Engage in the process of being more proactive by adopting these seven habits outlined in this blog; they are designed to help you realize your full potential and get you closer to living a life that is both purposeful and fulfilling. You may learn more about this route by reading this book, “The Proactive Journey.” These routines are not just guides; rather, they are powerful tools that you have at your disposal, and they are intended to offer you the opportunity to seize control of your destiny. It is time to go on this transforming adventure, and “The Proactive Journey” will serve as your roadmap to help you traverse the landscape of these empowered habits and assist you in opening the doors to both personal and professional development. The first step of a journey is sometimes the hardest, but by adopting these practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the proactive, resilient, and a purposeful person that you were designed to be. It is a voyage that will cause you to rethink how you live your life and how you affect the world.
| Table Of Contents |
| Be proactive, focus, and act on what you can control and influence instead of what you can’t! |
| Begin with the end in mind! |
| Put things first! |
| Think win-win! |
| Seek first to understand, then to be understood! |
| Synergize! |
| Sharpen the saw! |
| In Conclusion! |
Be proactive, focus, and act on what you can control and influence instead of what you can’t!
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Let’s face it, life can be challenging. We all have things in our life that challenge us, whether it is people, situations or the environment we live in.
This is one of those lessons that is so painfully obvious that it’s difficult to understand why anyone would bother to teach it. If we truly can’t change something, then why would we ever spend any time on it? If you’re human like me, you know all too well that we spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking and acting on things that are fundamentally outside of our control. This element of human nature can have distracting and damaging consequences. As human beings, we have the capacity to be proactive. We can focus on the things that we can actually do something about, or we can add to the stress in our lives by worrying and fretting over the things we have no control over.
Gaining awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies is a giant step toward becoming proactive. This concept is easy to remember and is a great tool to direct our energy and actions in meaningful ways toward things we do have control over.
Over to you…
So now that you know about the Circles of Concern, Influence, and Control, how are you going to apply this knowledge? You might like to invest some time reflecting on the following questions:
1. Where are you currently spending the majority of your focus and time? In the circle of concern or influence?
2. Are you currently being as personally effective as you can in your life?
3. What strategies or tools could you use to help you focus on the things you can control and transform your life?
4. What can you do today to expand your circle of influence and build more positive energy in your life and at work?
Begin with the end in mind!
So, what do you want to be when you grow up? That question may appear a little trite, but think about it for a moment. Are you—right now—who you want to be, what you dreamed you’d be, and doing what you always wanted to do? Be honest. Sometimes people find themselves achieving victories that are empty—successes that have come at the expense of things that were far more valuable to them. If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.
The ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don’t make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It’s about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself. Begin with the end in mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.
One of the best ways to incorporate it into your life is to develop a personal mission statement. It focuses on what you want to be and do. It is your plan for success. It reaffirms who you are, puts your goals in focus, and moves your ideas into the real world. Your mission statement makes you the leader of your own life. You create your own destiny and secure the future you envision.
Put things first!
Filling your glass
Let’s say you have water, sand, pebbles, and rocks. Your task is to get everything into a glass. There’s only one right way to do it. You have to put your biggest items first—your rocks. Then, you can fit your pebbles in the spaces that were left after the rocks went in. You can do the same thing with the sand, using the spaces left over by the pebbles. Finally, you can pour the water in. Since water is a liquid, it will automatically filter through to settle in the last available space. Your glass will be full to the brim.
If you were to fill your glass in any other order, it would overflow and you wouldn’t be able to get everything in. If you put the sand in first, you won’t be able to get your big rocks in. Your tasks are the same. You need to put your biggest, most important tasks first.
The benefits of putting the big rocks first
If you put the most important things first in your day, then you can feel a major sense of accomplishment. It’s no big deal if you don’t get to the little, relatively insignificant things later on because the important things got done. For the vast majority of us, it’s impossible to get everything done in the course of a day that needs to be done. The volume is just too much. Given this, isn’t it best to get the most important stuff first.
Bearing this in mind, think about how you spend your days. What do you do first? Email? Useless meetings? If yes, then you’ve got huge opportunity to improve your productivity by putting more important tasks ahead of unimportant ones.
How to put this into practice
I suggest ending each day by taking 15 minutes to decide what major tasks need to be accomplished the next day. These are your “big rocks”. Don’t choose any more than one or two items. When you come to work the next morning, make sure you start your day with one of those tasks. Don’t even open your email client if you don’t have to. This is an excellent tip: pretend that your day ends at noon and that you’re racing to get what you need done. If you, for whatever reason, can’t get to your big tasks in the morning, no big deal! You still have all afternoon to get to them. I think this is excellent advice and helps to frame in our minds what really needs to get done in a day.
If you can identify your big rocks and prioritize them with a sense of urgency, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish in the course of a week.
Take a minute right now and write out a list of the big rocks in your work life. Make a plan for which of these rocks you’re going to tackle first thing tomorrow morning. Write the task on a sticky note to remind you of what you need to focus on when you come into the office tomorrow. Then, just do it! Focus your time and attention on that single task before you move on to anything else. Remember: Your day ends at noon, so you need to do those few really important things first.
Think win-win!
What Exactly Is A “Win-Win”?
In the simplest of terms, a win-win situation is where each person involved in some sort of interaction feels like they have benefited from it. It can be something as mundane as exchanging favours (e.g., if you babysit my kids, I will pick up your dry cleaning) or as complex as a multimillion-dollar deal (e.g., in a merger, one company gains additional territory while the other gains key talent). It doesn’t have to be exactly equal, nor does it have to occur at the same time. All that is necessary for a win-win to occur is that the parties involved perceive a mutual benefit. Or, stated another way, it’s an agreement where the parties involved gain more benefit from the agreement than without it.
Seek first to understand, then to be understood!
The first four habits are:
- Always be proactive
- Lets begin with the end in mind
- Start with first things first
- Make sure you have a win-win mindset
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” From a marketing perspective, the foundation of this habit is communication. It is the marketer’s role to create meaningful, compelling, and marketplace-centered messaging that is consistent with the company’s mission, vision, and brand. Content creation and delivery of marketing messages evolve based on knowledge of, appreciation for, and empathy with the company’s target audiences and stakeholders. The process begins with listening to others.
Seek First to Understand
Most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand. We’re all guilty of this. Most often, we are too busy preparing our responses for when it’s our turn to speak. Additionally, we tend to frame what others say based on our own perspective. Stephen Covey coins this as “autobiographical listening.” Listening in this way results in the intention to agree or disagree, give counsel based on our own experience, or interpret motives and behavior based on our own psyche.
According to Covey, there are five levels of listening. They are:
- Ignoring: Not listening at all
- Pretend listening: Saying “uh huh” and “right,” but not being present in the conversation
- Selective listening: Hearing part of what the person says, but generally distracted
- Attentive listening: Paying attention, but still listening from one’s own perspective
- Empathetic listening: Listening not only to the person’s words, but understanding what a person is feeling from their perspective.
Common sense tells us only the last one is truly effective. Empathetic listening demonstrates more appreciation, acceptance, and compassion for others. When we listen this way, we put ourselves in other people’s shoes and see the world through their lens. As such, empathetic listening, while rare, is a powerful skill that requires continuous practice and attention.
The Practice of Understanding
Listening attentively is a focus-based task. Below are some tips and suggestions that marketers can use as they seek to understand as well as to be understood.
Seek to understand:
- Truly explore the nature of the problems or challenges others are they facing.
- Ask about the solution(s) they seek or are considering. What are they using now? What’s working and what isn’t?
- Determine what considerations are important to others in making a buying decision.
- Make sure your messaging resonates, engages and addresses their interests and concerns.
- Find out how, when and where they like to receive information.
- Inquire about their time and budget considerations.
Seek to be understood.
- Build rapport so you are perceived as someone who is professional, reliable and trustworthy.
- People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Make sure to demonstrate a sincere interest in others before sharing your solutions. Let them know your goal is to be of service.
- Develop meaningful content for your marketing outreach efforts that articulates your solutions to customers’ and prospects’ pain points.
- Ask for feedback and encourage questions to identify, reduce and eliminate your prospects’ and customers’ fears, uncertainties and doubts.
- Provide prospects and customers with references, guarantees and assurances to help them make a positive buying decision based not only on emotion but logic as well.
The Bottom Line
The foundation for effective communication is listening. Listening, however, is not a passive activity. It requires focus, attention, empathy and the ability to translate what is being said (or isn’t being said) into what is really important. Whether you do this in person or through written communications (emails, blogs, white papers, articles, newsletters, presentations, brochures, advertising, etc.), seek to understand and then engage with your target audiences.
Synergize!
To achieve synergy in professional or personal life, one should communicate and shift the paradigm by following these steps:
Know Yourself
Before starting a disagreement, know about your own weaknesses and strengths, ground realities, knowledge, and self-actualization. The most difficult part of this step is to realize and accept your own shortcomings. We need to have an unbiased opinion of our own personalities.
Know your Competitor
When following the process of achieving synergy, always keep in mind the opponent’s strengths, emotions, feelings, and unique individuality as everyone is blessed with; different capabilities, knowledge, skills, and possess different experiences.
Be a Good Listener
Listen to the other person, this 3rd step of the process plays a vital role in achieving Synergy. Understanding the other’s point of view gives you the freedom to rethink and re-evaluate your perspective, from here you shift your paradigm towards a win-win situation.
Collaborate with Positivity
When you drive on to the same way with thorough understanding, you begin to see the problem or issue with a different lens altogether. This time you well understood the other person’s point of view. Now you can synergize in order to achieve and produce more and better results.
We can apply or practice the above steps in our routine life be it personal or professional to keep our mental health stable. The key is to communicate, communicate and communicate.
Each management role—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling—depends on effective communication. By following the above four steps, we can not only solve the problems but also make things better in our personal and professional lives. As Stephen Covey says.
“Human life is interdependent! We can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success”
Sharpen the saw!
Sharpen the Saw Analogy
Keep your resources “healthy” by spending wisely, from original cash to additional investments. Spend and use resources wisely, just like you shouldn’t overeat or sit too much. Create a realistic budget and adjust as circumstances change.
Spirituality is service and mission. Avoid the problem of the worker slicing a tree with an unsharpened instrument by sharpening your spiritual saw. He understood what to do but didn’t comprehend the wider picture or why. Company mission adds spirituality to marketing. Every organization’s activity should support and contribute to its mission. Create a mission statement that reflects your ideals. Follow a marketing plan to keep everyone on track.
Mental = thinking leadership growth. Marketers must actively establish industry expertise. From believing to becoming an expert, you can build or kill a corporation. Keep up with industry trends and news to stay informed. Regularly learn and improve to sharpen the saw. Talk to other thought leaders and keep learning. Give back by sharing your relevant thought leadership in blogs, articles, or white papers.
Social=relationships. Business and marketing relationships are as vital as personal ones. Important relationships exist between employees, prospects and marketers, salespeople and clients, executives, and interns. To sharpen your social and emotional skills, emphasize interdependence. Self-security is the foundation of a strong relationship, and then understanding and communication follow. First comprehend, then be understood, then find win-win scenarios.
In Conclusion!
To be proactive with Stephen R. Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” in your life, you must realize that they are a lifetime path of personal improvement. Start being proactive with Habit 1, accepting responsibility for your behaviors and answers. Habit 2 then suggests setting goals to guide your decisions. Habit 3 promotes time management to focus on what counts. Habits 4 and 5 promote positive conversation and win-win solutions. Habit 6 harnesses teamwork to create synergy. Finally, Habit 7 emphasizes self-care and growth to retain energy and perspective for proactive living. A proactive lifestyle is not merely a collection of habits. Self-awareness, purposeful effort, and personal progress are needed. By following these habits, you may develop the mentality and abilities to live proactively and make decisions that reflect your beliefs and goals in life and work. Remember, it’s a journey, not a destination, and proactiveness pays off.