Being Proactive Versus Reactive
I work with most of my clients to support them in becoming more proactive.
Most people spend the majority of their time being reactive. They react to emails, phone calls, the needs of clients, co-workers, friends, children, significant others, family members, deadlines, relationship breakdowns, technical challenges, and whatever life puts in front of their nose. Most reactive activities are “Urgent and Important” or “Urgent and Not Important”. Filling your days with reactive activities leaves little room for proactive activities that are typically “Important but Not Urgent”.
This reactive way of being is habitual for many people. You might even take pride in how quickly and effectively you can react to the many things coming at you, putting out fires left and right.
Being reactive can be an unconscious addiction. In fact, it is very common and a high percentage of people are addicted to being reactive. It’s exciting and challenging to respond to the unpredictable demands that come your way. It gives you a subtle adrenaline rush. You can actually become physically habituated to this bio-chemical rush that energizes you temporarily. This can be a difficult habit to break, but it is well worth the effort. In addition to making you less effective in general, this addiction can burn out your adrenal glands over time and lead to stress-related health problems.
If you don’t make time to be proactive, eventually you will have to make time to be reactive, and your life will eventually be dominated by reactive activities. For example, if you don’t make time for health, eventually you will have to make time to react to being sick, and if you don’t make time to market your business, eventually you will have to scramble to get some clients before you go bankrupt.
While having the ability to react quickly and capably is a useful skill set to have, if you are not also cultivating a proactive skill set, you are not manifesting your full potential.
So what is a proactive skill set? Proactive activities include things like goal setting, strategizing, and planning. Being proactive also means sticking to your plan and not getting easily distracted, executing the actions you have intended.
Being proactive requires resisting the temptation to react to the many demands that life throws at you every day. For example, you could be in the middle of updating your marketing plan (a proactive activity) when a little alert pops up in the corner of your screen telling you, “you’ve got mail!” You tell yourself that you’ll just go and look to see who it’s from. You look and find out it’s from your friend. They’ve sent you a link to a short funny video. You know this isn’t important right now, but you figure you’ll just take a quick moment and watch the video. The video ends with a link to a web page for more information so you click on the link. Fifteen minutes later you are still browsing the Internet. You can’t even remember what it was you were working on before.
Perhaps your discipline is better than that and you wouldn’t allow yourself to be distracted by an amusing video from your friend. However, imagine that the email is from your boss, reminding you of the report that is due tomorrow. Would you drop everything you were doing and start working on the report, or would you continue working on the marketing plan, knowing that you have time scheduled to work on the report later?
The most proactive approach would be to not even check your email at all while you are working on your marketing plan. In fact, in the name of being more proactive, I suggest turning off any pop-up alerts you receive from your email or other software. Work on your email in blocks of time instead of interspersed throughout the entire day. When the phone rings, check the caller ID and decide if you are willing to allow the activity you are currently involved in to be interrupted by that particular person. If not, let it go to voice mail. If the call is from an unknown caller, don’t answer it. Keep the door shut to your office at least part of the day if not the entire day. Train the people who frequently interrupt you to make a list of things to talk to you about, and schedule a meeting with you to go over all of the topics at once.
Take charge. Set new and stronger boundaries with yourself and with others that will allow you to be more proactive. It feels good. The breakthrough in productivity you will experience is even more satisfying than the adrenaline rush of being reactive.
There is an ideal balance between proactivity and reactivity, however this is not an exact science. It is more of an art form and an ongoing balancing act. However, if I had to guess, I would say that you are probably way out of balance on the side of being reactive. In order to correct this, you may need to allow the pendulum to swing dramatically to the other side. It may be helpful to be extremely proactive for a while in order for you to develop that skill set, break old habits, retrain your friends, family and co-workers, and experience the benefits. There may be some negative consequences from this. However, eventually you will adjust and find the ideal middle ground.
---Ryan Eliason is a professional life and business coach with a proven track record of business success. His small business clients have frequently doubled or tripled their incomes, increased their positive impact, and simultaneously improved their lifestyles. Subscribe to this blog. Download your FREE audio seminar and workbook on How To Have The Best Year of Your Business and Your Life.
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23 Responses Leave a comment
This is exactly what I need to work on in order to be more productive. Thanks for helping to make the seemingly complex challenge of time management more simple, understandable, and do-able!
Hey Ryan,
Get out of my head-all that aimless web surfing and mail checking was supposed to be my dirty little secret! Seriously, this is great stuff, thanks for the reminder.
I truly believe that taking this kind of advice to heart would be transformative to most people; me included.
Great read! This is so me, reacting (and sometimes over-reacting, haha) to things instead of planning and being more pro-active with my time.
Thanks
I have heard all of this before but you said it so much better. Thanks for steering me back on my path! Distractions are really a test for me. It is so much easier to be distracted than to stay focused. It is a real learning curve.
