Carry Your Own Weather with You

Wife and I are trying to be proactive, which means fighting the tendency to be reactive. No more being manipulated by your circumstances.

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Being proactive means you carry your own weather with you. Your circumstances do NOT define your response.

In this excerpt from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the author shares the dangers of being a reactive person:

…If our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us.

In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn’t, it affects their attitude and their performance.

Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them.

…Reactive people are also affected by their social environment, by the “social weather.” When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don’t, they become defensive or protective. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them.

…Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values — carefully thought about, selected and internalized values.
— Stephen R. Covey
(emphasis added)

For extra credit, read Choose Your Response and The Set of the Sails.


Share one way you have empowered things to control you in the past, or one way you carry your own weather with you.

  • Anomaly

    Helvete

  • Dimitrov

    RUSKA PENIN YAES VERY NICE

  • Johnny Test Sister

    OMG HE IS SO FRIKIN HAWT

  • Johnny Test Cat

    Meow

  • Johnny Test Dog

    Woof

  • Johnny Test

    Bling Bling Boy, more like Stupid Head Boy

  • Bling Bling Boy

    Yee boi, Johnny test trash boi I got the bling

  • Lord Farquad

    It hurts my head to lern this stuff

  • Lord Farquad

    I don’t make no sense

    • Jenna

      follow me on Snapchat @jennafunky_2005