your business? We do try to change bad habits, but unfortunately, our efforts are often in vain. We're irrevocably set in our ways. As English poet John Dryden once said, "We first make our habits and then our habits make us," right?

Stephen R. Covey's best-selling book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change" has sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated in 32 other languages. He must be on to something when he reminds us "our character, basically, is a composite of our habits."

And unfortunately, our habits-most of them deeply imbedded in our person by the time we're in our thirties-have what Covey calls "a tremendous gravity pull." It's going to take more to alter them than just a little will power and a few minor changes in our lives.

In fact, it's going to take rocket boosters of effort. But once we achieve "lift off" and break out of gravity's wrench, our freedom and our character take on a whole new facet.

Covey is Co-Chairman of FranklinCovey, a leader in effectiveness training, productivity tools, and assessment services for organizations, teams and individuals. Its clients include 90% of the Fortune 100, more than 75% of the Fortune 500, thousands of small and mid-sized businesses, and numerous government entities and educational institutions.

If the philosophies described in "The 7 Habits" can help these guys, they might certainly be able to help you and your business. But one factor is of utmost necessity: You must be willing to change.

The book's title is self-prophesizing: Covey outlines a different "habit" in each chapter. These aren't bad habits, but positive ones, and those who embrace them are promised at first evolutionary growth, followed by revolutionary growth. After all, they are the habits of successful people.

Contrary to Dryden's belief, Covey says whatever our situation we are not our habits. That instead we truly can replace old patterns of "self-defeating behavior" with new ones-those of "effectiveness, happiness and truth-based relationships."

The first step in this change is a shift in our perceptions in the way the world works and especially of other people. Covey calls this a paradigm shift. He illustrates this idea-how easily we can be fooled by our perceptions-in a picture of a young woman.

She is strikingly beautiful, her head is turned to the left; she's wearing an elaborate hat and a thick fur around her neck. However, when someone else looks at the picture, they see something different. They see an older woman, much older, with a very large nose and thick bangs; she is wearing a scarf and her face is turned downward, as if she is very sad.

Which one is correct?

Surprise! Both are correct. The idea, Covey says, is that two people can see the same thing, disagree, and both be right. Different influences in our lives-our families, friends, work and our belief systems have conditioned us and helped frame our references, our maps and our paradigms.

When we recognize this, it serves as the "A-ha!" that helps us change the way we look into the lens through which we view the world. And often this process is not immediate, but rather it takes some time.

Covey's seven habits (and seven of the 11 chapters) are as follows:

• Be Proactive
• Begin with the End in Mind
• Put First Things First
• Think Win/Win
• Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
• Synergize
• Sharpen the Saw

Each chapter offers an in-depth explanation of the "habit" and includes diagrams, exercises and many examples from Covey's personal and professional life to illustrate his points. Each chapter ends with a homework assignment, called "Application Suggestions," which allow you to begin applying what you have learned.

Covey also includes two appendixes-both very detailed. Appendix B presents a business setting scenario in which you can test your new knowledge of the "7 Habits" to effectively schedule and prioritize your day.

If your "habit" is to skim business or self-help books, here is one place you can already make a change. "7 Habits" is not a book you should skim through over your lunch break. Take the time to carefully read each chapter, study it, take notes, do the exercises and process and digest what you have learned. There is a lot of great stuff here, and if you are truly committed to making a change, this is one good place to start.

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change" By Stephen R. Covey Free Press, New York, New York, 1989 ISBN: 0-671-66398-4; 0-671-70863-5 (Pbk) 360 pages Available at most major bookstores and online at www.amazon.com