Notes

We’re in charge. We choose the scripts by which to live our lives. Use this self-awareness to be proactive and take responsibility for your choices.

The first habit that Covey discusses is being proactive. What distinguishes us as humans from all other animals is our inherent ability to examine our own character, to decide how to view ourselves and our situations, and to control our own effectiveness.

Put simply, in order to be effective one must be proactive.

Reactive people take a passive stance -- they believe that the world is happening to them. They say things like:

"There's nothing I can do."
"That's just the way I am."
They think the problem is "out there" -- but that thought is the problem. Reactivity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and reactive people feel increasingly victimized and out of control.

Proactive people, however, recognize that they have a responsibility -- or "response-ability," which Covey defines as the ability to choose how you will respond to a given stimulus or situation.
In order to be proactive, we must focus on the Circle of Influence that lies within our Circle of Concern-- in other words, we must work on the things we can do something about.
The positive energy we exert will cause our Circle of Influence to expand.

Reactive people, on the other hand, focus on things that are in their Circle of Concern but not in their Circle of Influence, which leads to blaming external factors, emanating negative energy, and causing their Circle of Influence to shrink.