Are you “Proactive”?

Not to be confused with a popular acne medication… being proactive is a mindset we are all capable of (and most of us already have). Unfortunately, some of our upbringings steered us away – more toward being “reactive”. I know that for a good chunk of my life, I was reactive in every sense of the word. Not only did I always “go with the flow” – I waited and waited to be told what to do and what was going on. I was always being acted upon… and I was “ok” with it. Living with my family was the way to go - as long as I got what I wanted: toys, video games, food, I didn’t complain. However, when we are children, don’t we all want to grow up to “be” something? I doubt any of us daydreamed of letting everyone tell us what to do – it’s not in our nature. We all have dreams, the inner light of taking initiative, of wanting to BE someone – and ultimately being in control of our lives.

Habit #1 of the “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is exactly that: to Be Proactive. The word “Be” has a large part to do with it. Beyond reacting to stimuli, we need to realize that we have a choice in every aspect of our lives.
And that is the key: choice. You can either sulk about “if only” this were better or “if only” I had everything I wanted… Or… you can “Be” more resourceful, “be” more creative, “be” happy, and so on. Why? Because when you focus on “be” you can work on the one thing you do have control: yourself. No, you cannot control the weather – plus, there are hundreds of thousands of other things we do not have control over one bit. However, many of us spend time worrying about them. Mr. Covey calls this the “Circle of Concern”. Which can be “large” if you want to picture it… let’s pretend mine is the size of pizza pie or so. If we take a look at another type of circle – the circle that includes the stuff we do have some control over, or influence, this is what Stephen calls the “Circle of Influence”. This circle is usually smaller for most of us – unless you’ve got so much wealth and know so many people on the planet that the circle of concern is smaller. This is not the case with me. This “circle of influence” is the one we need to focus on and make bigger. Let’s say mine is about the size of a personal pizza, if I keep focused on the things I can change and grow my network of people, the personal-sized pizza will get bigger and hopefully, you’ll only be able to see the crust of the regular pizza underneath.

If you are proactive, you will focus on the circle of influence. Is it inborn? Learnt early in life? I am not sure. Like I said in the beginning, I used to be a very reactive person and focused on the circle of concern. I used to worry about making everyone else happy in hopes of feeling accepted, to belong to a group (mostly my family) since I had become so dependent on them. As a result, they had all the control over me. Being caught in that invisible cage, you just don’t get to realize it. To make matters worse, by being a reactive person, I was very defensive and accusatory in arguments. Instead of taking responsibility and listening - trying to find out what the problem is and finding a solution. Lastly, if you are proactive, you make your "own weather". Instead of being down when things are tough, you can carry around "your own sunshine". You set the tone and refuse to be acted upon.