“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.”― Stephen R. Covey
Do you believe that the place where you stand in your career now is a result of choices you have made so far?
Starting from taking admission in particular stream of education, choosing your first job, sticking to the same job or switching to another jobs, learning new skill sets in order divert your career path, it is all about your choice irrespective of the fact whether it was right or wrong choice. You had made those choices and that’s why you are where you are now!
So, our present situation is a result of numerous choices we had done so far in our life.
What do I mean by proactive muscles and how it is related with our choices?
Strengthening proactive muscles means nothing but practicing proactivity on day-to-day basis. Proactivity is often misinterpreted as only taking initiative, but is more than taking initiative.
Proactivity = Taking Initiative + ResponsibilityAnd responsibility is nothing but ability to choose your response.
Whatever situations we are exposed to in our job or career, we always have a choice to make a decision based on our value system.
For example- If you are feeling stagnant in your career, what most of the people usually do, they will blame their bosses, they will say this industry is not growing due to recession so I am not growing, there aren’t many opportunities for my profile and so on.
This is a victim’s mentality which believes that the life is a result of external situations.
But the fact is, we humans are blessed to have the freedom to choose between stimulus (whatever happens to us) and our response. And that’s where proactivity plays an important role.
While taking above example, try to answer below questions-
Are you proactive enough to find out what skill sets you are lacking which is hindering your growth?
Are you proactive to find out which sectors are booming if your sector is not doing good?
If you feel you can’t do this research, are you proactive and open to approach the people who can guide you on this?
Are you ready to take bold steps, set goals to achieve your dreams and responsibility to make it happen without blaming the people and situations around you?
This approach to handle the external situations in your job is “Proactive approach” and it will certainly help you to grow in your career.
Once you start practicing this approach, your mindset will experience a shift from “Victim mentality” towards “Hero mentality”.
Proactive people will also be influenced by the external situations, but their response to such situations will be a thoughtful decision.
Certainly, this is not so easy because we have habit of years and decades justifying our failures in the name of situations and surrounding, but isn’t that worth to start practicing this approach now? It is always better to be late starter than never doing. And we can always start with small things in our life.
For example- While talking about your team member,
“I don’t think he will be able to do that task.”
Instead, you can say, “Let me see how I can help him to complete this task.”
“If you cannot apply your learning to small things in your life, that is not learning.”
So, by practicing this approach on day-to-day basis, we can strengthen our proactive muscles and continue to flex those to build the career we want!