Stephen Covey writes:

Your life doesn't just "happen." Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices, after all, are yours. You choose happiness. you choose sadness. you choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives you a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.

Habit 1: Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather. All of these external forces act as stimuli that we respond to. Between the stimulus and the response is your greatest power--you have the freedom to choose your response. One of the most important things you choose is what you say. Your language is a good indicator of how you see yourself. A proactive person uses proactive language--I can, I will, I prefer, etc. A reactive person uses reactive language--I can't, I have to, if only. Reactive people believe they are not responsible for what they say and do--they have no choice.

Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.


OUR CONTEXT:

Related Values:

• Accept Responsibility
• Be a Leader

Summary:

• God is in charge of everything.
• We are in charge or our choices.
• We choose our attitude.
• We choose how to spend out time and money.
• The opposite of proactive is reactive.

A Bad Example: Cain in Genesis 4:1-12

• Abel's offering received God's approval.
  Cain's offering did not.

• Cain was angry.
• God warned Cain.
• Cain had to choose:
  - Be proactive, accept responsibility and bring an acceptable offering
  OR
  - Be reactive, let anger grow and lead him to murder.

• Cain made the wrong choice.

A Good Example: Habakkuk 3:17-19

• No fruit to eat
• No juice to drink
• No oil to cook
• No bread
• No milk
• No food

Habakkuk made a choice:

• He decided to praise God
• He decided to have a positive attitude
• He trusted in God to help him
• He could not control his circumstances, but he could control his attitude
• He did not react and let all the bad things that happened take away his joy in living or his faith in God
• We need to accept responsibility for our attitude and make good choices.

Other verses:

• No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV)
• Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve ... but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15 NIV)
• I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. (Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV)