PERSONAL VICTORY

If you are interested in personal development I highly recommend you purchase Steven Covey's book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I read it for the first time in early 90s and I find myself going back to it as I learn more about myself and the others I interact with.

Here is a condensed summary of a chapter from the book:

Be Proactive

In our society, we have accepted 3 deterministic explanations of human limitations: genetic determinism, psychic determinism and environmental determinism.

On closer examination, we discover that between stimulus and response, human beings have the freedom to choose our response. We don't have to function on "auto pilot".

Proactivity is responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.

Taking the initiative means recognizing our responsibility to make things happen. Use your R(esourcefulness) and I(nitiative).

We need to understand how we focus our time and energy to be effective. The things we are concerned about could be described as our "Circle of Concern". There are things we can really do something about, that can be described as our "Circle of Influence". When we focus our time and energy in our Circle of Concern, but outside our Circle of Influence, we are not being effective. However, we find that being proactive helps us expand our Circle of Influence. (Work on things you can do something about.)

The Circle of Concern is filled with the "have" statements. The Circle of Influence is indicated by "be" statements. Anytime we think the problem is "out there," that thought is the problem.

At the heart of our Circle of Influence is our ability to make and keep commitments and promises. Our integrity in keeping commitments and the ability to make commitments are the clearest manifestations of proactivity.

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Last modified: March 9, 2004

Disclaimer: This website is the sole responsibility of Mike McMahon. It does not represent any official opinions, statement of facts or positions of the Alameda Unified School District. Its sole purpose is to disseminate information to interested individuals in the Alameda community.