Thou Shalt Not Live in the Past

SUMMARY

The past is past; the future's ahead of you. More importantly, live in the now. This is something that I've learned to do over the last few years. To do that, I had to let go of the past. The past is an amazing teacher. It's all part of your experience. As we've talked about, it's still a part of your learning and growth.

However, suppose some things happened in your past that make you feel less and remind you of your frailty and insecurities. When you go back there and spend so much time entertaining those thoughts and building up that negative dialogue, it holds you back from being who you need to be in this moment.

So instead of living in the past (although it’s a nice place to visit), learn from it, live in the present, and focus on the future.

This week, I want to help you to understand that “Thou Shall Not Live in the Past.”

TRANSCRIPT

Do you spend more time looking in the revision mirror than you do where you're going? Do you tend to beat yourself up because of your past failures — the things you haven't got right in your life?

I want to help you to understand that “Thou Shall Not Live in the Past.”

The past is past; the future's ahead of you. More importantly, live in the now. This is something that I've learned to do over the last few years. To do that, I had to let go of the past. The past is an amazing teacher. It's all part of your experience. As we've talked about, it's still a part of your learning and growth.

However, suppose some things happened in your past that make you feel less and remind you of your frailty and insecurities. When you go back there and spend so much time entertaining those thoughts and building up that negative dialogue, it holds you back from being who you need to be in this moment.

So instead of living in the past (although it’s a nice place to visit), learn from it, live in the present, and focus on the future.

If you look at the analogy of driving your car, you have a big pane of glass in front of you called the windscreen, and then you've got that little rear vision mirror. Both of them are in those sizes for a reason. The reason is that the windshield allows you to look forward to where you're going. It gives you a view of what's ahead of you and what's going on just in front of you and further up the road. And, now and then, it's a matter of looking up in that revision mirror to see where you've been and to see what's coming up from behind you, et cetera.

And that proportion is what I want to encourage you to use when you look into the past:

Reflecting on the past can teach you things.

It can teach you about the things that went well and didn't go well: The lessons of how you could do things the same moving forward because they worked and how you could do things differently because they didn't get the result that you wanted.

It can allow you to learn things about yourself that could shift mindsets, behaviours, and thinking patterns that are roadblocks and holding you back right now. However, when you look at those things, you need to do it and look at how you can use them now and into the future.

So if you are going down the road and you’re constantly just looking at the revision mirror, and you’re not looking where you are going, you’re going to run into something.

In my experience, when you're focused on the past, particularly the past experiences that didn't go well, those that gave you evidence that you've been carrying around -- that you're not good enough, that built-up internal dialogue pulls you back when you go to do things differently. If you're focusing on those things only, they will pull you down.

What you want to do is have a forward focus reflection, where you're looking at those through the lens of: “How do I need to shift my thinking and my behaviour so that I can do things differently.”

Make sure that you put most of your focus on the future and, more importantly, on the present.

So it's a balance: You need to know where you're going. However, you don't want to miss the experience of where you are right now.

Forget about living in the past. It's not something you can change. It's certainly something that you can learn and grow from. However, whether it's positive or negative, it’s not something you can use beyond those teachings.

We don't have time machines where you could go back and go: “if only I had my time over again…." Well, you don't, so enjoy being who you need to be in the present (right now) so that you can enjoy your life and create the future you want for yourself and those around you.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue our conversation around my “Ten Commandments for Enjoying Your Life.”

I'll see you then.