The first habit: Proactive

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For most of us, it is always the easiest to blame someone or something about a situation that happens. Be it you are yelling on someone, business failed, client cancels the project or anything that relates. Blaming it on someone or something else makes your mind not feel guilty. Although you are not yet satisfied.

Before I get into proactive, think of it as the opposite of reactive. Being reactive means responding as per the situation without further putting any thoughts. Someone yells at you, you yell back or worse punch. Stuck in traffic, start cursing the traffic jam. Reactive is allowing the outer world control your actions. This lets you be manipulated quite easily.

Proactive thinking is to look at the situation from a different paradigm. It is being prepared for situations by practicing before confronting them. It is to take responsibility of your actions. It is looking at the pros and not being stuck at the cons if something fails. It is doing more than what you are expected. It is disciplining yourself. I will leave you with one example I read in a book:

In a small village, there was a primary school. The building structure was very weaken of the school as it hasn\’t been repaired for ages. The students were attending their classes and learning properly. One day, the building got fire and it burned down the entire building. The villagers gathered to extinguish the fire but there was nothing left behind. The villagers were, as expected, sad because of what happened. All but the one. That was the teacher of that school. He wasn\’t happy because he doesn\’t have to teach anymore but because this was an opportunity. He and the villagers have longed for a new building for the school but never had the opportunity to do it but this was it.

This story tells us that how the situation effects us is in our control. We can turn a situation like the above into an opportunity for us or be in sorrow until nothing is left by not taking responsibility and blaming others.


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