Proactive Business Mindset

Friday, 27 July 2007

Being Proactive - Developing the Proper Business Mindset.

Act, or be acted upon in Business

Stephen Covey in his book - The 7 habits of highly effective people illustrates a very important point when it comes to the human mind.

Are you a proactive person or a reactive person?

Most people in life wind up in one of three categories:

" Those that make things happen " Those who watch things happen " And those who wonders what happened

Covey mentions that we all have a choice. We should not be victims of our characters. In life, you can either choose to make a decision, or be forced to make a decision. For example, if you do not pursue a promotion, you have indirectly chosen to remain in the same mediocre position.

If you don't choose to take action, you have CHOSEN not to take action. The choice will be forced upon you in the end of the day.

The key word is choice.

Being proactive makes you exercise that choice.

No one is FORCED INTO A DECISION or "CAN'T HELP IT" when something happens to you.

A proactive person is able to make the decisions regardless of whether he feels like it or not. And that choice can be exercised anytime regardless of your circumstances.

We know that in life, most people are motivated either by incentives or by pain. Most of the time, we are motivated by pain or fear of loss. It is just like a teenage boy who decides to stop drinking or smoking because he is afraid that his girlfriend would leave him.

If you do not exercise your freedom of choice, you must motivate yourself in ways that will trick your mind into feeling that if you don't act now, you will suffer the consequences.

For example, if today is a Saturday and you feel like lazing around, imagine yourself not having enough income to pay off your rent. Or if you are employed but you run business part-time, imagine facing your grouchy boss everyday for the rest of your life. It would motivate you to be proactive enough to move your butt.

Basically in the end of the day, it is up to you how you want to motivate yourself. You have no one to blame if you didn't work hard enough to reach your goals. Blaming everyone but yourself is the worst attitude you can have.