Habit 1 - Be Proactive

Habit 1: Be Proactive

"I know of no more encouraging fact
than the unquestionable ability of man
to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."
-Henry David Thoreau

Proactivity defined
Proactivity is more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen those things to control us. In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical and social environment. Proactive people form their own physical and social environments. The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Proactive people are still influenced by their external stimuli, but their response to the stimuli is a value based response.

Listening to our language:
Because our attitudes and behaviors flow out of our paradigms, if we use our self-awareness to examine them, we can often see in them the nature of our underlying maps. Our language, for example, is a very real indicator of the degree to which we see ourselves as proactive people. The language of reactive people absolves them of responsibility.

Reactive Language
There's nothing I can do.
That's just the way I am.
He makes me so mad.
I have to do that.
They won't allow that.
I can't.
I must.
If only.

Proactive Language
Let's look at other alternatives.
I can choose a different approach.
I control my own feelings.
I can create an effective presentation.
I will choose an appropriate response.
I choose.
I prefer.
I will.


That language [reactive] comes from a basic paradigm of determinism. And the whole spirit of it is the transfer of responsibility.



http://www.english.ilstu.edu/351/hypertext98/shachter/habitspages/habit1.html