At the beginning of your story, your characters may be reacting to a bunch of stuff happening to them: They lost their job, their house got bombed, they were wrongfully jailed, aliens abducted them, whatever. You just throw stuff at them and watch them struggle. But after the first half, your main characters need to do more than react to weird stuff. They need to take charge of their lives and stop reacting. This makes the story much more interesting.
Look at Star Wars with Luke: First he’s just reacting as he works on his farm with new droids. Then he makes a decision to go to Alderaan. He’s more proactive now but still inexperienced. At the end, he joins the X-Wing fighters to assault the Death Star—a very proactive decision. The story is much more satisfying because of it.
A plot in which the characters merely react doesn’t make a great story, and it doesn’t create character development. So if you find yourself floundering in the middle of the story, let your characters take charge of their situation. You can still throw stuff at them, but they should start taking back control.
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