exercise · all tools
Being Proactive
A short talk and two sorting exercises on the difference between acting and being acted upon. The handbook defines proactive as taking responsibility for your life, choices and future — "who I am today and what I become is my responsibility" — and reactive as letting a situation determine the response. Participants then sort behaviours as proactive or reactive and work the choice between them.
- Self-responsibility framing needs care with people whose constraints are structural rather than attitudinal — the handbook's own audience faces both
Practical
- Time
- 15-50 min
- Group
- 4–25 · small-group, large-group
- Settings
- in-person
- Materials
- None
- Mechanisms
- cognitive-reframing, values-clarification
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- cleancooking.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/342-1.pdf
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
Source link checked 29 Aug 2026 — reachable
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Genevieve Smith & Anita Shankar — Empowered Entrepreneur Training (SEE Change)
In this directory via SEE Change Initiative (Empowered Entrepreneur/Employee Training)
Related: Circle of Influence (alternative-to)
The vocabulary is Covey's Habit 1 almost verbatim — "'pro' means 'for', literally 'for action'". A different exercise reaching the same idea as Circle of Influence, which this directory already holds from The 7 Habits.
status: checked · added 2026-08-29