Mar 30, 2022
When you look at your past, what story are you telling yourself? I recently reconnected with someone I met when I represented the state of Indiana back in 1996 at the Cherry Blossom Festival. I came across some old pics when we were moving and decided I would reach reached out.
I see myself doing a lot more of that lately. I ask myself, if I don’t do something now when am I planning to do it. It’s amazing what that question can spark. So I connected and wrote a snapshot of my highlights over the last 25 years. about the past six months, because what the story that you're telling about the past six months will have a huge impact on the next six months. So if you tell yourself a story about the last six months being I'm not good enough, I'm not doing as well as other people, I should have taken advantage of the opportunity more, I should have applied myself more, I should have made the time, then you're going to feel negative, you're going to feel defeated, you're going to feel upset, and that will then determine the actions that you take in the future. Beating yourself up over your past seems like deserved punishment that will somehow push you into action. A lot of people believe that if they just beat themselves up enough that then eventually they'll start taking action. That has not worked ever for me once in my life. I have never beaten myself into success, beaten myself into happiness, and I doubt that it will work for you. So that's what this podcast episode is about. It's about looking at how you interpret your past, and when I talk about the past, it's anything that has happened up until this moment, and all of those things that have happened, all the things that you have done or not done, you are using to define yourself. And one of the skills that I like to teach and that is really important to teach is to start defining yourself by your future, instead of defining yourself by your past.
If you're defining yourself by your past, you're going to create more of your past. That's why when you look at a lot of people's lives, it just seems like you can predict exactly what's going to happen next year and the year after for them because they always live based on a repetitive thought pattern of what they're capable of and who they are. And then you look at some people who are always creating something new, always coming up with new ideas and are always very unpredictable; they're basing themselves on their future self.
If you listened to episode 23 on the B-F-A cycle, you will understand that the Beliefs you carry from the past are constantly recycled because when you're continually believing something that historically has created a feeling and that feeling then evokes an action that creates a result in your life.
So if you want to create something new, or you want to implement a new idea, you start by creating a belief you've never believed before. And you do that by shifting your beliefs about your past, to thinking and believing new things about your future,
It sounds easy and exciting and then you realize that it is a blank piece of paper. A bunch of white space that doesn't include motherhood and children, but that is OK. You have to be creative to create it, and it's much more effort to think deliberately, to think about your future, to create your future, than it is to just recycle your past.
Most of us don't even know that the things we're believing right now are just recycled thoughts from our past, and we just think they're reality. The ability to become aware of that thinking and then decide to deliberately believe a thought you've never thought before requires a tremendous amount of energy compared to not doing anything. But you know me. I don’t thrive anymore on a life on autopilot, so I'm asking you to believe a thought you've never thought before, to create life that you've never created before for yourself, just for the hell of it. Just for the fun of it. Just for the challenge of it. Just because it's amazing to evolve your brain beyond thinking that it's already thought before.
What I am really trying to do with my own life is not just to have the new insight, not to just have the new thinking, but to have it in a way where I'm feeling it and acting on it and creating new results. The way that you know if you're thinking deliberately consistently is you will consistently have new results in your life.
If you are always getting the same results, you're always thinking and believing the same thoughts. Thoughts create feelings, create actions, create results. So if you feel the same feelings, think the same thought, you're doing the same things, you're getting the same results, it's because you're not thinking deliberately enough. Yes, it does take energy. It takes a lot more energy to believe a thought that you've never thought before. But youre alternative is to continue feeling the way you are feeling because you're past focused.
- You limit your potential by what you've been able to do in the past.
- You explain your life by what happened in your past, your identity is pre-defined and hard to change.
- You explain current behavior by your past and make it hard to change. You make excuses based on past experiences.
- You may use evidence from your past to identify as a victim. So many of my very strong, capable, successful clients have no idea how much they're identifying themselves as victims until we start working together. This is true for me in my own life, I feel like I'm a very strong, independent woman, and I have areas of my life where I slip into feeling like a victim and identifying as a victim or feeling sorry for myself, and at times it can be hard to identify that in my own self because I would never say, oh look at me, the victim. But we do that with our thought processes
- You don't think about your future enough or create from your future.
