Dr. Stephen Covey states Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle. It primarily emphasizes exercise for physical renewal, prayer (meditation, yoga, etc.) and good reading for mental renewal. It also mentions service to society for spiritual renewal. Covey explains the "Upward Spiral" model in the sharpening the saw section. Through our conscience, along with meaningful and consistent progress, the spiral will result in growth, change, and constant improvement. In essence, one is always attempting to integrate and master the principles outlined in The 7 Habits at progressively higher levels at each iteration. Subsequent development on any habit will render a different experience and you will learn the principles with a deeper understanding. The Upward Spiral model consists of three parts: learn, commit, do. According to Covey, one must be increasingly educating the conscience in order to grow and develop on the upward spiral. The idea of renewal by education will propel one along the path of personal freedom, security, wisdom, and power

1. —Author Unknown

2. A young man approached the foreman
of a logging crew and asked for a job.
"That depends," replied the foreman.
"Let's see you fell this tree."
The young man stepped forward and
skilfully felled a great tree.
Impressed, the foreman
exclaimed, "You can start
Monday."

3. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday rolled by.
Thursday afternoon the foreman
approached the young man and
said, "You can pick up your pay
check on the way out today."
Startled, the young man replied,
"I thought you paid on Friday."

4. "Normally we do," said the
foreman. "But we're letting
you go today because
you've fallen behind. Our
daily felling charts show that
you've dropped from first
place on Monday to last
place today."
"But I'm a hard worker," the
young man objected. "I
arrive first, leave last and
even have worked through
my coffee breaks!"

5. The foreman, sensing the
young man's integrity,
thought for a minute and
then asked,
"Have you been
sharpening your axe?"
The young man replied, "No sir, I've been working
too hard to take time for that!"

6. Our lives are like that.
We sometimes get so busy
that we don't take time to
"sharpen the axe.”
In today's world, it seems that
everyone is busier than ever
but less happy than ever.
Why is that?

7. There's nothing wrong with activity
and hard work. But God doesn't
want us to get so busy that we
neglect the truly important things in
life, like taking time to pray, to read
and study scripture or to listen to
“the still small voice of God.”
We all need time to relax, to think
and meditate, to learn and grow.
If we don't take time to
sharpen the axe, we will become
dull and lose our effectiveness.