Be Proactive

The concept of proactivity is not something new. It has been there since time immemorial and has been espoused by many who treaded the path of life ahead of us and left their lasting legacy. But it took a man in our contemporary history to give a name to it; a name that has become universally accepted; a name that has an appeal; a name that sells. This man is Stephen Covey; the man who developed the famous self-help school of thought that is the 7 Basic Habits of Highly Effective People.

Habit is the interaction of knowledge, skill, and desire.  “Being proactive”  is the 1^st Habit; the habit of personal vision; it means taking responsibility for our attitudes, and actions; taking responsibility for our own lives.   The key word is “responsibility”.   Break the word “responsibility” into two parts:  response/ability. Proactive people develop the ability to choose their response, making them more of a product of their values and decisions than their moods and conditions.  Proactive people make things happen.

Many behavioral scientists have built reactive stimulus-response models of human behavior based on studies of animals, such as rats and dogs.  These theorists asserted that:

Stimulus (S) elicits programmed Response (R) that is more or less automatic.

                

They advocated the idea of programmed responses of humans to stimuli.

                                                                                                                           

Conversely, little research, if any at all, has been conducted with healthy, creative, proactive people who exercise the freedom to choose their response to any given internal or external stimulus

                  Stimulus (S)        FREEDOM            Response (R)

The point is, the more we exercise our freedom to choose our response/ability, the more PROACTIVE we become. It is a “habit that feeds in itself”.  So many things can be said to explain proactivity, but the following phrase  would say it all: 

To “be proactive” means:  to be an architect of out own life.

THE DONKEY STORY

One day a farmer's donkey fell into a well. The farmer frantically thought what to do as the stricken animal cried out to be rescued. With no obvious solution, the farmer regretfully concluded that as the donkey was old, and as the well needed to be filled in anyway, he should give up the idea of rescuing the beast, and simply fill in the well. Hopefully the poor animal would not suffer too much, he tried to persuade himself.

The farmer asked his neighbors’ help, and before long they all began to shovel earth quickly into the well. When the donkey realized what was happening he wailed and struggled, but then, to everyone's relief, the noise stopped.

After a while the farmer looked down into the well and was astonished by what he saw. The donkey was still alive, and progressing towards the top of the well. The donkey had discovered that by shaking off the dirt instead of letting it cover him, he could keep stepping on top of the earth as the level rose. Soon the donkey was able to step up over the edge of the well, and he happily trotted off.

                LIFE TENDS TO SHOVEL DIRT ON TOP OF EACH OF US FROM    TIME TO TIME. THE TRICK IS TO SHAKE IT OFF AND TAKE A STEP UP.

 Proactive people are Victors out of a situation while reactive people are Victims of a situation. 

So, ladies & gentlemen, what do we choose?