Reconciling Your Past To Empower Your Future
SUMMARY
Do you tend to beat yourself up because you haven't gone as far as you want to go? Or are you able to look at what's past what you've done before in a way that will help you move forward?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer. Today, I want to continue our conversation around being more Emotionally Intelligent by helping you Reconcile Your Past to Empower Your Future.
In this vlog, let me unpack a process that will help you look at where you've gone in 2021 in a way that's going not to be an anchor, but an engine that’s going to propel you into 2022 so that you can achieve so much more than you think right now that you can achieve.
The first part of this process is to Reflect.
The second part of the process is to Refocus.
The third part of the process is to Relaunch.
As you refocus, you will have this plan that you put together to go into 2022. Then, after whatever break you're going to have, you're going to come back energized, revitalized, and ready to do the things that you need to do, to move that needle from where you are now towards where it is that you want to go.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as I go through some of the thoughts of 2021, and we say goodbye to our time together this year, ready to continue the conversation in 2022.
I'll see you then.
TRANSCRIPT
Do you tend to beat yourself up because you haven't gone as far as you want to go? Or are you able to look at what's past what you've done before in a way that will help you move forward?
Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Master Coach Trainer. Today, I want to continue our conversation around being more Emotionally Intelligent by helping you Reconcile Your Past to Empower Your Future.
You’re coming towards the end of another year, and at this time of the year, more than ever, people are looking at
"What have I achieved?”
"Have I arrived where I said I wanted to arrive when I did some planning last year?”
"Overall, in my life, have I achieved anything?
This conversation (depending on the inner dialogue that goes along with it) can either help you move forward or, in most cases, hold you back and erode your identity even further, which will stop you from taking steps towards the things you want.
The result is that you play small, you doubt yourself, and you increase the level of evidence in your mind that you're not able to succeed.
“Hey Grant, it's okay for those other people, for them to get the success because they deserve it.”
These conversations used to go on in my inner dialogue between me and my mini-me for many years.
These conversations stopped me from walking in the destiny of what I was supposed to do.
Nowadays, I can look at things in a different light. I'm able to reconcile what's happened in the past so that it empowers me to move forward.
I want to share that with you today and break it down, and I invite you to do this yourself.
I’ve said this many times, “nothing has meaning in your life, except that the one that you give it.” And the meaning that you've put on the things that didn't quite get done this year, that didn't go the way you wanted them, are the things that are going to decide whether or not you are going to learn from it and move forward, or they're going to be an anchor and hold you right where you are right now, or in fact, even slip back further.
So, over this year, I’ve talked to you a lot about Emotional Intelligence. I started talking about Self-Awareness, particularly the area of Self-Awareness that I love to work within, the area of Personal Power.
Personal Power is that inner certainty that you've got everything within you and around you to be and do the things you need to be and do.
So the first step to having this conversation I'm going to talk to you about today is to build up your Personal Power.
That's a continual process.
That's something that I need to walk in every single day (and so do you).
You never arrive because your life gives you new evidence and new experiences, allowing you to choose new meanings every day, every week, and certainly over this entire year.
Let me unpack a process that will help you look at where you've gone in 2021 in a way that's going not to be an anchor, but it's going to be an engine. It's going to propel you into 2022 so that you can achieve so much more than you think right now that you can achieve.
The first part of this process is to Reflect.
Most people like to look back. We all want to reflect on what's happened before, and this is the part of the process that you need to make sure you harness your thoughts and your inner dialogue before you go into it.
I want you to imagine that you're driving alone in a car. In front of you, you've got this nice big pane of glass called a windscreen or a windshield (as it's called in some countries.) Then, you've got this other little bit of glass there that is the review mirror. They're designed in that proportion for a reason. The windscreen is so large because most of your focus needs to stay on where you’re going. Now and then, you need to pop up, have a look at the rearview mirror and go, “okay, that's where I've been. All's clear. Let's keep moving forward.”
So, as you reflect on this year that's passed, you need to use a process called Forward Focused Reflection.
This means that you’re reflecting to go forward, not reflecting on staying back.
The past is a great place to visit. However, it can be a very dangerous place to camp and to set up your new location because whatever you find as you do that reflection process can (depending on the meaning you put on it) make you feel less than.
If there's something that you haven't achieved and you haven't achieved it for several years now, you can choose to use that as evidence to beat yourself up and go:
“You know what, you're never going to get that done because of this or because of that.”
And it becomes a change from, “This is something that I did or didn't do,” to : "this is who I am.”
You see, when you look at the things that you do and then make them a part of your identity, you're eroding the platform from which you're going to do differently moving forward.
So, the first part of the process is to reflect.
The second part of the process is to Refocus.
There have been many things that have taken place in your year this year.
There's a destination that you want to go to.
Whether external or internal processes went on, you didn't get everything you wanted. If you did, you probably didn't set your goals high enough.
So, the next thing you need to do is focus on where you want to go.
A lot of people like to throw out the baby with the bathwater, “okay, I didn't get there. So that's it, I’m going to take a new direction now.”
And what happens is all the energy and effort that you put into moving the needle, as far as you did, even though you didn't get there, is wasted. You go off on another new venture, another new journey, starting from scratch. When the other thing that you could do is to go, “where did I go off track?”
Now that you’ve reflected- you’ve looked at what went well and what did not, and you’ve learned from both of those- what you can do is use that information to bring things back on track, to head towards the original goal just with a different date.
So, refocusing on who you need to be (working on your personal development.)
Who do you need to be so that you can do the things you need to do.
Therefore, you identify the things that you need to stop doing and what are the things that you need to start doing.
As you go through refocus, you’re refocusing your energy, what you’re looking at, and what you want to achieve on the result. That's why you need to go through that refocus process in your big voice, looking at things that will help you refocus and move forward.
The third part of the process is to Relaunch.
As you refocus, you will have this plan that you put together to go into 2022. Then, after whatever break you're going to have, you're going to come back energized, revitalized, and ready to do the things that you need to do, to move that needle from where you are now towards where it is that you want to go.
To do this, you need to have gone through a positive reflection and a refocus to be ready to move forward. And when the rubber meets the road, you hit the ground running and start getting into the first quarter of next year and get more done than most people will in the entire year.
This is a process that I'd been using for many years now of Reflect, Refocus, Relaunch. The process has enabled me to take all that I could learn from the past, get back in touch with where I was going, and then go into the new year ready to do what I said I was going to do.
This process is one that I am going to challenge you to do before you move into your holiday break so that you can have that same energy, that same feeling of excitement and readiness to make sure that 2022 is your best year yet.
Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as I go through some of the thoughts of 2021, and we say goodbye to our time together this year, ready to continue the conversation in 2022.
I'll see you then.
