Habit 1: Be Proactive summary

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HABIT 1:
Be Proactive
http://www.MBASkills.IN

Marketing Professor 2009 – 2013
Ph.D. and M.S. (Marketing) 2003 – 2009
Marketing Professor 2013 –
Indian Institute of Management,
Lucknow
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© Sameer Mathur
Prof. Sameer Mathur
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What does
being
proactive
mean?
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Sameer Mathur, Ph.D. (Carnegie Mellon Univ.) MBASkills.IN

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Sameer Mathur, Ph.D. (Carnegie Mellon University) www.BuddingMarkets.com
Being proactive
means more
than taking
initiative.

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It means we are
responsible for
our own lives.

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Our behavior is
a function of our
decisions, not
our conditions.

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“Responsibility” is the
ability to choose your response.

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Highly proactive people do not
blame circumstances,
conditions or conditioning.

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Their behavior is a product
of their own conscious
choice, based on values,
rather than a product of those
conditions, based on feeling.

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Reactive people are
more affected by their
physical environment.
If the weather is good, they feel
good. If it isn’t, it affects their
attitude and performance.

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Proactive people
carry their own
weather with them.

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They are still influenced
by external stimuli,
but their response, conscious
or unconscious, is a value-
based response or
choice.

Initiative?
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Taking the Initiative
Taking initiative does
not mean being pushy,
obnoxious or
aggressive, but..

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Taking the Initiative
..recognizing your
responsibility to
make things
happen.

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People who end
up with good jobs
are the proactive
ones;

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they are solutions
to problems, not
problems
themselves

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They seize the
initiative to do
whatever is necessary,
to be consistent with
correct principles and
to get the job done.

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Act or Be Acted Upon
If you wait to be acted
upon, you will be acted
upon.

Language?
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Language
Language is a real
indicator of the degree to
which you see yourself as
a proactive person.

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The language of
reactive people
absolves them of
responsibility.

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A serious problem with reactive
language is that it
becomes a self-
fulfilling prophecy.

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Examples of reactive language:
There’s nothing I
can do;

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That’s just the
way I am;

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I have to do that;
and I can’t

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On the other hand, proactive
language takes responsibility.

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Let’s look at our
alternatives;

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I can choose a
different approach;

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I control my own
feelings, and I will.

Circles of
Concern and
Influence
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Circle of Concern and
Circle of Influence
We each have a wide range of
concerns - health, children,
problems at work, the national
debt and nuclear war.

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We could separate those
from things in which we have
no mental or emotional
involvement by creating a
“Circle of Concern.”

Circles
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Within our Circle of Concern
are some things over which
we have no control and some
we can do something about.
We could identify those in the
latter group as within our
Circle of Influence.

Circles
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Proactive people focus their
efforts in the Circle of
Influence. The nature of their
energy is positive, enlarging
and magnifying, causing their
Circle of Influence to increase.

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Reactive people focus their
efforts on the Circle of
Concern, which results in
blaming, accusing attitudes
and increasing feelings of
victimization, causing their
Circle of Influence to shrink.

Circles
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Direct, Indirect and No Control
The problems we face fall in one
of three areas:
1. Direct control problems are
solved by working on our
habits, which are within our
Circle of Influence. These are
the “Private Victories” of Habits
1, 2 and 3.

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2. Indirect control problems are
solved by changing our
methods of influence. These
are the “Public Victories” of
Habits 4, 5, 6 and 7.

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3. No control problems involve
taking responsibility to smile,
to genuinely and peacefully
accept and learn to live with
these problems, even when we
don’t like them.

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Proactivity: The 30-Day Test
For 30 days, work only in your
Circle of Influence. Make small
commitments and keep them.
Be part of the solution, not
part of the problem.

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When you make a mistake,
admit it, correct it and learn
from it - immediately. Don’t get
into a blaming, accusing
mode. Work on things you
have control over.

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HABIT 1:
Be Proactive

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