Being proactive and what it means…..

When we discussed the power of choice I hope it opened some eyes.  We get bombarded with stressers all day, everyday and it is easy to get overwhelmed and overdrawn and it is easy to blame others for our shortcomings.  When we recall that we indeed have the power to choose our reactions to those stressers, it puts us back in control.  We empower ourselves and work from our constant within.  In this post I discussed principles and their meaning.  When we work out of principles and values, and remember our power of choice it moves us from being dependent on our environment to being in control.  The next step is becoming proactive and move into independency.

What does the word proactive mean to you?  To me it means to be active first, to happen first.  It means to not wait for direction to take action, its action and result oriented behavior that’s done without direction.  This is where the wrestlers in my audience are going to start to have an “A-ha” moment.  How many wrestlers show up to practice and wait for the coach to tell you to start warming up?  How many guys out there show up to practice and start warming up before their coach tells them to?  I am betting that the majority wait for direction.  This is not your fault, we have lived in a society that conditions people to wait till they are told to take action.  This is an ideal that was created back when we moved from the agricultural age to the industrial age.  In industry machines do all the work and people operate the machines.  Since this is a repeatable task, and all the thought work had been taken out of it, people’s thoughts and talents don’t matter, they in essence are viewed as dumb objects that require management.  All that is needed is a supervisor to oversee everything.  One “coach” to take care of all the workers.  This thought process slowly crept into our psyche and conditioned us to handle every aspect of our lives in that same fashion.  We simply wait for directions.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are times when you need to wait for direction, but a majority of the time you do not.

This is where proactivity changes the rules of the game.  YOU know what needs to be done to achieve at your sport, so be proactive and do what needs to be done.  A coach is there only to support YOU, and to help YOU when YOU need it.  Remember that YOU have a choice to take YOUR wrestling to the next level.  No one else is going to do it for you.  No one else is going to make your choices for you.  So a proactive approach to your career might be to determine where YOU want to be.  Do you want to be a conference champion, state champion, national champion, olympic champion?  Whatever it may be you need to acknowledge where you want to be.  Once you know where you want to go then think backwards and WRITE DOWN every milestone that needs to be achieved along the way to get to your ultimate goal.  This is called working with the end in mind.  When you work with the end in mind, you are forcing your brain to encounter every obstacle you may encounter.  When you “reverse” engineer your career, you take the guess work out of what needs to be done.  This will further push your proactivity by pushing you to do what needs to be done to achieve your goals.  Every great champion does not wait for directions, because they already know what direction they need to go in.  They just require the support of others to get there.

All this can only be achieved by being proactive.  If you wait for someone to tell you what to do, you already missed the boat.  Maybe use the slogan I use…..The world doesn’t happen to me, I happen to the world!!!  So now you have a few tools to get started.  You now have a different view of yourself and your career.  You have taken back control of yourself, and are taking responsibility for your actions.  What you do with it is your choice….

Next I will elaborate on the working with the end in mind, as well as talk about your circle of influence and your circle of concern.

Thanks,

Gerry