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How to Stop Reacting and Start Creating: A One-Letter Shift That Changes Everything · STOPTIME: Live in the Moment.

• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Hey there.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that we are all inherently creative.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: While some of us identify as creative professionals, you don't need a career in the performing arts to express this gift.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: As humans, what sets us apart from all other animals is the power of our imagination.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are capable of creating something out of nothing.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can picture a future that doesn't even exist yet.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And while this might be our greatest superpower, it's also the very thing that can hold us back from engaging in the world at our fullest capacity.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: If we have the ability to imagine the best possible outcome, why is it so much easier to imagine the worst?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, remember when I said that each and every one of us are creative?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I also know we share a tremendous propensity to be reactive.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the irony is that like the word itself, we are both.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: When we rearrange the letters of the word reactivity by placing the C at the front, we arrive at creativity.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: When we recognize that both are available to us, we realize that we have a choice.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And even when we find ourselves in reactive mode, we get to remember this and shift our energy from reactive thinking to creative living.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: We all experience moments when we react before we respond.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Something happens and our energy spikes or drops without us realizing it.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Those moments matter because they're where our power leaks out.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I have a client who was unhappy about how she'd been showing up at work.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: She felt short-tempered and irritable, constantly reacting to the pressures and demands of her colleagues, people who were, in her mind, keeping her from doing the job she was hired to do.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: She described it as a game of whack-a-mole, endlessly navigating interruptions, swatting at emails, questions, and meetings.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: She loved her work, but somewhere along the way, she started operating on autopilot, oscillating between I can't and I have to.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That constant state of reaction was depleting her energy, eroding her sense of agency and leaving her disconnected from the values that it once fueled her.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, reactive behavior not only drains your energy, it hands your power over to the person, place, or thing that you're reacting to.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: When we are in reactive mode, we are unplugged from our value system.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: This disconnection fuels the negative thoughts and feelings that come with the sense that we've lost control.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Food for thought.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I ask you, my friends, what might be different if you shift that C in reactivity and created more creativity in your life?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Lisa Hopkins.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and remember to live in the moment.