Reactive vs. Proactive
How often do you find yourself sounding something like this:
Maybe this was you before Envision Fitness and you recognized that something needed to change so you joined our Fit Fam. This may also sound like you now, it is Monday morning and you have no clue how the weekend got so out of control with food, booze and lack of exercise. Or it is 2 months after the holidays and somehow you never got yourself back “on track“.
Does it feel like you are constantly fighting fires, dealing with crisis, feeling overwhelmed, consistently upset when things didn’t go the way they “should have”? If yes, you may be struggling with a REACTIVE attitude rather than a PROACTIVE attitude.
The good thing is if you feel as though you have a reactive attitude, it can be changed with some awareness and action; you are not a reactive person, it does not define who you are.
It is so easy to fall into the trap of reactive thinking, admittedly we have all been there. You live a busy life, your days are full of meetings, work, children, parents, stressful events etc. Then add some crappy life events in and we are hit with the perfect storm. I do need to mention that it is important to have some self compassion during these times as well.
“Why does this always happen?”
“I was going to do____ but then ______ happened“
“I don’t know why I didn’t work on _____ habit, stuff came up“
The smart people at Precision Nutrition put it wisely when they said, “proactive thinking is an investment, not a cost. If you put some resources into anticipating, planning and strategizing now, it’ll save you a heckuva lot of work and misery later”
When you start to change your thinking to proactive thinking, you feel more calm, in control and more resilient when things don’t go as planned and you give yourself permission to take responsibility over your actions. That all sounds much more appealing than being frazzled, discouraged and angry at the world, don’t you think?
How do we go about being more proactive rather than reactive? First, take a look at your surroundings, do you consistently live in a state of chaos at work, home, socially? Is there a way to clean up a bit, create a little bit more order and organization or maybe a schedule? Become more aware of when you think reactively and then you can work on changing that to being a more proactive situation.
Next, think ahead. Yes, there are many surprises in life and much that we could not have seen coming, that is fine and we need to understand what we can control and what is out of our control. However, there is so much in life that is predictable. The kids will probably have a temper tantrum over dinner throughout the week, your boss almost always calls an emergency meeting on Thursdays which makes you stay late, it will probably rain most days of the week and you know your mother-in-law hasn’t put a salad on the table in 10 years. As much as these things are not planned, we can anticipate them and they are they not entirely surprising.
List upcoming obstacles in advance and then create a plan with how you will deal with them. Now instead of being reactive when special situations arise, you have already created a plan for what to do next.
TRY THIS:
1. List all possible obstacles and situations that may arise in your week or weekend ahead.
2. Now, for each of those obstacles create a plan that starts with “that’s okay that _______ (obstacle), I will just________(action step)“.
Time to start anticipating, planning and strategizing to be more proactive and when in doubt, try to be just a little bit better. If you would like some guidance with this or need someone to keep you accountable, please come talk to your coach.
