10 Stephen Covey Quotes from The 8th Habit To Push You Towards Greatness

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Excerpt: These 10 Stephen Covey Quotes from The 8th Habit will motivate you to move beyond effectiveness and towards greatness. A must read!

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Introduction: Moving from effectiveness to greatness.

The book’s synopsis promises that The 8th Habit is the answer to the yearning for greatness, the organization’s imperative for significance and superior results, and the human’s search for its “voice.” The book is divided into two sections. The first focuses on “finding your voice” and the second on “inspiring others to find theirs.” Here is a synopsis of both parts: 

1)  Finding your voice. The essence of this habit is that you will find your voice when you can say you are 100% involved with what you are doing in your life, so that your body, mind, heart and spirit are all engaged in whatever is important to you. To find your voice, you need to examine your natural talent, what you absolutely love to do, what really interests you. And you must listen to the confirming inner voice of your conscience that tells you what is the right thing to do.

2)  Inspiring others to find their voice. When you have found your voice, you can begin inspiring others to do the same—this is really about leadership. Great leaders have always inspired people to be self-aware, to find themselves and to find their voice—that is the essence of greatness. People and organizations who have truly found their voices go on to become great.

Our hope is that by sharing these quotes from The 8th Habit with you today, you will find it within you to seek your voice and push your outer boundaries a little further as you continue to move forward. If any of these quotes get you thinking, take note, because that’s where all great changes start—as a mere thought. Good luck!

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The List:  10 Stephen Covey Quotes from The 8th Habit To Push You Towards Greatness

“Life is a mission, not a career.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 325)

“The most important work you do in the world will be within the walls of your own home.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 92)

“Retire from your job but never from meaningful projects. If you want to live a long life, you need eustress, that is, a deep sense of meaning and of contribution to worthy projects and causes, particularly, your intergenerational family.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 63)

“The key to the many is often the one; it is how you regard and talk about the one in that one’s absence or presence that communicates to the many how you would regard and talk about them in their presence or absence.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 175)

“When we say that leadership is a choice, it basically means you can choose the level of initiative you want to exercise in response to the question, ‘What is the best I can do under the given circumstances?’”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 142)

“Most leaders would agree that they’d be better off having an average strategy with superb execution than a superb strategy with poor execution.  Those who execute always have the upper hand.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 275)

“To achieve goals you’ve never achieved before, you need to start doing things you’ve never done before.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 286)

“The greatest and most inspiring mountain climbing achievements in history are not so much stories of individual achievement, but are stories of the extraordinary power of a unified, talented, prepared team that stays loyally committed to one another and to their shared vision to the end.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 0)

“Only the disciplined are truly free. The undisciplined are slaves to moods, appetites and passions.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 74)

“The successful person has formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. Successful people don’t like doing them either, necessarily. But their dislike is subordinated by the strength of their purpose.”

Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit (Page 74)

If you enjoyed these Stephen Covey quotes from The 8th Habit, you should definitely check out his book in full.  It comes highly recommended: