The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey

This personal and professional development book has been wildlysuccessful for a reason. Its principles work, my friend! It is worth dissectingand studying each habit in-depth, which is what we are going to do over thenext set of articles here at Launch Leadership Development.

Habit #1 is to be Proactive.  Todaywe will answer these questions:

·        What is the Circle of Concern?

·        What does being proactive mean?

·        What does being reactive look like?

Stephen Covey says the space between the stimulus and your reaction isCHOICE. He uses a graph of a circle within a circle to illustrate differentstimuli and calls it the Circle of Concern.

Circle of Concern- the outer circle contains things out ofour control such as the weather, other people’s behaviors and opinions, andworld events.

The inner circle contains all the things we can control, such as ourthoughts, feelings, and behaviors, who we spend time with, habits, agenda, and goals.

Which circle you focus on the most determines whether you are beingproactive or reactive.  Let’s examinequalities of each:

Proactive Qualities:

·       Takes responsibility for actions and choices

·       Driven by values, not feelings

·       Focuses on what they can control

·       Values learning and improving

·       Looks for opportunities and welcomes change

·       Plans ahead. Uses daily to do lists

·       Goal driven and looks ahead months and years.

Reactive Qualities:

·       Mood is affected by outside stimuli (weather, how peopletreat them, circumstances)

·       procrastinates, deals with things as they come, so theyoften feel overwhelmed

·       Driven by feelings

·       Shifts responsibility and blames others

·       Feels victimized and not in charge of their life

·       Resists change

·       Easily distracted and has no plan

As you read through these lists, which do you identify with the most?Do you see areas where you can improve? If so, now is the time to make changes.

Remember to focus on the inner circle of things you can controland take responsibility for your own success and happiness. Being proactive istruly the difference between feeling victimized and out of control and havingpeace and joy in your life. Yes, you can have peace and joy no matterthe outside circumstances! That is priceless, my friend!

-Jan Jones

Check out these videos that I used in reference in addition to thebook!

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