Are we reacting everyday?

It’s time to get ‘proactive’

Being able to evolve and progress in business and life means pacing ourselves to engage our thinking in activities that will help us to…

- achieve something we haven’t done before;

- do something better than we did it last time;

- find a more effective way of doing something that we’re used to doing routinely.

This is proactive thinking. It’s about taking time to strategize where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. I firmly believe that business is a marathon, not a sprint. If you try to take speedy shortcuts and react quickly to events, you won’t necessarily reach your destination any quicker. You might even end up heading the wrong way and have to promptly change course. And none of us like to be in that situation!

So, why do so many of us get caught up in this kind of reactive thinking?

…Because it’s easy to think that being busy means being productive — that if we deal with tasks as soon as they arise, we’re making progress. But in rushing to get through these tasks, we’re not giving them the attention and depth of thought they might need. This can be lethal to our creativity. By thinking proactively, we come to understand that innovative success is a force to be purposefully cultivated and deployed. We learn to push the boundaries with careful planning and strategizing, rather than using the same old tried-and-tested formulas.

(Source: Wearelikeminds)

Typically to our work environments in South East Asia and especially to younger executives, it is often that we get too caught up with the existing pool of work without taking account into the future roadmap.

When tight and near impossible deadlines are imminent, it is hard to be creative nor flexible. New ideas will look like a chore — desiring little motivation and purpose. Brickwalls are now hard to climb over. You are easily stressed.

J