Define—Proactive
Background:
Believe it or not, this is not a word you will find in most dictionaries! Stephen Covey, in his work 7 Habits of Highly Effective People tried to explain what this word or concept means. To Covey, it means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. He also believes we can subordinate our feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.Did you have the word "responsibility" in your definition of "pro-active"?
The word "responsibility" means "the ability to choose your response". According to Covey, highly pro-active people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.
Covey says that we are all pro-active by nature and 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.
Reactive people, conversely, are often affected by their physical environment - driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions by their environment. For example, if the weather is bad, they feel bad. When people treat them well - they feel well. When people don't, they become defensive or protective.
Pro-active people are driven by values - carefully thought about, selected and internalized values. They are able to subordinate an impulse to a value. (Whether it is raining or not, it doesn't matter to them.) It's important to know that they are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social or psychological. The difference is that their response to their stimuli, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response.
Covey himself admits that this is hard to accept emotionally, but he believes that until a person can deeply and honestly say "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say "I choose otherwise."
This information is shared with you to set a broader base of thinking about what it means to be pro-active. To put this into context, it could be said that because you have made the choice to work on this Professional Development Module, and you have chosen to commit time and energy to this task of making a plan for yourself, you have made a value based decision. You value your work and have made a commitment to your professional development! There are many other interpreters who have chosen to respond to the Quality Assurance activity in their states, for example, and other changes in the profession with a more reactive response. "They don't understand…. They don't know what I do… They won't help me improve, etc…" You on the other hand, are taking this step - this pro-active step - in your professional development.