Self-help books aren’t really my preferred choice of reading material, but a colleague gave me a copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People a few years ago. In an effort to actually read the books I own rather than letting them sit on my shelf, I took it to work with me and have been reading it on my lunch break. I’ll save a review of it for when I’ve read it all the way through, but as I’m approaching the half-way point, I can’t get away from the feeling that there’s a good chunk missing from the book. Self-improvement is all good and well, and I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade. However, it seems a lot like stapling cardboard fruit onto an apple tree. That fruit is of limited usefulness.
The missing piece amid his advice on being centered on principle, knowing your destination before you try to plan the route, and investing time in important matters rather than trivial, is the power of the Holy Spirit. We can put all the effort we want into remaking ourselves into better leaders, better spouses, better parents, better humans, but apart from the Holy Spirit, we’re only going to get so far.
It reminds me of our recent small group Bible study on Philippians. Paul doesn’t tell us that we can be content regardless of circumstances if we try harder, if we just tap into the joy within ourselves, or if we refocus on the end goal of contentment. He says that we can persevere through difficulty, rejoice in the Lord always, be unified with people who are unlike us in many ways, not by trying harder but through Christ.
At the end of the day – and the end of the book, really – yes, there are some useful, practical things that can be learned from secular books such as 7 Habits. Books like this aren’t bad to read, and I think it’s wise to learn what we can when we can from the sources available to us. I think it’s also wise to be aware of the limitations and keep our expectations realistic: anything attempted in and of ourselves, on our own strength, is likely to have results more limited than we would like.