Seven Habits; This First Habit Is Known

¶ … seven habits"; this first habit is known as being proactive. According to the author being productive occurs as when a person makes the decision to take responsibility for their own life. A proactive person is one that takes and accepts responsibility without taking circumstances or the environment into account. They choose to control the way that deal with situations and how they will value and handle these situations. Proactive people do not sit around, mope or feel bad for themselves. They do not waste energy blaming other people or blaming circumstances and bad luck. They instead try to maximize their possibilities by being positive and handling the outcome of situations in a realistic manner that gives them freedom, because ultimately there are many factors one cannot control. We can however, control how we will handle these sometimes unfortunate outcomes. By choosing to be proactive people can choose to not be hurt, they can choose to maintain the integrity of their character, thereby empowering and protecting themselves. The author provided a very insightful analogy to illustrate and describe the behavior of proactive people on page 71 he states "reactive people are often affected by their physical environment; if the weather is good they feel good. If it isn't it affects their attitude and their performance, proactive people carry their own weather with them, whether it rains or shines it makes no difference to them" (covey).

Being proactive can impact an organization and people within that organization in a positive and productive manner. It can help people because it allows them to focus on and be responsible for what they, as members of the organization can control. It will allow for them to focus on their job description, and it will also shield them from a lot of meaningless and counterproductive negativity. For example if they perceive negative attitudes and reactions through their social mirror, they can be reactive or choose to be proactive. If they choose to be reactive they will be influenced and affected by what is projected in the opinions, statements and actions of others. If they choose to be proactive they will accept the fact that negativity surrounds them, they will not however, allow it to hurt them. They will instead work hard on the things they can change and control in order to improve themselves and their surroundings. According to the author it is a matter of stimulus and response. That is to say, without it being one's fault, one can be stimulated and provoked by circumstances or actions, but one can choose how to respond. We can be stimulated by three kinds of problems these three are classified as problems with: direct control, indirect control and no control. Problems with direct control we can solve or attempt to solve by working on our habits because they are directly related to our own behavior. Indirect control problems are those that occur because of the decisions and behaviors of those around us, we can try to solve these by attempting to influence their behavior through advice or positive examples. No control problems we can do nothing about, we can however try to accept them gracefully and with patience. This relates directly to what Covey describes as the "circle of concern" and the "circle of influence," because the above described problems ultimately belong in one of these two categories. The circle of concern encompasses things that we care about, that are important to us, that worry us, and that can affect us. The circle of influence encompasses those things that we can actually do something about, things we can directly influence. It is a waste of time to allow ourselves to be constantly preoccupied and stressed about happenings that reside in the circle of concern. Proactive people choose to occupy themselves with issues that exist within the circle of influence, because they can directly affect and these influence outcomes.