Look at the word responsibility—"response-ability"—the ability to choose your response.

But is there a chance that efficiency is not the answer? Is getting more things done in less time going to make a difference—or will it just increase the pace at which I react to the people and circumstances that seem to control my life? Could there be something I need to see in a deeper, more fundamental way—some paradigm within myself that affects the way I see my time, my life, and my own nature?

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.

We are free to choose our response in any situation, but in doing so, we choose the attendant consequence. When we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other

We can't recall them, we can't undo them, we can't control the consequences that came as a result

Whether we are aware of it or not, whether we are in control of it or not, there is a first creation to every part of our lives. We are either the second creation of our own proactive design, or we are the second creation of other people's agendas, of circumstances, or of past habits.

Proactive people can carry their own weather with them.

One of the most profound learnings of my life is this: if you want to achieve your highest aspirations and overcome your greatest challenges, identify and apply the principle or natural law that governs the results you seek. How we apply a principle will vary greatly and will be determined by our unique strengths, talents, and creativity, but, ultimately, success in any endeavor is always derived from acting in harmony with the principles to which the success is tied. Many

You might work on your behavior—you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.

More important than how fast you're going, is where you're headed.

They want other people to be the way they want them to be. They often want to clone them, and they surround themselves with "yes" people—people who won't challenge them, people who are weaker than they.

While the word proactivity is now fairly common in management literature, it is a word you won't find in most dictionaries. 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. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.