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Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase.

Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of the other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.

As long as we are working in our Circle of Concern, we empower the things within it to control us. We aren’t taking the proactive initiative necessary to effect positive change.

Quote from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Direct, Indirect, and No Control

• Direct - Problems involving our own behaviour
• Indirect - Problems involving other people’s behaviour
• No Control - Problems we can do nothing about, such as our past or situational realities

So, the first step in the solution to all three kinds of problems is to put them within your present Circle of Influence.

• Direct - solved by working on your habits. Habits are within your Circle of Influence and are Private Victories, relating to Habits 1, 2, and 3.
• Indirect - solved by changing your methods of influence and are Public Victories, relating to Habits 4, 5, and 6.
• No Control - solved by smiling: to genuinely and peacefully accept these problems and learn to live with them, even though you don’t like them. In this way, you do not empower the problems to control you.

There are some people who inperpret “proactive” to mean pushy, aggressive, or insensitive; but it isn’t the case at all. Proactive people aren’t pushy. They’re smart, they’re value driven, they read reality, and they know what’s needed.

Quote from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Samuel Johnson observed: “The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.”  I think he has something there…