How to switch from a reactive mode to a proactive mode? That’s a question that I get a lot of the time, because most of the time as well, you might be working all the time doing, doing doing doing, and sometimes we’re not stopping.
So today we’re going to speak about the difference between what is the reactive mode, what are the consequences of being in this mode, what is a proactive mode and what are the consequences of being in this mode and how can we switch from one to another.
What is the reactive mode?
So now let’s speak about what is the reactive mode. Basically, a reactive mode is when something is happening, and you know, the first thing that you’re going to do is take care instantly of what is happening. You know, it’s like when you are at work, and you have everything planned for the day and you receive urgent emails, oh, you need to decide to do that by the end of the day. So you are like a firefighter and you are constantly trying to take care of like, what is the next urgency that I need to take care of.
And the thing about being all the time in a reactive mode, which means unprepared is that you’re exhausted and tired because of the fact that you’re all the time you know in the alert trying to deal with everything at the same time. And this is actually costing you a lot of mental and physical energy. While the difference is like when you’re in the proactive mode your behavior is completely different.
And what is the proactive mode?
A proactive mode is based on working hard, on working on what’s coming next instead of waiting for an emergency or a fire to start in order to deal with it.
When you are in this proactive mode the first thing you do is that you’re anticipating. And when you’re anticipating, your life starts being less stressful, more peaceful because you know what you need to do and you know you’ve got everything covered. And I know you’re all going to tell me “How do I do that?” Because you’re trying to but you’re not succeeding, because is not that easy to implement.
In order to switch from one mode to another, there are 3 steps that you need to do that will help you stay in the right mode to be on the top of your life and your work responsibilities.
1st Step
The first thing you need to do is to identify what is causing you the reactive mode. First of all you need to understand that either something recurrent in my life or my work that I’m doing often and that every time that I’m doing it something is going wrong. Because there is one thing that is causing you the same energy, instead of trying to deal with this issue every time that you’re going through this situation you need to work ahead of time to think “What should I do in order to solve this issue?”
2nd Step
The second thing when it comes to identifying what is causing your reactive mode is “What is coming ahead?”. We all know that maybe in the next couple of says or in the next week we are gonna have some tasks to do. So what are these tasks that you’re going to do and that you need to prep? Because when you know what is not going well most of the time and when you know what is coming ahead you can actually go to step 2, which is understanding what can be changed and what can you do ahead of time. When something is going wrong and you’re not taking action to change the way you’re dealing with it, how would you get better at mastering your time? In order to improve your life, you need to understand the feedback of every situation. Every time you’re doing something, what is the feedback? What went well and what didn’t go well? And actually, once you understand that you’re learning stuff. How will you be more in a proactive mode rather than the reactive mode?
And also, you need to understand what are the steps that you’re going to take if you’re planning something ahead. This means “oh, I have this project, and to do it in one or two days I need to do A, B and C”. And in order to do A, B and C I need to plan this time into my calendar. That’s being proactive! If you’re looking all the time at what can be improved and to what is going to come then it would be a perfect mix of actions for you to start being productive and start mastering your time and convert it into money.
3rd Step
So now that you can identify what is causing your reactive mode and how to know what’s coming next, how to make your actions to whether change what to do in the upcoming days to make it happen. Step 3 is that you need to plan it. If you were one of the clients you would hear me saying “if you don’t plan it, you won’t do it”. Because that’s the truth. If you’re not putting it in your calendar you’re not doing it, So once you’re clear on the stuff you need to change and do, I want you to time block it in your calendar. I want you to be aware and to be committed to what you’re going to take action to do these steps. If you’re not time blocking your calendar, you won’t be committed to doing it and it’s never going to happen.
Changing from the reactive mode to the proactive mode is something that takes time. You need to take action. You need to change the way that you’re doing things on the day to day basis and it’s going to take you time to apply these 3 steps: understanding what is causing you to be in the reactive mode, determining what can be changed and what can you deal with ahead of time, and plan it to make yourself committed to this action. This is what you need to implement on a day-to-day basis whether in your personal life or in your work life. And if you’re tired of always fighting with yourself to finish something, you want to stop being in this reactive mode and start being proactive about handling your personal and professional life.
