Be Proactive…

Trust your own intuition. Another’s mind is not walking your journey, you are… Scottie Waves 

God has created this beautiful universe. Millions of species are nurtured in this universe. And it’s Humans  who are dominating all others, you know why ???  Because of their ability to understand and response with their super intelligence.  We called it self-awareness, the distinct quality of  humans.

How we response or react to any particular circumstances may be different from person to person because we see the world with our self-paradigm. This is basically the mirror through which we see the world. 

Our mind’s conditioning is basically derived from our family or social environment. When we are driven by social or physical environment we become reactive. But if our decisions are based on values or inner voice we are proactive.

Proactive 

Proactive means the power to take decisions with responsibilities from within. It’s our inside power to take initiative. We do not much focus on external conditions rather focus towards achieving the targets. If we segregate the word “Responsibility”, it comes up with response-ability, the inside ability to response at given level of  circumstances. Generally between stimuli and response the specific time lies to take any decison and if we take decisions with our values and responsibilities, we are proactive. Some people response with negativity on any unwelcomed situation and these people are called reactive people. Let’s take a difference between both the two to understand more precisely.

Proactive v/s Reactive 

When our decisions or emotions are totally based on the conditioning of our physical or social enviornment we became reactive. We blame outside world for our failures or depends upon them for our success. For example i feel good because weather is awesome  or weather is bad so i feel bad then i am reactive as my feelings are totally depend upon outside situation. On the other hand if i am committed to do something whatever may be the situation then i am proactive. Let’s take another example: If I feel my boss always blame me for any work undone, rather he should understand my problems then i am reactive. But if i take responsibility for my unfinished work and do something to complete it i am proactive. Because i believe in myself.

Proactive people always take responsibility for their behaviour whether it’s good or bad. Proactive people are driven by their values rather than any external circumstances or conditions or persons. 

Language of Proactive people 

Language is a real indicator of our proactiveness. Whenever we blame others or external world we came in the catagory of reactive people. When in our language we consider ourselves responsible for our every act we are proactive. Let’s understand with an example.

Reactive: “He makes me mad.”,”It’s due to rain i was not in time”, ” My wife should be more corteous with me”. “I can’t”, “There is nothing i can do”…..

Proactive: ” Let’s find the alternatives”.”I can choose a different approach”. “I will definitely do it”. “I am responsible for my own behaviour”. “I will..”.

Circle of influence

As usually we find that something in our world are beyond our influence and some things are in our influence in our circle of concern. For example we are worried about world war but we can not have any influence upon it. If we are worried about our business’s profitability  but we can have influence and decisions  to take appropriate actions. So Reactive peoples are more concerned about things upon which they have no control. They focus more on weakness of others, problems of envoirnment, results in blaming etc. 

On the other hand proactive people focus on their efforts in the circle of influence. They focus on themselves how to solve the problem. In this way they increase their area of influence. For the problems they have direct control they focused on their habits and for the problems they have no any control they work on their perspective. 

From Have’s to Be’s

The simple difference between the reactive and proactive people is that reactive people are always influenced by external environment and always blame someone or something to happen for their grief. The most common phrases use by them “I will be happy only if i have….”. “If only i had a good boss.” “If i had a loving wife.”. The main scenario around this is they wish outer world to change for them.

On the other hand proactive people are well aware about inside-out approach and always go for the solutions to change himself or take initiative to do something for any problem. Their wordings are ” I can be more resourceful” “I can be more diligent , more cooperative, more creative etc.” Rather than making blame to outside they do their best to solve any problem. They work on their selves. They are much happier and always practice to be happy in any situation. Rather than making complaints in their life partner they tried to support with unconditional love, compassion and empathy.

30Days Proactivity Journal

Let’s take some action to put ourselves in the right track. We should try the 30 Days Proactivity Challenge for ourselves with writing a journal of our behaviour and note down every time we loose our track. Take the following scenario or you can write your own:

• Language we use (pitch and mindful about words)
• Make small commitments and congratulate yourself on achieving
• Don’t show or talk someone’s weakness
• Don’t argue with someone or blame someone
• Work on things you can control
• Work on you.
• Be compassionate

Hopefully at the end of 30th Day you will find a new and more confident and proactive person in yourself …

Thanks for reading,

JSH.

P.S. : The above article has been extracted from the famous book of Stephen R. Covey ” 7 Habits of highly effective people”. It is the wish of the writer to share among the world whatever you find good to share from this book.