{"id":1253,"date":"2021-05-17T11:57:51","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T11:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2021-05-17T11:58:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T11:58:00","slug":"rule-8-be-proactive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/2021\/05\/17\/rule-8-be-proactive\/","title":{"rendered":"Rule 8: Be proactive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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www.picserver.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Little known fact: the original schools, started in the 19th century, had the goal of training obedient factory workers. The whole notion of sitting still at a desk, taking instructions and following orders was quite alien to many who had grown up on farms. For the factory owners to have access to workers, it was necessary to train people to take instructions from managers. In many ways, the school system of today follows that tradition and kids are taught to be quiet, disciplined and reactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the digital age, obviously, waiting for someone to tell you what \nto do is a terrible idea. When I worked in Silicon Valley, there was a \nstory of an engineer hired by one of the large, successful companies in \nthe area. On his first day at work, he tried to find his manager to ask \nwhat he should be working on. When he finally succeeded, his superior \nlooked at him in disdain and seemed ready to fire him on the spot. The \nfeedback he got was: \u201cI don\u2019t know what you should be working on \u2013 \nthat\u2019s why we hired you. Figure out how to add value.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that most of us have decades of schooling to undo \nbefore we can switch from the reactive to the proactive approach. \nHowever, it\u2019s critical that we do, as in the digital age, we need to \ntake ownership of our own destiny. The world is changing so fast that if\n we wait until others tell us what to do, we\u2019ll go obsolete before we \nrealize it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of us prefer to stay with what we know and avoid changing until \nwe absolutely have to. It\u2019s not just our schooling, but also the general\n human tendency to stay in our comfort zone. The problem is, as we all \nknow, that your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing grows \nthere. We don\u2019t grow and develop by repeating what we already know. We \nonly do that by doing new things, having new experiences, exploring new \nhorizons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question is how to engage in the challenge of being proactive. In\n many ways, this entire set of 10 rules for thriving in a digital world \nis concerned with being more intentional about the way we organize work \nand life, rather than following the ingrained patterns and habits that \nwe have formed over decades. In my experience, there are at least three \nstrategies to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, being clear on the purpose we\u2019re pursuing forces a level of \nintentionality that causes many of us to question our current ways of \nspending our time. In my experience, the very action of defining a \npurpose and then associating concrete outcomes to that purpose causes a \ntransition from a reactive to a proactive mindset. It\u2019s about changing \nfrom the backseat, tagging along for the ride, to taking the driver seat\n as we now have at least some high-level idea of what we\u2019re pursuing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, many of us want to accomplish something large but fail to get\n the machinery in motion to make it happen. The best strategy, which \nI\u2019ve used on numerous occasions, is to break the grand idea into small \nsteps and take the first step immediately. As the saying goes, walking \nto Rome starts with a first step. However, we do need to take that first\n step; overwhelmed by the overall challenge, it\u2019s easy to avoid it and \nremain stuck in the old place. Therefore, I try to take the first step, \nhowever small, immediately. Maintaining momentum is much easier than \ncreating it. Those having run a marathon know the mental struggle around\n the 30K mark when the body is aching tremendously already, you feel out\n of energy and you still have more than 10K to go. For me, I had to \nswitch focus from the finish line to whatever smaller goal was in front \nof me such as an upcoming corner, a tree along the road, and so on. As \nsoon as you reach that small goal, you set the next small goal. One of \nthe bloggers I occasionally read calls this \u201cclean the tile, not the floor<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, one of the key things keeping us back is fear. This is an extremely important and valuable emotion, which has ensured survival for countless humans in the history of humankind. In the modern world, many of the risks we take aren\u2019t really existential in nature but rather limited in consequence. However, as our minds have difficulty distinguishing between the two, even smaller risks can easily grow in our minds as insurmountable. One technique we can use is fear setting (as opposed to goal setting). Tim Ferriss has a good blog post<\/a> and TED talk on this, but the basic principle is that we in detail specify the risks, worst-case outcomes and mitigation strategies associated with what we\u2019re looking to pursue. By making it explicit and tangible, it becomes much easier to overcome the fear holding us back. As the infallible Yoda said: \u201cNamed must your fear be before banish it you can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a rapidly evolving and changing digital world, we can\u2019t afford to be passive and reactive, waiting for others to tell us what to do. Instead, we need to proactively pursue our purpose and the associated outcomes. To overcome the resistance in ourselves and our environment, strategies such as taking small steps and fear setting can help us gain momentum. So, my challenge to you is to, in any interaction with others, aim to propose a course of action at every opportunity. Be willing to take input from others, but don\u2019t accept any deadlock situations. Remember, as long as you\u2019re moving in the right general direction, you\u2019re making progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get more insights earlier, sign up for my newsletter at <\/em>jan@janbosch.com<\/em><\/a> or follow me on<\/em> janbosch.com\/blog<\/em><\/a>, LinkedIn (<\/em>linkedin.com\/in\/janbosch<\/em><\/a>), Medium<\/a> or Twitter (<\/em>@JanBosch<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Little known fact: the original schools, started in the 19th century, had the goal of training obedient factory workers. The whole notion of sitting still at a desk, taking instructions and following orders was quite alien to many who had grown up on farms. For the factory owners to have access to workers, it was … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1255,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions\/1255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}