ICRAVE Proactive vs. Reactive Response

Your life is the result of your own decisions, not your conditions.

• Being reactive is not taking responsibility for your own life.  You always see yourself as a victim.

Respond rather than react

• Between what happens to us (stimulus) and our response is a space.  In that space lays our power and our freedom to choose our response and in those choices lay our growth and our happiness.
• Even in the midst of challenging circumstances, we have this exhilarating power to choose how we will respond.

No one can make you mad unless you let them. It’s your choice. You chose to be mad.

Proactive vs. Reactive

• Those who take responsibility for their lives and those who blame; those who make it happen and those who get happened to.
• Each day we have about 100 chance to choose whether to be proactive or reactive.
• Reactive people make choices based on impulse.  Proactive people make choices based on values. 
• Proactive people recognize that they can’t control everything that happens to them, but they can control what they do about it. 
  • “I’m not going to let that guy get me upset and ruin my day.”
    • Different scenes, with different choices

Listen to your Language

• Reactive language… “That’s me. That’s just the way I am.” “Thanks a lot, you just ruined my day.”
• What they are really saying… “I’m not responsible for the way I act.” “I’m not in control of my own moods.”

Reactive language takes power away from you and gives it to something or someone else.

• When you’re reactive it’s like giving someone else the remote control to your life and saying, “Here, change my mood anytime you wish.”

Re-source: Response

a reaction to something

There is one thing we can control: How we respond to what happens to us. And that is what counts! This is why we need to stop worrying about things we can’t control and start worrying about things we can.

• What will happen if we spend our time and energy worrying about things we can’t control, like a rude comment, a past mistake, or the weather? 
  • We’ll feel even more out of control, as if we were victims.

It is up to us to control how we respond. Every time we have a setback, it’s an opportunity for us to turn it into a triumph.

• “So much has been given to me. I have no time to ponder that which has been denied.” – Helen Keller

Sometime problems go back for generations (Child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, dependency on welfare, high school dropouts, etc.)

• The good news is that you can stop the cycle. Because you are proactive, you can stop these bad habits from being passed on. You can become a “change agent” and pass on good habits to future generations.

Being Proactive

• You take responsibility for your life
• You have a “can-do” attitude.
• “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don’t believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”     – George Bernard Shaw

Pause – If someone is rude to you, you get the power to resist being rude back by pressing pause just like you would on your remote control. (found in the middle of your forehead)

• Sometimes life is moving so fast that we instantly react to everything out of sheer habit.
• If you can learn to pause, get control, and think about how you want to respond, you’ll make smarter decisions.

Use your “Human Tool Box” to help you decide what to do while your life is on pause

• Self-Awareness:  I can stand apart from myself and observe my thoughts and actions
• Conscience:  I can listen to my inner voice to know right from wrong.
• Imagination:  I can envision new possibilities.
• Willpower:  I have the power to choose.

Respond rather than react

• Between what happens to us (stimulus) and our response is a space. 
• In that space lays our power and our freedom to choose our response and in those choices lay our growth and our happiness.
• Even in the midst of challenging circumstances, we have this exhilarating power to choose how we will respond.

craving and resource from “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Convey and “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” by Sean Covey