What do I mean when I say create from your future? What I mean is you think things about your future that you've never thought before, and therefore you take action from a belief that you've never believed before.
- You tap into your primitive brain by focusing on lessons only from the past and not growing.
- What you know comes from past learning and not from up to date information and possibility. “Often I hear clients say that they want their carefree life they had before they found out they had infertility or went though IVF. I always discourage this type of past focused thinking. I like to have clients focus on the future and on a life they would like to have in one year or five years from now. Many of us have carry pain and negative memories about our journey to seek motherhood. Many of us feel we've have failure or our bodies failed us. When we define ourselves and our future abilities by these past attempts, we become discouraged and filled with regret. I strive to look at my past as if it happened exactly as it was supposed to, and there were no mistakes. Just lessons and preparation. I am working to not see any reason to argue with my past or wish it was different. It's a waste of emotional energy. I am choosing to take that energy and focus on my future – something I feel I can have an impact on. The truth is that you can't go back. The past is over. You can create a future that is better than your past. Many times if you ask a past focused person what their plans are for the future, they have no idea where they're going. They're being defined by who they used to be without taking control of who they want to be.
It's telling when someone I'm working with is past focused or defined by their past because they will say things like, “that’s how I've always done it, that doesn't work for me. I've tried it, I've always had this issue my entire life. This is just how I am. I'm not the kind of person who can do that. That’s just me. When I hear this kind of talk, I know the client is being defined by the evidence of their past. Evidence that they have been unconsciously look for in order to justify their belief systems. Although I do believe we need to learn from our past and grow from our mistakes we've made, I never recommend that you define yourself by what you’ve yet to accomplish.
You can turn your head around and start focusing on the road ahead. The past is over and gone, you cannot go back there and change it or be younger again or fertile again. Your past set you up to be the person you are today. Love it for what it did and say goodbye. It's time to get excited about your future.”
My ask of you is to start creating from your future and stop creating from your past. Your past will pre-define your future unless you step in. You get to decide who you want to be You can do that by default and you can blame your past you can blame your circumstances you can blame your current belief systems, but that blame will be misplaced because you have the power right now to create exactly what you want in your future. Your past may be unrecognizable to your future self. According to Dan Sullivan, the future is your property. It is your property to do with whatever you would like. Think about that. If you could, and you can, have any future that you want, what would it be? What if you always wanted to be a mom, but maybe in your future you are happy not being a mother. You don't have to be any of the things you always dreamed of or thought you wanted. What if you believed you could be childfree and happy? What if you could choose what you did not want to be anymore? You don't have to be grumpy anymore, you don't have to be in pain emotionally anymore, you don't have to feel like a victim anymore. You can define the future that you want and live now into it. I am on a roll all!! Lets review. The number one concept is your beliefs create your feelings, which create your actions, which create your results. In other words, the beliefs you carry create your reality. They create what you create, and they also create your interpretation of what already is. Knowing that, you have to ask yourself: Where do you want to think from Do you want to think from your past, or do you want to think from your possibility? Do you want to think from your future? From a place where you get to be fully creative, fully aligned, fully in your zone? Now, I hear you asking me how do I do that, and I'm going to keep it really simple. Every thought - when you do your paper thinking, ask yourself, that belief come from my past or does it come from my possibility? I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I can't do that, I've failed too many times, I let my partner down; those are all thoughts from your past. Anything is possible. My body is not broken. I will not die alone. ; My life has meaning. From that place, you will create a completely different experience of the world, and you will also create completely different results. This is not just rhetoric. This is not just me saying feel better, yay, be positive. No, this is happening, my friends. This isn't just happening for me, this is happening for my students. Example after example, after example, after example of people changing their lives by consistently applying these principles month after month. I'm inviting you to learn how to think from your future and how to re-define your past in this moment. Now, notice when I redefine my past, when I say my past was perfect, I'm rewriting that story and thinking in a way that's brand new, and that's why my results will all be brand new. I am doing this work on my infertility and childlessness, but I just need to continuously do this work on my experience of last year, my experience of last week and my experience of yesterday. I need to make sure that all my thoughts about my past are serving me in my present and in my future, and that's what I'm asking you to do.