1. Be Proactive Quick Summary: We're in charge. We choose the scripts by which to live our lives. Use this self-awareness to be proactive and take responsibility for your choices.
The first habit that Covey discusses is being proactive. What distinguishes us as humans from all other animals is our inherent ability to examine our own character, to decide how to view ourselves and our situations, and to control our own effectiveness.
Put simply, in order to be effective one must be proactive.
Reactive people take a passive stance -- they believe the world is happening to them. They say things like:
"There's nothing I can do." "That's just the way I am." They think the problem is "out there" -- but that thought is the problem. Reactivity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and reactive people feel increasingly victimized and out of control.
Proactive people, however, recognize they have responsibility -- or "response-ability," which Covey defines as the ability to choose how you will respond to a given stimulus or situation.
" It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happened to us in the first place"
In order to be proactive, we must focus on the Circle of Influence that lies within our Circle of Concern-- in other words, we must work on the things we can do something about.
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The positive energy we exert will cause our Circle of Influence to expand.
Reactive people, on the other hand, focus on things that are in their Circle of Concern but not in their Circle of Influence, which leads to blaming external factors, emanating negative energy, and causing their Circle of Influence to shrink.
Key Lesson: Challenge yourself to test the principle of proactivity by doing the following:
1. Start replacing reactive language with proactive language.
Reactive = "He makes me so mad." Proactive = "I control my own feelings."
2. Convert reactive tasks into proactive ones.
2. Begin with the End in Mind Quick Summary: Start with a clear destination in mind. Covey says we can use our imagination to develop a vision of what we want to become and use our conscience to decide what values will guide us.
Most of us find it rather easy to busy ourselves. We work hard to achieve victories -- promotions, higher income, more recognition. But we don't often stop to evaluate the meaning behind this busyness, behind these victories -- we don't ask ourselves if these things that we focus on so intently are what really matter to us.
Habit 2 suggests that, in everything we do, we should begin with the end in mind. Start with a clear destination. That way, we can make sure the steps we're taking are in the right direction.
