Habit 1 - Be Proactive

Those of you who've read "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey will probably recognize the title of today's blog post. My plan is to do an 8 part series...the 7 habits of highly effective people plus "The 8th Habit" over the next 8 days. However, I'm on call with UPS this holiday season, so I may not be able to do this in 8 consecutive days.

From www.stephencovey.com:

Your life doesn't just "happen." Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose happiness. You choose sadness. You choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.

Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather. All of these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power--you have the freedom to choose your response. One of the most important things you choose is what you say. Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself. A proactive person uses proactive language--I can, I will, I prefer, etc. A reactive person uses reactive language--I can't, I have to, if only. Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do--they have no choice.

Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.

 Like I posted on Facebook the other day:

Our lives are not determined by the circumstances we were born into (nature) nor the circumstances that were thrust upon us (nurture) but instead how we choose to deal with those circumstances (choice). 

Be proactive and choose to live your life the way YOU want to live it

Here's my planned schedule:

Monday - Habit 1 - Be Proactive

Tuesday - Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind

Wednesday - Habit 3 - Put First Things First

Thursday - Habit 4 - Think Win-win

Monday - Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood

Tuesday - Habit 6 - Synergize

Wednesday - Habit 7 - Sharpen the Saw

Thursday - The 8th Habit - Find Your Voice and Inspire Others to Find Theirs

Interesting days

Today - Button Day and Have a Party with Your Bear Day

Tomorrow - Homemade Bread Day, Entrepreneurs' Day, World Prematurity Day, Take A Hike Day, Petroleum Day and Unfriend Day

Next Monday - Fibonacci Day 11/23 are the 1st 4 digits of the Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8...

December 16 - Day Of Reconciliation and Chocolate Covered Anything Day Yum!