DIY 7 HABITS: HABIT 1/BE PROACTIVE
Our little group of budding Coveyites is picking up steam, including adding an eighth member for our discussion of Habit 1: Be Proactive.
Proactive is not a word that was prevalent in the American vernacular before Dr. Covey made it a pillar of the business leadership zeitgeist of the late-20th century. As the father of proactivity, he took the liberty of defining the term as follows: “It means that as human beings, we are 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.”
Having put this stake in the ground, Covey differentiated the proactive from the reactive person. The reactive mindset is one of determinism that reveals itself in genetic, psychic, and environmental dimensions. People stuck in reactivity have convinced themselves that they are without choice in how they interact with the world. They are not responsible. Their heritage, parents, or environment dictate who they are and how they behave.
Covey dismissed this paradigm as a denial of the very essence of our humanity. He wrote, “We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them…self-awareness allows us to stand apart…” Who we are is the owner of our feelings, moods, and thoughts, and although external factors have an impact, at the end of the day, we still have the ability to choose. Our agency cannot be taken away. Only we can give it away. The proactive fully embody their ownership, their agency.
To be proactive means to exercise one’s agency and be accountable for meticulously choosing what we value and how we align our thoughts, words, and actions with those principle-based values. Covey concluded the contrast between proactive and reactive by writing, “The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values–carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.”
Where does this proactivity come from? Covey illustrated in both pictures and stories the gap that exists between stimulus and response. That gap, if cultivated and enlarged intentionally, is the key to human freedom and effectiveness.
Dr. Covey tells the powerful story of Viktor Frankly, a psychologist who survived the Nazi concentration camps. He described Frankl’s epiphany, “In the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, Frankl used the human endowment of self-awareness to discover a fundamental principle about the nature of man: between stimulus and response, man had the freedom to choose.” Frankl’s captors might have taken away his liberty, but because of this realization, he had more freedom than they did. He had a freedom that could not be taken away even through deprivation and torture. From that ultimate freedom was unleashed a power that allowed Frankl to transcend his circumstances, and to change the world through his teaching and magnificent book, Man’s Search for Meaning, in the years after the war.
Covey pointed out that the endowment of self-awareness, existing in the gap between stimulus and response, gives us access to other endowments like imagination, conscience, and independent will that manifest the kid of power that Frankl displayed. For those of us who think that Frankl’s achievements are beyond us, Dr. Covey exhorted us to lift our sights, “The extent to which we exercise these endowments empowers us to fulfill our uniquely human potential.” In short, these endowments are superpowers, and accountability demands that we use them fully and wisely.
To aid us in practicing proactivity in our daily lives, Dr. Covey gave us an additional framework to reference. He invited us to see the meat of our lives as enclosed in two concentric circles. The outer is labeled the “circle of concern” and includes those things that are of interest to us, but that are clearly beyond our control. The inner “circle of influence” contains those things over which we have control (ourselves), or at least the ability to influence (others and our circumstances). When we focus our efforts in the circle of influence, it expands, along with our inner strength. He wrote, “The proactive approach is to change from the inside out; to be different, and by being different, to effect positive change in what’s out there…”
This might seem ethereal, but Dr. Covey brought the concept down to Earth in the simplest terms. “At the very heart of our circle of influence is our ability to make and keep commitments and promises,” he explained. “The commitments we make to ourselves and others, and our integrity to those commitments, are the essence and clearest manifestation of our proactivity.” Not easy perhaps, but simple and powerful. When I change myself by practicing being proactive, my relationships and everything else in my life fundamentally changes along with me.
It is magical to see these principles come alive in our group. The guys are doing more than going through an intellectual exercise. They are practicing what they learn, and observing the presence or absence of proactivity in the people and culture of the camp.
Of course, we were all moved by Viktor Frankl’s story, and none of us can lay claim to being able to even fathom the pain and suffering he endured. But in our group is Mike, who is 20 years in on a 39-year sentence, and who has worked his way down from a max security facility to the camp at Thomson. He has experienced and witnessed violence and degradation far beyond the rest of us, but he still believes in the value of Covey’s teachings. By all accounts Mike’s mind and spirit should have been crushed years ago. That is what the system is designed to do. His participation in our group is testament to the fact that his agency is still alive and well. He inspires me and I told him so.
We also focused on the power of language in our discussion. Bitching is rampant in prison and it is easy to get caught up in it. We now recognize that whining and complaining are indicators of reactivity, and as proactive people, we want no part of it.
The key takeaway for us was that a proactive person can turn any situation, even a hardship like prison, into an opportunity. Our study of the 7 Habits and practice of the principles throughout our days is evidence of exactly that. We are being accountable to ourselves and the loved ones who are waiting to welcome us back home.
As our group becomes more cohesive, I can see that we will be able to gain the benefits of being accountable to one another, which is of great importance in this dysfunctional environment. Dr. Covey wrote, “Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming. Proactivity is part of human nature, and, although the proactive muscles may be dormant, they are there.” Lifting each other up in this manner is the highest form of respect. We are expressing a belief in the inherent greatness of our comrades.
Habit 1 speaks to me of accountability. It reminds me that I am responsible for using my superpowers to grow and serve others. Dr. Covey left me with a challenge that I am working to meet each day, “…work only in your circle of influence. Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”
When I practice proactivity I can see the ripple effect of inspiration in my life as others watch me transform hardship into a priceless asset. Dr. Covey summed up this experience well when he wrote, “Nothing has a greater, longer-lasting impression upon another person than the awareness that someone has transcended suffering, has transcended circumstance, and is embodying and expressing a value that inspires and ennobles and lifts life.”
Amen.
Onward we go…
