Forget the past and face the future today

Accept your past without regret, handle your present with confidence, and face your future without fear.

What you know should not limit what you could know.

Memory immobilizes man. Many are trapped by what they have already done and makes them question what they could do. 

Don’t be preoccupied with what you have done that you do not plan to do what you could. Even the good things you do could prevent you from accomplishing greater things. The past is dangerous. 

One of the greatest decisions that a human can make is to actually forget. God gave you the capacity to forget. 

Why don’t you focus on where you’re going and less on where you came from?

It is possible to not allow your memory to influence you. Don’t allow your memory to immobilize your life. You can cancel the emotional debt and the psychological ties you have with the past. 

It is impossible for you to succeed until the future becomes more important than your past. You must move past your past to enter your future.

We don't have to be defined by the things we did or didn't do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it's a regret, maybe it's not. It's merely something that happened. Get over it.

To many of us, our past is a constant threat to the dreams in our future. Many spend time living in their past without spending any time in their future. 

Others allow their past to hold them past without going into their future.

How are we supposed to deal with our past? How do we let our past go forever?

The key to living your future is letting go of your past.

Never confuse your behavior with your worth.

Never confuse your experience with your worth.

You are worth more than you have experienced and what you have done.

It doesn’t matter where you were born. You make that place important!

Stop keeping alive that which is dead. You will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth.

Forgetting is an act of the will. Memories don’t go away, you send them away.

It is easy to forget when you are so busy creating new memories. Will to forget your past!

Your past is conquered when you can use it as a testimony. Until you can take what happened to you and use it as an illustration, you are not free from it!.

In other words, when you tell about your past, they can’t use it against you. When you are free from your past, you can use it against the devil. People who deny their past are not free from it, they are imprisoned from it.

You will forget the past and the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach

Fear not!

Most people fear that they will repeat their failures. Businessmen who fail at a certain project refuse to do it again. God wanted them to tell the people to fear not.

Your past failure is no guarantee that you will fail again.

Failure is a part of success!

Failure is a part of the components that make success happen.

See failure as an opportunity to begin again. You never really progress until you are under pressure. 99% of changes in the human life takes place because they had to change.

It is the pressure that brings progress. Most of the changes you have made in life were because you had to do it.

Failure is actually the test of your resolve. If you don’t have your resolve tested, then your resolution will have no gravity. People who quit after their first failure never wanted to succeed in the first place. You cannot stop a man who decides to win.

People who succeed in life are those who have decided to win. You have to have an agreement with life: You will live life. Life has everything in it, but you have to take it from life. Life doesn’t give you stuff, you have to go and get it.

Think it through.

When you begin to dwell on the past more than you feel is healthy, ask yourself a series of open-ended questions: Why does this memory matter to me? Does it serve me to restrict certain opportunities because they remind me of this memory?

What’s the worst that can happen if I’m faced with a brutal reminder of this memory? What can I do to live with this memory, accept it, and move forward? And of course, eliminate could/should/would from your vocabulary.

Stop rehashing and start visualizing success.

In Lori’s and my recent post about giving advice that helps, we mentioned that people love to rehash their problem in hopes of gaining new insight or hearing what we want to hear. I can assure you, this won’t work.

In fact, you may feel even more compelled to dwell on the past. If you stop telling your story, you’ll realize more and more each day that you’re the one in control. You have the power to un-anchor yourself.

Put it into words.

You don’t have to be an eloquent writer to get your feelings out in a letter. Take a pen and jot (or even doodle) down everything you’ve ever wanted to say to your anchor-person (or if it’s situational, personify the memory).

Paper is tougher than you think, so don’t hold anything back. Now comes the hardest part: dispose of your letter. Bury it, shred it, or even burn it.  I thought this was clichéd advice until I actually tried it. It felt wonderful.

Realize who matters.

Take Dr. Seuss’s words to heart: “Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Take this as an opportunity to discover who is really touching your life now.

Who’s truly there for you? How can you enjoy your shared connection with a person to your life now?  Try your hardest to forget about who once was there for you.

Put effort.

Subsequently, be there for those who are there for you. This is a great step in building new and meaningful relationships to help focus on the present. Perhaps they’re anchored down, too. You can help each other. This is why reciprocated relationships are the only ones that truly work.

Find your thing, know your passion.

Your anchor does not own you. It cannot dictate your actions, make you feel inferior, or restrict you from living the life you want without your consent.

You are your own person, every anatomical and emotional part of you. Find something unique, make it your own, and rise up. For me, rediscovering my rollerblading hobby and contributing to Tiny Buddha have helped.

Connect the dot.

I use these terms interchangeably. By disconnecting from an anchor, you’re reconnecting with yourself.

Open up that anchor box you’ve kept hidden. Look at its contents with an accepting, not pessimistic or self-defeating attitude. Walk the streets you once walked and maybe you’ll notice a newly painted house or get the chance to pet a puppy along the way.

Make new memories.

Keep yourself busy with physical activity, join a club and meet like-minded people, meet someone who has no clue what you do for a living and why you do it, and just lives as much as you can.

Every day, you have the opportunity to make new memories happen. This is a gift we often take for granted.

Remember, anchors, don't have to hold you down. If you choose to let go, they can become slight road-bends in the endless highway of life.