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Oh dear. This had to happen some day. The Courier has lost her mind for good. Guys! Wait, don't give up on me yet! I'll illuminate you! Reactivity is the exact opposite of proactivity. Figures, doesn't it? … No? Uh ... I came across this term in Stephen Covey's „The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. It was a fascinating book which I literally devoured (don't worry M, not THAT literally, you'll get it back in one piece). The first big kick in the butt was the following simple concept: That there is a gap between an external stimulus and the behavioural response. This gap contains the „freedom to choose“. So it is totally up to ME how I react to something. I am not a subject of my environment, the conditions, the weather, or to gremlins. Although that is quite logic, it has to be manifested in your consciousness. Now, how do you define 'proactivity'? Let me quote Mr. Covey: „... It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behaviour is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feelings to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make things happen.“ Well, it hurts to admit it, but I am still a quite reactive person. I noticed it with much discomfort again just yesterday. I didn't really feel like participating the service as a member of a choir, and the fact that it took me more than 2,5 hours to get to the church because of building sites all over the public transport system (plus irregularities that resulted in missing almost every train and that the choir made several unnecessary mistakes which almost screwed us worsened my mood extremely. So I spent half a nice summer day angry and sulky, green with envy for the guys in the TKD-boot camp I would have SO DAMN loved having attended, feeling sorry for me for being stuck here, having such an awful morning, instead of … I don't know, for example packing my things and get to the lake and go for a swim to spend some nicer hours and relax a bit. (Which I did this morning. Better late than never.) … you see what I mean about me being reactive? Although I must also say I was much, much, much worse. Such as described above happened much more often and the feeling lasted much longer. But still, there is a lot of work to do. And why bothering with all this? Because I happened to notice, that me being slacky on daily exercise is not a problem of a busy life, or finding the right program, but of a serious lack of guts and willpower. I do come home very late almost every day during the week. So what? One still CAN do 2 sets of 10 'exercise XY' The answer, why I don't do them, is simply: I don't feel like it. And now there comes the reactive personality: „I had an exhausting day, I deserve to rest. There's always a tomorrow.“ Well, vicious cycle. And it is so silly, since exercising and eating right brought me some results. Nothing extraordinary, but I feel much better about myself. And would I do a bit more, I would feel even better. Self-rewarding system, actually. The big question is, how to accomplish it. I don't really have more of a plan than to pay more attention on how I behave. Unfortunately, there is no emergency kit when I notice I am being reactive again, which I do. I am well aware when I am making excuses or blaming gremlins. Unfortunately it seems that I am perfectly willing to listen to them far too often. (T__T) So, this is more of challenge about the right mindset than about health itself. Regular exercise which is independent from TKD-lessons, is the last big health issue I have to master, but it's been over a year that I am struggling with it, so … maybe I need to concentrate more on my brain first. Speaking of Taekwon-Do, since my school is closed this week due to a boot camp almost all members are attending, I have one explicit, measurable goal for week #1: Do any kind of exercise every day. That might be a 5km-walk, 15 min of jogging, a CC session ... doesn't matter what, but do something to get you to sweat. It might not be efficient as far as getting strong is concerned, but not much unlike M, I really have to get used to exercising daily. I know that I have to come up with a more specific plan to succeed at least a little bit, just give me the first week to observe, as a time of making up and developing strategies against the reactivity gremlins. So, brace yourself for a frenzy of modifications during those six weeks.