THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE
——BY STEPHEN R .COVEEY
The first habit is 1)proactivity. Be proactive. The word proactivity is fairly common in management literature, but you won't find it in the dictionary. It means more than merely taking 2)initiatives, it means that as a human being you take responsibility for your own life.
Look at the word responsibility, ability to choose your response, response-ability. I suggest effective people are proactive, thatis they take responsibility, their behavior is a product of their own decisions, based on values, rather than being a product of their conditions, based on feelings. For instance, you are planning a picnic with your family. You're excited. You have all the preparations. You've decided where to go, and then it becomes stormy...killing your plan. Proactive people carry weather within them. They realize what their purpose really was, and they creatively have a picnic elsewhere even if it's in their own basement with some special games, and make the best of that situation. The opposite of being proactive is to be reactive. Reactive people would say, "What's the use, we can't do anything," "Oh this is so upsetting after all of our preparations we've made these arrangements." And the whole spirit of 3)negativism will tend to pervade those people's minds and also the family. That's being reactive.
Being proactive is really just being true to your human nature. Your basic nature is to act, and not be acted upon. That's true, despite widely accepted theories of 4)determinism used to explain human nature. Determinism says, that you don't really choose anything, that whatyou call choices, are nothing more than automatic responses to outside conditions or 5)stimuli.
The language of reactive people, are people who are determined by their environment, or by their conditions, or by their conditioning or their genetic makeup. "This I can't, that's my nature." "...can't, don't have time." "I have to, I have to." "I must." See the whole spirit is of that language is the transfer of responsibility, I am not responsible, able to choose my response, the spirit is, I am not responsible, psychologically isn't that easier to say than "I'm a flake,"and "I'm irresponsible." The problem is, this is a self-fulfilling 6)prophecy. People who believe they are determined will produce the evidence to support the belief, and they increasingly feel victimized and out of control. They're not in charge of their life or their destiny at all.
When you are proactive, you don't deny that genetics, upbringing and environment make a difference. But you see them as influences only. A proactive person exercises free will, the freedom to choose the response that best applies to your values. In that way you gain control of your circumstances, rather than being controlled by them.
积极人生从7个习惯开始
——史蒂芬.r.科维（著）
第一个习惯是“积极”。积极向上。“ 积极”这个词在管理文献中十分常见，但在字典里却找不到。它的意思不仅是指主动性，还指作为一个人，你必须为自己的生活负责。
观看“责任”（respon-sibility）这个词，它的字面意义是“反应选择能力”，是一种选择能力。我之所以说有效率的人都积极向上，那是因为他们都肯担负起责任，他们的行为遵从他们自己的决定，建立在价值观上，而不是客观环境和情绪的产物。例如，你计划和家人去野餐，你很兴奋，做了充分的准备。你决定好了地点，然后却下起了暴雨……你的计划泡汤了。积极的人不会受天气左右--他们明白真正的目的是什么，他们会创造性地在其他的地点进行野餐，哪怕是在自家的地下室里让大家玩一些有趣的游戏，他们会充分利用好当时的环境条件。与积极向上相对立的即是消极。消极的人会说：“哦，有什么用，我们什么也做不了”，“哦，这太令人难过了，我们所有的准备、所有的安排都泡汤了。”这些消极情绪将渗透这些人及其家人的思想。这就是消极的后果。
积极的确是一种人类天性的反映。你的本性是行动，而不是受影响。真实便是如此，而非为大家所接受的那样，用决定论来诠释性格。决定论认为，其实你并没做出任何选择，我们所谓的选择，其实只是外界条件或刺激的本能反应而已。
消极人士说的是受到环境、条件、和先天因素所左右的人的语言--“我不行，我就是这样了”、“……不行，我没有时间”、“我没办法、我没办法”、“我得”。这种语言整个地体现出一种不负责任的态度--我不为此负责，我没法选择自己的反应，关键在于：我是不负责任的。要亲口说出“我不行”、“我不负责”并不是件容易事。毛病就出在这是种自发式的预言。相信决定论的人会找出证据来支持这样的信念，他们逐渐相信自己是受害的，是失控的。他们根本无法把握自己的生活和命运。
如果你有积极的精神，你不会否认生理遗传、成长过程和生活环境造成的影响。但同时你仅仅把它们当作是影响。一个积极向上的人会自愿、自由地通过做最佳选择来实现自我价值。这样你才能逾越环境的束缚，而不是被环境所限制。
1) pro 前缀，表示“在空间或时间上优先”，尤包含“向前进，向前或向外突出”的意思，或用以表示更替的意思
2) initiative n. 初步，采取主动
3) negativism n. 否定论，消极论；[心理]（对外来的命令、建议、期望或内在的刺激如饥饿的）反抗癖，反对倾向
4) determinism n. 决定论（所有事实和发生的事情都是自然法则的实例的理论）；宿命论
5) stimuli ['stɪmjʊlaɪ] n. 刺激；刺激物；促进因素（stimulus的复数）
6) prophecy n. 预言；受神的启示所发表的言论或启示