The Power of Being Proactive

Today I want to talk about being Proactive. Taking control of your life by making choices that will empower you and set you up for your future and work towards your dreams and goals.

Being human is a strange reality, if you think about it. Life often throws random curve balls, some people succeed, some people fail, some people are happy, some are sad and everything in between. One persons success may look like another persons failure and vice versa. Most people feel stuck somewhere in the middle, and we all know, there is nothing more frustrating or depressing than feeling stuck.

Well, let me share the good news with you!

You are never stuck.

No matter how stuck you feel, no matter what your family/friends/colleagues are telling you, you are never stuck. You always have options. The thing is, most people try to change what isn't within their control to change, and are left feeling stuck when it doesn't work. The key is to change what is within your bubble of influence.

Everyone lives within two bubbles, your bubble of concern and your bubble of influence. Your bubble of concern includes everything and everyone that you are concerned about (family, friends, work, animals, lifestyle etc) and your bubble of influence includes things that you can control (yourself, how you react to situations, how you perceive other people/the world, your relationship with God etc). For example, you can't change your teenage son coming home from school angry and refusing to help around the house or do his homework (and efforts to do so will only damage the relationship between you more), but you can change how you react to him when he comes home (choose to love him unconditionally, leave the door open for connection/conversation, work with him to strategize a plan to move forward that is win/win for all parties involved).

In between stimulus and our response is this wonderful freedom to choose.

Stimulus =Freedom to Choose = Response

In the space in the middle lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and happiness. Create a 'pause' button between stimulus and response where you can stop, analyze the situation and choose a response based on who you want to be in the future and where you want to go with your life.

Being proactive is the ability to  act based on your principles and values, rather than reacting based on emotions or circumstances. And being proactive will seriously change your life!

Being proactive can be as simple as choosing to get your homework done on time or putting dinner on in the morning in the slow cooker so you can have dinner cooked and ready when you get home so you can spend more time with your spouse.

Take a moment to sit down and have a think about the following things:

# Where is God taking my life

# What are my goals for my life

# What do I want to change with my life

For each of the above, write down one thing you can do today to be more proactive in those areas. Start with one thing, stay accountable with yourself, and once you are finding that achievable you can start adding more.

Start being more proactive today and watch your life change!