Reactive People Quotes & Sayings

Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognizing that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than on moods or condition. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others. — Stephen Covey

The language of reactive people absolves them of responsibility. — Stephen R. Covey

My purpose is to refuel, refresh and rejuvenate moms. — Lisa Whelchel

I think so many people are reactive ... they see things in a short term way they're right up against it. — Ray Dalio

I'm very reactive, I think. I'm down to throw down with people. Online, of course. Not in person. — Harris Wittels

Leaders are active instead of reactive, shaping ideas instead of responding to them. Leaders adopt a personal and active attitude toward goals. The influence a leader exerts in altering moods, evoking images and expectations, and in establishing specific desires and objectives determines the direction an organization takes. The net result of this influence is to change the way people think about what is desirable, possible, and necessary. In other words, leaders are visionaries and managers operate within those established visions. — Abraham Zaleznik

We have two choices when things pile up at work or we're surrounded by energy vampires who leave us feeling depleted. We can get frantic, hyperventilate, shut down, and become reactive. Needless to say, these responses to stress just make us more stressed. Surrendered people have the ability to pause, take a deep breath, and observe. — Judith Orloff

It's the nature of reactive people to absolve themselves of responsibility. It's so much safer to say, "I am not responsible." If I say "I am responsible," I might have to say, "I am irresponsible." It would be very hard for me to say that I have the power to choose my response and that the response I have chosen has resulted in my involvement in a negative, collusive environment, especially if for years I have absolved myself of responsibility for results in the name of someone else's weaknesses. — Stephen R. Covey

Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values - carefully thought about, selected and internalized values. — Stephen R. Covey

Do you really need to mentally label every sense perception and experience? Do you really need to have a reactive like/dislike relationship with life where you are in almost continuous conflict with situations and people? Or is that just a deep-seated mental habit that can be broken? Not by doing anything, but by allowing this moment to be as it is. — Eckhart Tolle

In recent years, psychologists have learned more about how creative ideas come from the reveries of solitude. When we let our minds wander, we set our brains free. Our brains are most productive when there is no demand that they be reactive. For some, this goes against cultural expectations. American culture tends to worship sociality. We have wanted to believe that we are our most creative during "brainstorming" and "groupthink" sessions. But this turns out not to be the case. New ideas are more likely to emerge from people thinking on their own. Solitude is where we learn to trust our imaginations. — Sherry Turkle

Admittedly, I possess virtually no expertise in science. That puts me in exactly the same position as most dogmatic environmentalists who want to craft public policy around global warming fears. — David Harsanyi

The problem with being an actor is that you have to be reactive to what other people want. — Marisa Coughlan

A serious problem with reactive language is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce evidence to support the belief. They feel increasingly victimized and out of control, not in charge of their life or their destiny. They blame outside forces - other people, circumstances, even the stars - for their own situation. — Stephen R. Covey

Hookers, Hondas and Hollywood all approach customers with a different mindset than the rest of the business world. Whereas most businesses talk about the importance of "customer service," agents, mechanics and people of the night talk about "servicing customers."

It is an important distinction, as customer service is generally a reactive process in which professionals and businesses respond to the needs of their clients, while servicing customers involves exploration to discover what the customer needs in order to start firing all the cylinders. — Ari Gold

Thank God, I say, for while I love you so, With that vast love, as passionate as tender, I feel an exultation as I know I have not made you a complete surrender. Here is my body; bruise it, if you will, And break my heart; I have that something still. You cannot grasp it — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I did as much as I could in Vancouver. You can only play so many ex-'Falcon Crest' sons in so many movies of the week before you burn out. — Ryan Reynolds

Reactive people ... are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. — Stephen Covey

After Lockerbie, everyone thought, now we've learned the lesson of how to be proactive instead of being reactive. Unfortunately, September 11 came and we know the result. Thousands of people lost their lives. Security totally failed, not at one airport, at three different airports around the country. — Isaac Yeffet

You can't just be reactive to the things going on in your life. You have to imagine, and you have to plunder other people's work, books, poems, ideas, observations. — David Gray

While reactive victims are primarily known by their "against" stances, proactive people do not demand rights, they live them. Power is not something you demand or deserve, it is something you express. The ultimate expression of power is love; it is the ability not to express power, but to restrain it. Proactive — Henry Cloud

Successful people do work hard, but they also think before they act. They are proactive, not just reactive. Most people mentally have a sign on their desk that reads, "Don't just sit there - do something!" The best advice I ever received was to revise the sign to read, "Don't just do something - sit there! — Kenneth H. Blanchard

Is that the basis of friendship? Is it as reactive as that? Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting? ... Do we all buzz or ring or light up when people press our vanity buttons, and only then? Can I think of anyone in my whole life whom I have liked without his first showing signs of liking me? — Wallace Stegner

Kagan hypothesized that infants born with an especially excitable amygdala would wiggle and howl when shown unfamiliar objects and grow up to be children who were more likely to feel vigilant whhen meeting new people. The four month olds who trhrashed their arms like punk rockers did so not because they were extroverts in the making, but because their little bodies reacted strongly
they were high-reactive to new sights, sounds and smells. The quiet infants were silent not because they were future introverts, just the opposite, but because they had nervous systems that were unmoved by novelty. — Susan Cain

Sadly, I have met very few people who have a plan for their life. Most are passive spectators, watching their lives unfold, one day at a time. They are reactive rather than proactive. They may plan their careers, the building of a new home, or even a vacation. But it never occurs to them to plan their life. — Michael Hyatt

Learn who you are before becoming what others want. — Sissy Silva

I was raped. That was a hard thing to write about. I never owned that part of it. Guys don't look at themselves as being raped. We're not raised that way. — Kevin Sessums

Small minds just like light winds can never create giant waves. — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Just as nuclear fuel will always be reactive, people will always be greedy. We need to enforce rules to balance natural greed with capital requirements so that greed can create productive risk taking and competition and not short-term extraction, otherwise known as theft. — Dylan Ratigan

Hurt people hurt people. We are not being judgmental by separating ourselves from such people. But we should do so with compassion. Compassion is defined as a "keen awareness of the suffering of another coupled with a desire to see it relieved." People hurt others as a result of their own inner strife and pain. Avoid the reactive response of believeing they are bad; they already think so and are acting that way. They aren't bad; they are damaged and they deserve compassion. Note that compassion is an internal process, an understanding of the painful and troubled road trod by another. It is not trying to change or fix that person. — Will Bowen

God knows, when spring comes to Paris the humbles mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise ... it [is] the the intimacy with which his eye rests upon the scene. It [is] his Paris. A man does not need to be rich, nor even a citizen, to feel this way about Paris. Paris is filled with poor people - the proudest and filthiest lot of beggars that ever walked the earth ... And yet they give the illusion of being at home. It is that which distinguishes the Parisian from all other metropolitan souls.
When I think of New York I have a very different feeling. New York makes even a rich man feel his unimportance. New York is cold, glisttering, malign. The buildings dominate. There is a sort of atomic frenzy to the activity going on; the more furious the pace, the more diminished the spirit ... Nobody knows what it's all about. Nobody directs the energy. Stupendous. Bizarre. Baffling. A tremendous reactive urge, but absolutely uncoordinated. — Henry Miller

Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink. — Stephen R. Covey

There's never going to be a system that is fair to everyone. — Shannon Miller