Personal Initiative

Do you create your life, or does life just happen to you?   Are you proactive or reactive?  Are you willing, motivated, and self-aware to take responsibility for your time on this planet?

Every day we wake up and face a day of choices.  We can choose to procrastinate, to worry, or be fearful.  We can choose indecisiveness or mediocrity.  Or….we can take control of the moment and make things happen. We are all human beings with free will…..we have the ability to control our behavior and our mindset. Each of us has the capacity to choose our thoughts, our emotions, and our beliefs. We have the power to take responsibility for our destiny.

With all that we have been blessed with…. free will, creative thought and belief, many of us don’t bother to take responsibility for directing our lives. Most people think reactively. They automatically react to daily stimuli; to whatever life throws at them. Instead of taking initiative and making things happen, they generally stay within their comfort zones.

Habit and fear keep those reactives from the risk of going “above and beyond”.  Devoid of proactive action….without energy and effort in taking personal responsibility to create a journey of happiness and achievement, life just happens!  The reactives “go with the flow”…wherever the flow takes them.

A proactive knows that one of the “Secrets of Life” is to nurture a habit of personal initiative. By applying willpower and creative imagination, we can successfully engineer our lives. We can choose our path based on our individual core values, our self-awareness… and most importantly, our ultimate life goals.

Exactly what is personal initiative? Simply, it is recognizing what needs to be done and then doing it or even more, without being told. It is using our imagination to problem solve; to perform a service of value to others; to take action outside of our comfort zone.  Practicing the habit of personal initiative takes us closer to achieving our goals and purpose in life without the expectation of acknowledgement or reward.  Every day whether at work, play or while going about our daily routine, we come face to face with opportunities to render additional service that might contribute in some small way to improve the lives we touch.  Every day, by taking personal initiative and a proactive approach, we have the opportunity to make a positive difference.

Taking personal initiative is not only being proactive… it can also be a “Labor of Love”.   This “Labor of Love” not only generates positive energy, it also brings the intrinsic reward of passion and joy. When we live a life of personal initiative, our “above and beyond” efforts produce positive results and afford us the choice of creating a life with intention and purpose. Personal Initiative is a “Secret of Life” that is fundamental to realizing and creating our future.  So….are you ready to create your life, or will life just happen to you?