Proactive or Reactive : Where do you Fit in ?

The phrase “be proactive rather than reactive” in my own experience seems popularly used within work environments mostly in business, leadership roles and is commonly linked to success. It then begs the question, how often do we apply this to our personal life? I suppose when we have a proactive day at home we subsequently feel good and when we do have a reactive day we most likely feel drained; tired and bad…This article intends to link the application of being proactive in all our day to day activities with the view of enhancing our overall general wellbeing and be happy.

“Happiness is a conscious choice not an automatic response” By Mildred Barthel

I cannot help but refer to one of my favourite authors Dr Viktor Frankl who used the word Proactive to describe a person who takes responsibility for his or her life, rather than looking for causes outside circumstances or other people. Frankl stressed the importance of courage, perseverance, individual responsibility and awareness of the existence of choices regardless of the situation or context.

The Reactive person on the other hand will not take responsibility, make knee –jerk decisions at times. They will focus on the weakness of other people, problems around them and can spend the whole day, perhaps all their life blaming and accusing others. My view is they see everything that is wrong with others but not them selves hence hesitant to make reparation.

“The Happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts” By M.S Antoninus

These are some traits of Mr or Ms Reactive!
-Worries about almost everything around and everyone them.
-Are very subjective.
-Blame others….. :-(
-Makes excuses most of the times
-Their favourite word is “I can’t”/ I cannot ….
-They take sides for others.
-Talks about everyone and generally are the ones who gossip.
-One of their popular explanations is “oh!” That’s just me or it is in my nature!
-It’s not my responsibly.
-Feels overly responsible to others.
-They are usually easily driven by events of others and things around them easily.
-Says things like “what’s the point anyway”
-Slow to make productive decisions, Instead will spend more time wallowing over what could go wrong.
-Can be short fused and driven by anger.
-Basically they react to most if not all situations they are confronted with.

These are traits of Mr or Ms Proactive !
-Are able to look at solutions and different alternatives
-Takes responsibility
-Have a familiar phrase “I can” “I will” approach and attitude to life.
-Are able to project ahead and make plans
-Are able to make more productive choices in life
-They are generally creative peoples.
-They are able to use their initiative.
-Do have more ability to control their responses to circumstances they could be faced with and make creative choices.
-Blames less are more occupied with what now, what next and how too.
-Have a positive outlook to life
-Hardly gets lost in event they are generally creative and innovative people.
-Learn from mistakes
-They understand that they can make choices

The Big Question is where do you fit???

“ Whoever is Happy will make others Happy too” By Mark Twain.

In our personal lives especially at home we are most likely relaxed and have no one to remind us of the need to be proactive. However ,by just applying and integrating the whole concept of proactivity into our daily lives not just within the work environment but in life as a whole will enhance our general well being. A classical example is the current recession; some people have either lost their jobs or homes but still have been able to creatively discover new skills within themselves as suppose to blaming and drooling over the current economy. Another example is of a friend who just broke up with her partner but then started therapy to get over the trauma and pick herself up .If she was a reactive person she could have simply or perhaps thrown in the towel in resignation, hate all men and possibly avoid another relationship for life!

Sharing the above information in this manner is to increase our awareness; where you can search within yourself and subsequently make an assessment of what makes you act the way you do and live the way you do. This is what is called self discovery. The view here is to learn to discover you to improve you and get the best out of life.

Self discovery is about understanding our subconscious emotional patterns and limiting beliefs. It helps and empowers us with the ability to soberly reflect and make significant changes to our life.

“Most people struggle with life balance simply because they haven't paid the price to decide what is really important to them” By Stephen Covey

Good Luck on your journey of self discovery……