This is the best article on this subject I have read. Simple doable actions that can make so much difference in productivity.I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t fallen into this trap on occassion. Thank you Ryan
I like this article. This is pure and original. I’m also a believer in coaching as a way to get past obstacles, redefine your goals and create a plan for getting “unstuck.” It worked for me, and I frequently look to coaching when I face transitions in my business and professional life. Being Proactive is more fun and more challenge
Ryan,
I had just picked up a white paper I have been reading when the email pop-up distracted me and now hear I am replying to your excellent article. Your points are obviously pertinent. Now, back to my reading
This is a great piece. I am especially intrigued by the adrenaline rush that comes with reaction. There’s something fun about that. I had never thought of that before, but is part of the motivation. Understanding WHY we do things even when we know better is a key to doing something different.
recently i became conscious of a life-long pattern of responding (i had transformed reactivity into responsiveness to be more conscious) to the needs and wants of others. when i thought about being proactive around my own wants and needs, i realized that certain death was associated with doing that; that connection was on a deep, sub-conscious level. i had to do some transformational deep work and let go of an identity i had carried all of my life in order to start being proactive for myself.
Hi Ryan,
Thanks!
Well to answer the question, am I too overwhelmed to read this article. Yes I am. But I did it anyway. And I’m glad I did. Sort of like getting smacked in the face with yourself.
I am being reactive by responding to this post that came in my email. It’s funny but I just cut down my email playtime so that I can get more results out of my work day. Also waste way to much time on “research”. Bad habits that can be broken when you are aware. Thanks for the email.
Thanks Ryan for a fine observation!.
But like the very actions that make your Heart as well as Brain work it is all done by a Nernst Equation.( kT/q), where kT it self is also called :”Free Energy of concentration” becoming “Free Energy of Reaction”(kT/q). This is the very same way your transistors work inside your computer too but also when there is a Thunderstorm happening!!.
Indeed it is all in that very ‘Balance’, but when something ‘clicks,it is not always
a negative connotation as a Reaction!!!.
Please keep up your fine work.
John.
Thank you so much. I think this sort of addiction is a knee jerk response that is conditioned into us. I am so glad that you have pointed this out because now I will be more aware of this reaction. This sort of awareness can really help change some stumbling blocks. Good idea!
Hi Ryan, Thanks for the post.
There’s only 1 way that anything will ever happen. Either you do or you don’t.
Consequences will be on what actions anyone takes.
HI Ryan
Thanks for this discussion. It is so important, not to be distracted, and stay on purpose. I love your practical, easily applied information. So no more excuses-I have to get to work now. Thankfully it’s work I love to do.
You are so right , and I’m really glad you mentioned pro activity in regards to world problems , including the environment .. About putting out fires, that can also be very literal, when we aren’t proactive concerning brush fires.. .
I am lucky I work from home .I am able to ride my wave of energy until I get bored/uninspired temporarily ,or physically tired, and then come entertain myself on the internet , or just do a different activity which also needs to be done which can also refresh me , though it wouldn’t SEEM like cleaning something would refresh me … … Reading e mails can be very compelling as you say .. Addictive yes .. I am tempted , and sometimes give in , but I still work hard, almost every day . and it is recently paying off … . I love you article .It is full of wisdom ..
Hello,
I was just thinking exactly what you articulaed so well………..So easy to get distracted on the web with emails ect………
Where so many hours out of the day disappear to being on line……one has to wonder how essential it all is……..I can never write a short and sweet email…….. I can talk much faster than I can type……..thanks for your webnair series…….
I will be sending you and invitation to my Heartbeat Event……..
Barbara Nirman
Ryan – this insightful article reminded me of a recent early morning power outage in my total-electic home.
Everything I did that day was pro-active; walked to a nearby supermarket where there were lights and COFFEE !, did some POWER THINKING, shopped and enjoyed the hustle and bustle of early morning activity – the power was on when I returned home and I even did my reactive stuff proactively
That started a morning routine I call being-body-brain – meditation, prayer, yoga, stretching, a walk or some outdoor work(if it’s daylight), then a good hour of creative thinking – healthy breakfast – this ritual sets the tone for a proactive and productive day – I schedule the reactive tasks as “breaks” from productivity
.. thanks Ryan, especially the results of not making and taking time for health.
Great article… I’ve been struggling with this because checking email in the morning has become the norm but it takes up at least half my day after which I get only a few more hours to work on an actual project before I’m mentally exhausted… I realised this pattern and have started to try and break it, so this article came at the right time!
Very interesting article – and absolutely right on the mark. What I find really humourous is that I am being reactive by responding to this now as I am supposed to be calling prospects. Did I need to read this – yes…..now I need to put it into play. Thanks so much for the insite. I will be sharing this with some of my coaching clients as it is applicable to many.
I echo the thoughts of others here….what I find coming to me though, is that I often choose to waste time on the internet, because there is a fear attached to building my business which I have been noticing. After being employed by someone else for over thirty years – and hating it – I now have the opportunity to be my own boss and chart my own course and to do something that I love to make that happen….and there is a real fear of success in that for me. Food for thought.
Hi Ryan. I really like your post. Whenever I choose to “check just this one email”, I end up reading several, and then going into links contained in the emails and half a day gone by then. Sometimes as I read an email, I get an idea for a blog post, so I log in to my blog admin, type up a blog post and save it as draft or to be published later, and so the day goes too. In writing the blog post, I was productive but the point is that I did not work on the important task I had wanted to work on. And so the story goes……
I have a friend who is almost obsessive-compulsive about checking emails as soon as they arrive. He worries that the email may be something urgent that he must attend to. He has a lot of anxiety about not checking email….
Seriously, your post is quite remarkable. I should say that from now your blog will become one of my favs. Maintain it going friend !