Put the Past in the Past
“Why are some people more successful than me?” “They had such a big failure, but now they are successful. Why?” There seem to be people who can find the road to success, happiness and fulfillment in their lives and others don’t. What is their secret?
They understand that change is the constant. To go along in our journey we will experience change whether we like it or not. Sometimes it will be exciting and welcomed and other times you will want to hide and desire things to return back to normal.
How do you view change? As a threat to the status quo or you? Do you see it as an opportunity for growth and a new adventure to experience? We either see change as “what is happening to me?” (threat) or “what is happening for me?” (opportunity).
Many people don’t seem to be moving anywhere or want to move anywhere new in their life because they are measuring the possible outcome based on their past experiences. They would rather stay in their discomfort zone and live in their rut. A rut is an open grave. We have a choice of living a life of principle or a life of pressure. There are daily pressures to get us off course in life and we have the choice to allow them to rule over us or not. How we respond is how we will act.
There are pressures from the outside but we also have internal pressures that attempt to rob us of life fulfillment, peace, happiness, significance and success. As a Master Trainer for the Roadmap to ORSA, we call these pressures “parasites”. These parasites can keep you from achieving your goals, erode your life balance and can cause you to lose or not fully enjoy those things that are precious to you.
The eight parasites we discuss in our training are unsafe, unwise, unfulfilled, unhealthy, unproductive, unhappy, ungrateful, unplugged. These things can disempower you and drain you. You become reactive rather than proactive. Pushed to repeat bad or unwise choices and they cause you to stay in the past. Pushed into over commitment, pushed into blaming everything and others, pushed into paralysis, pushed into medicating the pain to avoid the problems, pushed back and not moving forward.
Can I transform my life? I need to take the past out of my future and keep it in the past! How do I do that? It’s time to rethink and take action.
• Find your passion – a sense of purpose and meaning in your life
• Taking those mistakes and learning from them – not being in fear to address.
• Grow to succeed, to change. If you don’t grow, you go.
• Know it takes work to move forward. If you stand still, you are back siding, the world is moving ahead and you are not.
• What you speak about yourself is who you believe you are. Negative self-talk comes from the past. Stop putting yourself down and fill your life with people, words and things that reinforce you positively.
• Stay away from the “naysayers.” They take away your energy.
• Hang out with people who are three times ahead of where you want to be and learn from them.
As I travel and train I have learned to look at the Eight Disciplines Highly Productive People Know and Practice and to implement them in my life.
1. How To Be Prepared for a New Beginning
2. How To Know What’s Holding You Back
3. How To Get Started on Your Way
4. How To Discover What Will Be Needed
5. How To Determine What You Really Want
6. How To Use The Power of Deciding
7. How To Live The Power of Integrity
8. How To Engage in The Power of Doing
It has helped me stay focused on balancing my life in all aspects – myself, family, friends, career, health, faith, finances, and recreation. I’m taking the roadmap to new beginnings and putting the past in the past where it belongs.
Each of us has the greatest power in the world, the power of choice. We will either choose a life of discipline or a life of regret. Feel free to contact me at ddatalink@sbcglobal.net to talk about starting a new journey.
Leslie Schneider, contributing editor
