Tuesday, September 04, 2007

One word I fail to understand...

PROACTIVE, I am at loss whenever this word is used. And to my dismay I hear this word at least 10 times a day. Therefore, I decided to figure what exactly "Proactive" meant. Surprisingly, this is what I found.

The word Proactive was coined by psychiatrist, Victor Frankl. He used this word to discribe a person who rather took charge of his life than looking for circumstances or people to dictate what should be done. More on this here.

This term was later popularised by Stephen Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as the first habit. He had used the word proactive in the Victor Frankl sense, but unfortunately we have managed to give it a new dimension, the opposite of Passive.

More about Covy's book and his 7 habits here.

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