The Habit of Proactivity

Social Mirrors:

In a society we believe in three deterministic explanations (that is, we lack stimulus freedom) of human inadequacy:

genetic determinism: It says, "Its a fault of your genes."

psychic determinism: "Fault of your parential upbringing."

environmental determinism: "Fault of your conditioning."

"All these 'faults' are out there. They're not in you."

Stimulus Freedom or Free Will:

But as we observe closely we will find that between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.

Proactivity Defined:

Proactivity means that, as human beings:

• We are responsible for our own lives.
• We can decide how the stimulus is going to affect us
• We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.
• Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions.
• We can subordinate feelings to values.
• We are by nature proactive.

Three Central Values of Frankl:

Victor Frankl suggests that there are three central values in life:

• the experiential (that which happens to us),
• the creative (that which we bring into existence),
• and the attitudinal (our response to difficult circumstances such as terminal illness).

Taking the Initiative:

Taking the initiative means that we can at least affirm our basic nature and create an atmosphere where people can seize oppportunities and solve examples self-reliantly.

Act or be Acted Upon:

Proacitvity is facing reality and realising the we have the power to choose a 'postive response' our circumstances.

Circle of Concer/Circle of CInfluence:

We are concerned about many things with which we have emotional involvement. It is called as our "Circle of Concern".

Things over which we can excercise some control are called as our "Circle of Influence".

Reactive people focus their time and efforts on "Circle of Concern". But, when we work on things you can do something about. We're being effective and proactive

Direct, Indirect or No Control:

Our problems fall in three areas:

• Direct Control (problems involving our own behavior),
• Indirect Control (problems involving other people's behavior),
• or No Control (problems we can do nothing about).

Habit 1,2 & 3 deal with Direct control. Habit 5,6 deal with Indirect Control. No control can be best dealt with attitude.