- HubPages»
- Health»
- Personal Health Information & Self-Help»
- Mentally & Emotionally Balanced Living
HABIT 1: Be Proactive! (From "7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" by Sean Covey)
This article is actually a copy of the script I used when I was asked to deliver a short talk/sharing about being proactive.
Basically, Habit 1 (Be Proactive!) is a mark of a person who decides and prefers to make everything smooth based on his ideal choices and outcomes. He knows how to manage and control his actions and reactions towards things, events, incidents, or what have we. I personally believe that if a person knows how take responsibility over his reactions, feelings, and emotions (himself in general) in a particular situation or matter, it would be very easy for him to take control as well of such situation or matter. Its like saying that as long as you take good hold of yourself, of how you feel over things, youll never go wrong.
Unfortunately, there was a particular time or period (talking about my academic life) when I was not able to practice the first habit. It was during my first semester as a third year (college) student (well, I call it as a heartbreaking-and-mind-exploding semester) the time when I was elected and served as the class president; the time when we (the class) were under this particular professor whos very well-known for having a somehow hard-to-get system and is very (very very) unpredictable at times; and the time when I became so emotional.
That semester was indeed very demanding for we had a lot of requirements to do (and of course things to attend to as the class president). So how did I become reactive here? There were times that I disclosed so much to the class, to everyone how emotionally affected or hurt I was over those things. I also had these tendencies of blaming others or telling people that I was not getting any support or cooperation from them. In short, almost every time that the class experienced something not well, I easily cried, got mad and upset. Those times obviously proved that I allowed the situation to kill me. I decided to make things worse, relying solely on my moods and reactions. I WAS SO REACTIVE.
After all, I realized that my being reactive during that semester contributed NOTHING to my growth personally and as a student. What contributed A LOT are my realizations and lessons learned after all those things that have happened to me. BE PROACTIVE, thats the thing. An effective management and control of ones feelings and reactions is equal to effective and successful decisions, accomplishments, and outcomes that we desire for. Be responsible of your decisions and actions (reactions and their effects) and youll get better (even the best) outputs that youre wanting for.
What happened after my first semester? It was during the semestral break when the PHINMA scholars experienced and enjoyed the 3-day 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens seminar-workshop. And on the 4th day, I thought of this: I SHOULD HAVE A REGULAR PERSONAL CHECK-UP ON APPLYING HABIT 1 (and the rest of the habits as well) check on how I react over things what I should do then if I feel like being soda? Those things I learned from the workshop are what I considered as my models in applying and practicing Habit 1 and the rest as my must-have habits.
Any advice for the teens? BE PROACTIVE! Dont let your negative moods and feelings ruin your everyday. Decide based on what you want to happen at the end. Be responsible of it and act it out! and guaranteed, youll never go wrong! (