What Is The Best Approach To Have In Life To Navigate Through It?
2. Proactive: Focusing On The Present
If you ever see my car, you will see many dents, scratches, and minor damages. I used to be obsessed with keeping my car as pristine as possible.
However, I realize that when I am driving or maneuvering, I am not the best at it. My friends made fun of me by saying I bought my driver’s license in Dakar, Senegal. That could be a possibility, yet it is not the truth.
I did pass my written exam and took the mandated 20 hours of driving before passing the exam. I did get my license the regular way. There is just something with driving that I am not very comfortable with.
While driving, I see all the damage to my car and try to avoid doing more damage. I am constantly distracted when maneuvering. I hit street objects all the time.
I am not the best driver in my neighborhood. And I know it. While on the road, I do not anticipate anything, I am counting on others to anticipate, if not I will just react to avoid any hurdle.
In all life events, we generally have 3 different approaches.
Here are the 3 types of approaches:
- Reactive: focusing on the past
- Proactive: focusing on the present
- Predictive: focusing on the future
Depending on the situation, one approach might be more suitable. However, there is a mindset of having a dominant strategy in our lives.
Let’s dive deep into each of them for more details.
1. Reactive: Focusing On The Past
Definition: responding to events that have already happened.
In most of Human history, we have been blind and unprepared for the dangers in front of us. We have survived by being able to react very quickly to every situation.
That kind of reactive mindset is great for people on the battlefields, in sports, and in improv comedy. I bring improv comedy into the discussion because this is an art form I have been practicing for more than 2 years now. I love the fact that I just have to come on stage. All I have to do is accept and add to my peers’ words.
Being deliberately reactive is a very efficient way of saving energy because you adjust your level on the fly and depending on the situation.
However, not being aware that we have a reactive approach to our interactions in life can bring more harm than good. We might save some energy for not preparing, however the amount we spend to cope with what is happening is at least twice the energy we save in the first place.
We live in a very uncertain world, a post-COVID-19 era where no model exists to predict the next event. We are flooded with tweets, breaking news, and notifications. If we are reacting, we are just a thermometer, fluctuating at a frequency that is so high that it is humanly impossible to sustain.
We end up frustrated, and we feel powerless.
I always strive to be a thermostat most of the time. However, it happens to me to turn the thermometer from time to time.
By adopting the reactive mindset, we are handing over the keys to our kingdom to whatever tweet or hashtag is trending. We are at the world’s mercy!
2. Proactive: Focusing On The Present
Definition: actively trying to identify any potential challenge as it happens.
I love to swim. Yet I never took swimming courses. When I was in high school with some friends at “Lycée Lamine Gueye,” Dakar, Senegal, we would spend most of our lunchtimes at the beach “Anse Bernard.” We almost drowned a couple of times, yet we learned to swim on our own.
I feel comfortable going far in the water where I have no foothold. Each time we go on holiday to a beach, I challenge myself to go far. That moment is where I am the most proactive in my life. I will always ensure that each time I swim far away from the land, I have enough breath to return if needed.
Hence, swimming is a very exhausting exercise for me because I always have to be laser-focused.
This is an example of being proactive for me. In life, being proactive translates into assessing each situation we are in. We weigh down the pros and the cons. Most importantly, we know that there are challenges. And we actively work on the moment to identify them and ensure we can handle them properly.
Not having a proactive approach is what can drive us crazy. Sometimes, we spend more time, money, and energy on a lost battle because we did not get ready proactively.
Adopting the proactive mindset ensures we eliminate some possibilities and limit the number of outcomes to a minimum. Compared to the reactive mindset, it is energy efficient in the long run, not necessarily at the beginning.
3. Predictive: Focusing On The Future
Definition: trying to identify any potential challenge that could occur in the future.
In engineering school, I was the opposite of the valedictorian in our statistics and probability exam. I was that bad on stats and probability. I also remember my chemistry classes on atomic orbitals. It was a nightmare for me.
Now, in theory, I am very bad at stats and probabilities. However, I am pretty good at distinguishing between what is possible and what is probable.
I know that it is possible that I can be the president of France. Yet I know that the probability is nil thanks to the systemic racism in France and the fact that the Republic is colorblind.
Whenever I face multiple choices, I assess what is possible and balance all the possibilities with their likelihood of happening.
I love the American Dream sold by the media. However, that is just a possibility. Indeed, everybody can become rich and famous, even the president of the United States. Thanks, Donald Trump, for lowering the bar. If every American citizen has the possibility, a happy few of them can probably become rich, famous, president, or the 3 of them, like Mr Trump.
By adopting the predictive mindset, the possibility is pondered with probability, and you can soon see the future. Most people limit themselves to the possibility and jump in the dream’s high-speed train. However, even if all trains have departure stations, only a few of them will probably arrive at their final destination, their arrival station.
We have to make sure to jump on the right train.
For me, the predictive mindset is the ultimate one in life. It is energy efficient all the time. In the beginning, it beats the reactive mindset. In the end, it smashes the proactive mindset.
When you work on predicting your future based on what is possible and probable, you are the eco-master of your life.
Final Thoughts
Depending on my situation, I might use the reactive or the proactive mindset. Yet, being predictive in mind helps me keep the blogger goal in the picture while performing daily and tackling any challenge.
How would you define your mindset: Reactive, Proactive or Predictive?
Do you have other approaches that yield better results than the 3 above?
Are you combining those 3 in your life examples?
Leave a comment below.
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